Comment I'd say that it makes us safer. (Score 1) 220
And here are my reasons.
1. There is the fact that with most video games, we are forced in game to pay attention to everything that moves as it may be a threat. This is the case in First Person Shooters as well as driving games. In order to not get ganked by either the game's AI or by other players, we gamers need to learn spacial awareness and the ability to access and analyze anything that could potentially be a threat and/or opposition.
2. The Unites States Air Force frequently uses Microsoft Flight Simulator installed PC's in the dorms of trainee pilots. While it does nothing whatsoever for actual feel of the plane in flight, they have noticed that avid players of MSFS are often many hours ahead of "raw" pilots when it comes to simulator practice. It also is a great teaching aid for plotting courses since MSFS shoots for realism. If you're landing at LAX on Runway "X" in the game, it is going to look like and have the same landmarks as the real Runway "X" in the real world. Not to mention the flight paths, routings from airport to airport, fuel considerations, etc.
3. There is also the issue of getting out the pent up aggressions that one can develop on the real road. How many times has someone cut someone off and that person wishes that they could just gun the engine and ram that sonovabitch off of the overpass and into the path of an oncoming tractor trailer? God knows I've wished that many times myself. With the video games, you CAN. You can get your anger out by either firing up a FPS and blowing something away all the while imagining that it is the person who cut you off, you can fire up a road racing game and just randomly start slamming cars into a multi-car pile up of Brobdingnagian Proportions. You can even lose yourself in an RPG or a MMO game to let yourself de-stress and forget what was bothering you.
So my bet is for safer because of gaming.