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Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

nida.nih.gov

131–140 of 332 posts

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

#131

My son started playing games (with me) at 4 yo (partly because we were all locked indoors for months on end). Anecdotally - and providing you use some discretion as to choice of game - I’ve found it absolutely fascinating to watch both the pace of development of problem-solving skills, and some of the frankly astounding leaps of logic and intuition young kids are capable of. I vividly remember one rock-moving puzzle…

What games do you recommend for kids of that age?

The logical journey of the zoombinis

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

#132

My son started playing games (with me) at 4 yo (partly because we were all locked indoors for months on end). Anecdotally - and providing you use some discretion as to choice of game - I’ve found it absolutely fascinating to watch both the pace of development of problem-solving skills, and some of the frankly astounding leaps of logic and intuition young kids are capable of. I vividly remember one rock-moving puzzle…

What games do you recommend for kids of that age?

My two kids have enjoyed the iPad game Inventioneers, about making zany Rube Goldberg devices out of a wide variety of objects.

The recent puzzle game Railbound is fun, with some very tricky puzzles.

* * *

Instead of video games though, let me highly recommend the physical logic puzzle games by the company SmartGames, most of which are excellent.

Raf Peeters, one of their puzzle designers, has a nice website with some back story about many of them, https://smartgamesandpuzzles.com

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

#133

My son started playing games (with me) at 4 yo (partly because we were all locked indoors for months on end). Anecdotally - and providing you use some discretion as to choice of game - I’ve found it absolutely fascinating to watch both the pace of development of problem-solving skills, and some of the frankly astounding leaps of logic and intuition young kids are capable of. I vividly remember one rock-moving puzzle…

What games do you recommend for kids of that age?

My son finished Lego City Undercover at the age of 4, turning 5. It was the first game he played. Highly recommend.

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

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What games do you recommend for kids of that age?

As mentioned, Zelda Breath of the Wild is a great game for kids, even as young as 4-5. My kid is 6 and had an amazing time with it, as did I.

My then 8yo daughter who is behind in love with horses saw me riding a horse in botw. Zero experience with video games she picked it up and spent six months working at it so she could get a horse.

Completing shrines so she could get enough stamina to tame the horses.

She has collected all the rare ones now.

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

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Video games are like the cheapest way to keep a kid busy for low income working parents Source on that? Video games (console or pc) is very expensive and not something low income folks can generally afford for their kids.

The study combines all forms of game playing no matter the platform. They used self reported studies of all participants who were 9-10 at the time of the study, but used MRI for part of the cognitive testing response measurement.

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

#136

I played a lot of video games as a kid because that's what other kids did. Probably taught me some logic skills, but I would've traded it for a real childhood and social skills. Self-exploring coding was far more educational anyway. Card/board games are a good in-between with a social component and without the mindless or consumerist aspect of some video games. My wife and I decided our kids won't have video games at…

I didn't have any until I was 14 or so but mostly because we were too poor for the ones available and the only screens I saw were the minicomputer terminals at the community college but I got to make a few as an adult. YMMV.

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

#137

my only beef ( as a dad to a 10yr old ) is that at all the game he loves playing are incredibly bloody violent. - Far Cry - Assassin's Creed *exceptions ( Fortnite ) What kind of games do you recommend that can extend his critical thinking while increasing his focus? Lastly, is there a WYSIWYG game creation platform that is high-quality/fidelity? not Minecraft/Roblox. I see him making stuff in the game industry one d…

When it comes to WYSIWYG game creation the name that immediately springs to mind is RPGMaker, though while the platforms are high quality, they are very much not high fidelity. WYSIWYG doesn't work that well together with high fidelity anyway, placing a thousand little griblets by hand can get tedious after a while.

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

#138
post #57

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.

This appears to be the study, though I'm not entirely sure [1] and it reads: Screen Time Survey This threshold was selected because it exceeds the American Academy of Pediatrics screen time guidelines, which recommends that video-gaming time be limited to 1 to 2 hours per day for older children. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

Yeah, I saw their excuse for focusing on over three hours a day. I don't understand why you dump that data rather than use it somehow, like a third cohort.

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

#139
post #60

My kid is 3.5. Would love to game with him but had assumed it was years off.... Any tips on games or consoles? I think I have an ancient ps4 in the attic somewhere but very open to buying new kit

Teach him arithmetic or how to read first. Or chess!

Yeah, chess and go are pretty great. Chess for the quick payoff, go for the long-term focus.

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

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Video games are like the cheapest way to keep a kid busy for low income working parents Source on that? Video games (console or pc) is very expensive and not something low income folks can generally afford for their kids.

Different person here and I'm also not going to provide external information, only more perspective and I'm more so curious on what your first counterpoints in your mind would be, absent any source: Video games are the cheapest form of paid entertainment for the amount of time that a single purchase occupies. Despite their audience being extremely price sensitive (which has nothing to do with socioeconomics, just con…

> I'm more so curious on what your first counterpoints in your mind would be

Just some anec-data. I did not have any consoles growing up simply because we could not afford them. Eventually we got a single very old very slow machine that was shared among the family. I know a few other people in the same situation (usually 1st/2nd generation immigrants). Thus in my mind, video games are luxury products, which are not affordable to low income households.

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