Proof: Playing video games makes kids… smarter!
It’s been a long-held belief that video games are bad for kids. However, a new study shows that playing video games could actually help kids grow smarter.
The study, published in the Scientific Reports journal, says that kids between the age of 9 and 10 who spent time playing video games showed a large increase in intelligence scoring two years later; with a 2.5-point increase in IQ.
According to the paper, “Children who played more video games were the ones experiencing the most gains in intelligence after two years. This is evidence of a beneficial causal effect of video games on cognition.”
The study, which included over 9,000 children, also looked at other “screen time” forms of entertainment like videos and social media, noting they had neither a positive nor negative affect on intelligence.
The average participant spent 30 minutes on social media platforms, 2.5 hours a day watching TV, and an hour gaming.
After two years of study, it was found that children who gamed more than the 1-hour average had higher IQ scores than those who played less than the average.
Dr. Anish Dube, who was not involved in the study said, “Playing video games often requires active strategizing, planning and executive decision-making…
“The more someone practices or plays these video games, the more they reinforce the neural pathways involved in accomplishing the objectives of the game — and those same neural pathways may be involved in other types of real-world decision-making that factor into our measures of intelligence.”
So, if this study is correct, playing video games may indeed be good for the intellectual development of children.
Read more about the study, HERE
Source: https://www.webmd.com/children/news/20220519/could-video-games-boost-a-childs-intelligence