Many parents feel guilty when their children play video games for hours and hours. Some even worry that their children will be less intelligent. And, in fact, this is an issue that scientists have been facing for years.
In our new study, we investigated how video games affect children’s minds by interviewing and testing more than 5,000 children between the ages of 10 and 12. And the results, published in Scientific Reports, will surprise some.
Children were asked how many hours a day they spent on social media, watching videos or watching television and playing video games. The answer was: many hours. On average, children spent two and a half hours a day watching videos or TV shows online, half an hour socializing online, and an hour playing video games.
In total, it is four hours a day for the average child and six hours for the top 25%, a large part of a child’s free time. And other reports found that this has increased dramatically over the decades. Screens existed in previous generations, but now they really define childhood.
This is bad? Well, it’s complicated. There could be advantages and disadvantages to the development of children’s minds. And these may depend on the outcome you are looking at. For our study, we were specifically interested in the effect of screen time on intelligence: the ability to learn effectively, think rationally, understand complex ideas, and adapt to new situations.
Intelligence is an important trait in our lives and highly predictive of a child’s future income, happiness and longevity. In research, performance is often measured in a wide range of cognitive tests. For our study, we created an intelligence index based on five tasks: two on reading comprehension and vocabulary, one on attention and executive function (which includes working memory, flexible thinking, and self-control), one on the evaluation of visual-spatial processing (such as rotation). objects in your mind) and one about the ability to learn during multiple tests.
This is not the first time someone has studied the effect of screens on intelligence, but research, so far, has yielded mixed results. So what’s so special about this time? The novelty of our study is that we took into account genes and socioeconomic background. Only a few studies so far have considered socioeconomic status (family income, parental education, and neighborhood quality), and no study had considered genetic effects.
Genes matter because intelligence is highly heritable. If left unchecked, these factors could mask the true effect of time in front of the screen on children’s intelligence. For example, children born with certain genes may be more likely to watch television and, independently, have learning disabilities. Genetics lottery is a major confounding factor in any psychological process, but until recently this was difficult to take into account in scientific studies due to the high costs of genome analysis and technological limitations.
The data we used for our study are part of a massive data collection effort in the United States to better understand childhood development: the adolescent cognitive and brain development project. Our sample was representative of the U.S. in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.
The results
We found that when we first asked the child at age ten how much he played, both watching videos and socializing online were related to below-average intelligence. Meanwhile, the games were not at all related to intelligence. This may interest you : Season finale of “Stranger Things” Watch Party set by Scener and Netflix, with David Harbor and other cast members joining the live Q&A videos. These screen time results are mostly in line with previous research. But when we did a follow-up, we found that the games had a positive and significant effect on intelligence.
Although children who played more video games at age ten were not on average smarter than children who did not play, they showed more gains in intelligence after two years in both boys and girls. For example, a child who was among the 17% most important in terms of hours spent playing games increased his IQ by about 2.5 points more than the average child for two years.
This is evidence of a causal and beneficial effect of video games on intelligence. This result fits with smaller previous studies, where participants are randomly assigned to play video games or a control group. Our finding also coincides with parallel lines of study suggesting that cognitive skills are not fixed, but can be trained, including studies with cognitive training intervention applications.
What about the other two types of screen activities? Social media did not affect the change of intelligence after two years. The many hours of instagram and messaging did not increase the intelligence of the children, but it was not harmful either. Finally, watching television and videos online showed a positive effect in one of the analyzes, but no effect when parental education was taken into account (as opposed to the broader factor of “socioeconomic status”). Therefore, this finding should be taken with a grain of salt. There is some empirical support that high-quality television / video content, such as the Sesame Street program, has a positive effect on children’s school performance and cognitive abilities. But these results are rare.
When we think about the implications of these findings, it is important to keep in mind that there are many other psychological aspects that we have not considered, such as mental health, sleep quality, and exercise. Our results should not be taken as a general recommendation for all parents to allow unlimited play. But for parents who annoy their kids by playing video games, you can now feel better knowing that you’re probably making them a little smarter. DM / ML
This story was first published in The Conversation.
Torkel Klingberg is a professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institutet. Bruno Sauce is an adjunct professor of biological psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
The results showed that PC gamers have the highest average IQ with 112.3, while mobile gamers have the lowest IQ with 99.4. Mobile players took fourth place in verbal intelligence and last place in math ability, logical reasoning, and visual reasoning.
Is Minecraft healthy for your brain?
Basic Programming and Logic Skills Although you will not teach your child a programming language, the use of Redstone blocks will introduce them to the fundamental logic of coding. To see also : The Boys Season 3 Episode 7 Coming To Prime Video Tonight. This in turn makes Minecraft good for their brains and you could say it makes them smarter …
Does Minecraft improve mental health? Clemenson’s research suggests that playing video games in virtual environments can be used to develop and maintain the functioning of both memory and spatial consciousness. The richer the environment and commitment, the greater the mental benefits.
Is Minecraft dangerously addictive?
Minecraft addiction is a serious problem. See the article : Amazon is launching AMC + and Acorn TV on Prime Video Channels in India. It is one of the most addictive video games in the world, and is especially problematic for parents of children suffering from this type of addiction.
Does playing Minecraft rot your brain?
Good news if you are a player. Contrary to what your parents might have told you, video games won’t rot your brain.
Is Minecraft harmful to humans?
Minecraft can expose children to harassment and exploitation. Minecraft can be played online on multiplayer servers, some of which can be quite violent. Players attack and kill other players and steal their virtual possessions that they have earned with effort (or bought) or destroyed buildings they have worked hard to build.
Does gaming improve your brain?
Video games can increase the gray matter in your brain. Studies have shown that playing video games regularly can increase gray matter in the brain and increase brain connectivity. (Gray matter is associated with muscle control, memories, perception, and spatial navigation).
Does playing video games rot your brain? But new research has shown that those hours spent playing video games may not have been rotting your brain, as your mom or dad warned. In fact, if you spent your childhood playing Sonic and Super Mario, you secretly prepared your memory for the rest of your life, the new study says.
Does gaming increase IQ?
On average, children spent 2.5 hours a day watching TV, half an hour on social media and 1 hour playing video games. The results showed that those who played more games than average increased their intelligence between the two measures by about 2.5 IQ points more than average.
Is gaming more beneficial or harmful?
It is true that some studies have shown that certain video games can improve hand-eye coordination, problem-solving skills, and the ability of the mind to process information. But playing too many video games can cause problems. It’s hard to have enough active play and exercise if you’re always inside playing video games.
Do games do more harm than good? It is a distraction and can cause serious performance issues. On the other hand, mild gambling addiction can also lead to social isolation, which can lead to relationship problems. Taken to the extreme, it can cause health problems.
Is gaming good for your health?
Video game play can provide learning, health, social benefits, review findings. Comment: Playing video games, including violent shooting games, can increase children’s learning, health, and social skills, according to a review of research by American Psychologist.
What are the positives and negatives of gaming?
Video games can be used to help improve test scores, teach life and work skills, improve brain function, and encourage exercise. Because video game addiction can negatively affect social and physical health, parents should be aware of the symptoms. For decades, children have been going crazy with video games.
Are most gamers overweight?
The researchers found that the average player had a BMI of 28.05. The average non-player had a BMI of 26.55. Anyone with a BMI above 25 is overweight. The differences between the study’s mental health findings were also slight.
Are the players thin or fat? Sports players have significantly less lean body mass than non-sports players. Sports players have a significantly higher body fat percentage than non-sports players. Bone mineral content is significantly lower in sports players than in those who do not.
Is the average gamer overweight?
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Video games can be considered an obsession for young people, but in fact the average player is 35 years old, often overweight, introverted and may be depressed, according to a US study.
How are some gamers skinny?
some people burn calories sitting down. Brain movement takes a lot of juice for really smart people. therefore, there are thin players.
Are gamers physically fit?
A new study from Queensland University of Technology reports that sports players (professional players who compete in tournaments for big cash prizes) are in better physical shape than a significant portion of the general population.
