Video games do have more benefits than pure babysitter appeal, that is, their ability to engross a player and keep him or her from more bothersome types of behavior.

Playing handheld video games is also effective at lowering pre-surgery anxiety in children. In fact, it was more effective than drugs or a parent's presence, according to a report on a study that appeared in the March issue of Anesthesiology News. Dr. Anuradha Patel, an assistant professor at New Jersey Medical School did the study.

"If the game is really enjoyable, patients' minds are put off from the impending surgery. If they have built up any tension, it goes into the game," said one physician, Cllifford Gevirtz, medical director of Metro Pain Management in New York, about the findings.

But players intuitively believe the games are good for more than distraction or entertainment. "It opens the brain," claims Las Vegan Nate Swindell, 21, who was shopping recently at a GameStop. Swindell, who says he has been playing since childhood, cited some intellectual challenges: "You have to complete a strategy. It has puzzles to it. You have to read."

Bill Speer, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, agrees video games can stimulate children's minds in beneficial ways, provided that parents are monitoring the amount and type of play. He is interim associate dean of the College of Education as well as co-director of the UNLV Center for Mathematics and Science Education.

For one, age-appropriate games can extend a child's knowledge base, according to Speer. An alphabet-based game, for example, has content that helps children playfully practice formation, recognition and matching of letters.

Second, a game can help a child develop fine and gross motor skills as they learn to manipulate controls to cause a cursor or character on the screen to move. Children used to acquire dexterity by games such as jacks or marbles.

Third, a video game can help a child develop "game strategy." Speer says, "the latter involves young children forming their own hypotheses" on what choices will help them advance through a game. Before the video age, one way children used to acquire this was by playing tic-tac-toe.