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The negative effects of video games on children's mental health, social problems, and inactivity are frequently a source of concern for parents.
However, a significant new study from the United States that was published on Monday in JAMA Network Open suggests that the popular pastime may also have cognitive benefits.
As an expert in neuroimagery and avid gamer, lead author Bader Chaarani, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont, stated to AFP that he was naturally drawn to the subject.
Previous research had focused on negative effects, including a link between gaming and increased aggression and depression.
However, Charaani stated that the small number of participants in these studies, particularly those involving brain imaging, was a limitation.
Chaarani and colleagues looked at data from the massive and ongoing National Institutes of Health-funded Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study for the new study.
They examined the responses to surveys, the results of cognitive tests, and images of the brains of approximately 2,000 nine- and ten-year-olds, who were divided into two groups: those who didn't play games at all and those who played for at least three hours a day.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than one or two hours of video gaming per day for older children, so this limit was chosen.
Impulses and memory
There were two assessments for each group.
The first had the children press left or right as quickly as they could after seeing arrows pointing left or right.
In order to test how well they could control their impulses, they were also instructed not to press anything when they saw a "stop" signal.
In the second task, they were shown people's faces and asked to match them with a subsequent picture in a working memory test.
The team discovered that video gamers consistently performed better on both tasks after using statistical methods to control for variables that could skew results, such as parental income, IQ, and mental health symptoms.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the children's brains were examined as they completed the tasks.The brains of video gamers showed more activity in areas associated with memory and attention.
The paper's authors came to the following conclusion: "The results raise the intriguing possibility that video gaming may provide a cognitive training experience with measurable neurocognitive effects."
According to Chaarani, it is currently impossible to determine whether improved cognitive performance causes or results in increased gaming.
As the study progresses and the team revisits the same children at later ages, they hope to obtain a more precise response.
This will also assist in excluding additional potential factors, such as the children's exercise routine and quality of sleep.
Even though children typically prefer action games like Fortnite and Assassin's Creed at the age of 10, future research could benefit from knowing what genres the children were playing.
Chaarani stated, "Of course, excessive screen time is bad for overall mental health and physical activity."
However, he stated that the findings suggested that playing video games might be a better use of screen time than watching videos on YouTube, which does not appear to have any discernible cognitive effects.
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