Live data from Hacker News

Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

nida.nih.gov

191–200 of 332 posts

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

#191
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Funds? Brain scans in MRI machines are super expensive.

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

#193

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?

Hey there, sitting here with my awesome 5yo and we can answer this one.

Some games we recommend (platform we played it on):

Cave Story (PC, was free on Epic)

Shovel Knight, Treasure Trove Edition (PC, Steam)

Castlevania Symphony of the Night (ios, ipad)

Minecraft (ios, ipad)

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

#194
post #49

I credit RuneScape with teaching me the value of delayed gratification and basic economics. I credit competitive Halo 3 with teaching me team building and strategy skills. I credit StarCraft with training my mind to travel at warp speed. Honestly. My video game experience was instrumental to my success so far in life. This is not surprising to me.

I learned one of the most valuable lessons of my life from RuneScape. My brother and I, playing for years, had amassed something like 100k gold between the two of us. We wanted more gold and were reading a guide online about to get it. The guide recommended a simple process of buying and selling coal in a kind of arbitrage trade. My brother and I were torn if we should try it, reasoning that if it were so easy to mak…

Many times, the best solutions are very simple. These often seem obvious in hindsight, but were at the time either non-obvious or dismissed prematurely.

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

#196
post #49

I credit RuneScape with teaching me the value of delayed gratification and basic economics. I credit competitive Halo 3 with teaching me team building and strategy skills. I credit StarCraft with training my mind to travel at warp speed. Honestly. My video game experience was instrumental to my success so far in life. This is not surprising to me.

I credit eve online with teaching me how to run complex and effective counter intelligence operations but I've yet to use it in real life :(.

On the other hand how to inspire people and the importance of operational doctrine has been massively important.

Also spreadsheets..

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

#197
That is no surprise considering the complexity of some games. We're not playing space invaders anymore. The learning curve of some games are off the chart whilst still making learning addictive.

Game makers have access to extreme resources, psychology, graphics, music and coding frameworks that enables them to push entertainment as any illegal drug - except **mostly** without the bad side effects.

Gamers also have access to these resources when consuming this content.

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same boat and it is great until I run into a more complex multi-faceted problem, pick a solution and end up 30 miles down the road before I realize I need to backtrack and try a different one. If my childhood had more books and boredom I might have the patience to spend longer in the planning stage and less enthusiasm for the drinking coffee and pounding out a solution stage.

Mine had a lot of books and boredom. I rarely regret just getting things done. Excessive planning is a much larger issue. I find it's usually better to just do something twice rather than spend too much time thinking about it.

I've been thinking this a lot lately.

One absolutely fantastic upside for just getting it done is that even if you have to redo it from scratch, you have so much better real-world understanding of the problem space.

I'm inclined to think that this applies to majority of the things we do, but is often brought up regarding building products in the idea that one should build the first prototype quickly, just to be scrapped so the final solution can be built from clean slate, benefiting from all the knowledge the prototype helped us gather.

Most often, in my experience at least, the knowledge one gains from actually doing the thing (even badly) surpasses anything that could have been gained with excessive planning. To actually work, genuine effort including some planning is definitely needed, but I don't think that's too high a bar. At least not when compared to the skills and knowledge one would have needed to achieve the same success with "just" excessive planning up front.

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun question! I would suggest the following (in no particular order), subject to the proviso that you do need to be sat next to them to help manage frustration, especially in the beginning (although my personal take is that they shouldn’t be left to play by themselves at all at that age) - particularly as they learn the controller, general video game conventions, and the specifics of each game: - Breath of the Wild -…

Is It Takes Two about a married couple and their struggles? Isn't it made for couples? I could be wrong. What is that like for a child? Did it spark a lot of questions about marriage or anything else? Or did the eyes of a child ignore any adult themes and he only cared about the gameplay?

In our case, the adult themes went straight over his head and we just enjoyed the (frankly terrific) team-driven gameplay. The art style is very cutesy in a way that seems to appeal to kids, and there’s no swearing in the dialogue.

Ymmv, though, this stuff is highly subjective. If you’re particularly concerned then better just to stick to Nintendo first-party stuff - their whole brand is built around keeping everything wholesome.

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

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned one of the most valuable lessons of my life from RuneScape. My brother and I, playing for years, had amassed something like 100k gold between the two of us. We wanted more gold and were reading a guide online about to get it. The guide recommended a simple process of buying and selling coal in a kind of arbitrage trade. My brother and I were torn if we should try it, reasoning that if it were so easy to mak…

One wonders if the effect you're describing isn't the reason that self-directed entrepreneurship seems to be on a sharp decline in the developed world. Believe the media, let alone the internet, and one would imagine we have 8 year olds building nuclear reactors and curing cancer, in their basements. So how can this hare brained scheme you have ever possibly work? Surely somebody else would have done it by now.

> Believe the media, let alone the internet, and one would imagine we have 8 year olds building nuclear reactors

On the one hand, we do[0].

On the other, what you're describing is why I don't feel bad about the fact that, 15 years after I had the idea, I've still not learned to use MHD modelling software to experiment with an idea I've had that might make fusors a little more interesting.

[0] ok so they were 12 not 8: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2020/10/middle-sch...

Post reply on HN