A new study from Michigan State University has found that kids that play video games tend to be more creative.

Despite what your mother might have told you, a new study suggests that playing video games might not rot your brain.

According to a report from researchers at Michigan State University, as first reported by CNET, children that play video games tend to be more creative.

The study, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, studied 491 12-year-old boys and girls and found that those who played video games were more creative at performing tasks like drawing pictures and writing stories. It didn’t matter if the games they played were violent or not, the study said.

Linda Jackson, the MSU psychology professor who headed up the study, said game developers should take this information and try to identify which parts of games stimulate creativity.

“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 statement.

But creativity is a rather subjective trait, so just how is it measured? The study explored how these kids’ technology use affected their creativity using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. This “widely used test” charged the subjects with various tasks like drawing an “interesting and exciting” picture based on a curved shape, titling the drawing, and writing a story about it.

The study concluded that there is no link between creativity and the use of other types of technology including cell phones, the Internet, and computers (unless they’re used for video games). However, games of all genres were found to have a distinct correlation with creativity for both boys and girls, regardless of race.