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Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

nida.nih.gov

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Re: Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

#21

Post by CharlieDigital »

I remember reading a paper that there's a strong association between spatial reasoning and performance in math.

This made intuitive sense to me given that there is some overlap between manipulating objects in a 2D or 3D space and visualizing a math problem whether numeric or geometric.

I find it hard to believe that typical video game puzzles can help increase cognitive performance, but plausible that training spatial recognition might help train the same regions of the brain we use for math.

Even the basic mechanics: teaching math to my kids when they were young was purely a visual exercise of moving groups of things (coins, Cheerios, M&M's) around.

Re: Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

#22

Post by dymk »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #21

I remember reading a paper that there's a strong association between spatial reasoning and performance in math. This made intuitive sense to me given that there is some overlap between manipulating objects in a 2D or 3D space and visualizing a math problem whether numeric or geometric. I find it hard to believe that typical video game puzzles can help increase cognitive performance, but plausible that training spatia…

Ask yourself: are you a shape rotator or a wordcel?

Re: Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

#23

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

DelightOne wrote: post #6
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Assuming it doesn't become overwhelming I don't see the issue with that, same as any other stress relief.

Its too addicting.

I don't know, I think a great number of previous video game players have grown up and become functional humans given the majority of children in the last few generations will have played videos games for entertainment in one fashion or another. There's always outliers who will have problems of course, but that doesn't mean it's bad for the rest.

Re: Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

#24

Post by notch656a »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #12

Huh, my immediate assumption was income played a huge role but the video game cohort had poorer parents. The gender difference is huge though, the nongaming cohort had 288 males and 840 females while the gaming cohort had 372 males and 307 females. Also, I'm a bit confused why they just dumped anyone with between one and three hours of videogame playing a day.

Video games are like the cheapest way to keep a kid busy for low income working parents. I guess they could send the kids outside but people nowadays start asking questions if a kid is caught outside while single mom is working for 3 hours or something.

Given infinite money I think many of those parents would send the kid with nanny if needed or whatever to organized sports, piano classes, etc.

Re: Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

#25

Post by educaysean »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #3
armatav wrote: post #2

Problem is avoiding them being used as a coping mechanism for stress

Why? Assuming it doesn't become overwhelming I don't see the issue with that, same as any other stress relief.

I grew up in South Korea where kids are placed under immense academic stress and gaming is an established mainstream culture. In the last two decades or so, the instances of kids and adults suffering from severe gaming addiction have become increasingly common.

The issue is exacerbated by the fact that more gaming companies are embracing loot boxes, pay-to-win schemes, and other parlor tricks to not only keep the players addicted but to also extract as much cash as possible from its captive audience. When hearing the stories of people whose lives were ruined by video games, it's hard not to draw the similarities with gambling addicts who poured their entire life savings into casinos. Except the casinos now exist in the pockets of 14 year olds, accessible at all times.

I'm a long time gamer and a hobby game dev myself. I very much dislike the tendency for media to overstate the harms of gaming, but the reality is that gaming in its current form can be a very dangerous thing to become addicted to.

Re: Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

#26

Post by reducesuffering »

notch656a wrote: post #18
TapWaterBandit wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, video games can definitely end up being an unhealthy coping mechanism used to avoid addressing your real life issues. That said they are probably on balance a better coping mechanism than some of the other popular ones out there (Alcohol, drugs, porn, gambling) but definitely worth keeping an eye on. Especially because video games aren't restricted for children like all those others things are (at least in theor…

Gambling is roughly described as gaming with higher stakes, IMO. My totally unqualified, unsubstantiated guess would be the average gambler has higher cognitive performance than the average video game player. A dumb gambler goes broke sooner or later, which doesn't make them all quit but it does make some of them quit, which I would wager causes a selective effect towards the smarter ones.

Have you been to a casino? 95% of Blackjack players aren't even playing basic strategy, something that takes a single day to learn. Instead, mid-rank players in popular online games like Valorant and Overwatch 2 are quite formidable multi-level thinkers.

Re: Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

#27

Post by ransom1538 »

My son (6) is allowed to only play one game. https://play0ad.com/. It has been a surreal experience. He is able to gather resources, launch campaigns, build cities, he now creates complex strategies to defeat the enemy (me). The game has great LAN game play so we can attack each other . The next step, he wants to know "how do we change this?" Code.

Compare this to watching tiktok?

Re: Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

#28

Post by recursive »

notch656a wrote: post #11

Having 3 hours PER DAY to do anything for leisure, even if it's a form of escape from terrible circumstances, is quite the luxury. I would guess at the population level circumstances that allow 3 hours a day of non-essential activities like this to be associated with circumstances that allow better cognitive performance than those without 3 hours a day of time to do something for personal interest.

In 10 year olds? I would think most 10 year olds have more time than they know what to do with.

Re: Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

#30

Post by renewiltord »

Was it the urge to hold your inventory full until the game ends? Haha

But seriously, the thing that's interesting is if you could challenge a child's spatial intelligence more in a VR or game universe than in our limited gravity enabled world. Curious indeed.

Can't say it overwhelms my fear of screen time but it's a thing.

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