My mom never believed me when I claimed this:

Playing Video Games Not So Mindless After All

In four experiments Bavelier and her colleague C. Shawn Green discovered that people who played video games several times a week for six months could monitor complex visual information more easily than non-game players.

But when the researchers gave novices 10 hours of training on the game Medal of Honor, they improved their visual processing skills.

"By forcing players to simultaneously juggle a number of varied tasks (detect new enemies, track existing enemies and avoid getting hurt, among others) action-video-game playing pushes the limits of three rather different aspects of visual attention," Bavelier said.

Nothing beats a rousing game of minesweeper. 53 secs on intermediate baby!