• CNet, Thursday, November 3, 2011 2:14 PM

Don’t tell the kids, but a new study finds that, among 491 12-year-olds, those who play video games tend to be more creative. What’s more -- according to research out of Michigan State University, published online in the journal Computers in Human Behavior -- it didn’t matter how violent the games were; the more kids play, the more creative they’re likely to be.

As CNet notes, head researcher and psychology professor Linda Jackson believes the findings should encourage game designers to investigate which aspects of gaming are more responsible for this creative effect. "Once they do that, video games can be designed to optimize the development of creativity while retaining their entertainment values such that a new generation of video games will blur the distinction between education and entertainment," she said in a release.

To measure creativity, Jackson’s team relied on the "widely used" Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, which involved having the kids perform various tasks, such as drawing pictures from a curved shape and then naming and writing stories about those pictures.

Read the whole story at CNet »