An interesting article popped up over at Kotaku today. Now people that are 50 years old and above (well, at least 100,000 of them, some of whom are as old as 75 and all of whom live in Pennsylvania) are receiving computer games specially made to test them for visual alertness, as well as to keep these older folks’ cognitive decline on hold. Posit Science, the developer, will compare the performance of these people to the accident rates of their demographic, as well as track the number of hours each driver plays the games for. The purpose of this is for Allstate to at least try to see exactly why the accident rate among older drivers spikes once they hit their mid-sixties.

And, if all goes well, these drivers may even get a break on their car insurance.

I just want to say that I think this has the potential to be pretty cool. While it’s been reported for quite some time that video games help to train people’s hand-eye coordination, very few commercial companies have made an attempt to do anything with it. In my view, Allstate even trying this out will help to legitimize games as more than just toys to non-gamers across the US. This also opens the door for other companies to experiment with game-based training. Hopefully, this is only an early step to a world where games are used as more than just toys, but as tools for self-improvement that can help build a better tomorrow.

Today’s picture is from the flickr album of user davidden.  The original photo can be found here.  Used under Creative Commons licensing.