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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

#231

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…

Can you recommend any games / platforms for a kid at that age?

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

#232
post #8

Careful now. Self-assortment into those who don't play at all and those who play at least three hours per day? There's good reasons to think those weren't otherwise equivalent populations in the first place. I'm buying "associated" but any sort of claims about effects from the games are going to have to come from elsewhere.

Would you assume the same thing about playing a musical instrument or playing a sport? What is playing video games except practicing cognitive performance? It works spatial reasoning, logic, dexterity, problem solving, reactions, etc.

Absolutely. Saw a study a few years ago that finds that school music program participation is significantly correlated with parental wealth, which raises all kinds of confounding factors depending on what's actually being measured (e.g. Was the kid 10ms slower because they didn't get a good breakfast? Or mom got home late from her 2nd job and interrupted her family's sleep?)

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

#233
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What games do you recommend for kids of that age?

At young ages, I say give them an old-school Nintendo, or N64 etc. Little/no advertising, monetization of your kid's attention, whatever. If they're not on the web or at school yet, they won't even know they're missing out on more modern systems. Or some similar setup where there's no online, no monthly charge, no pay-to-win, and instead the child gets to play a carefully crafted game, hopefully an awesome one. I als…

My 4yo son loves the N64, but he plays nothing but Smash Bros.

It’s not like I don’t understand, but it still feels mildly wrong.

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

#234
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.

SC2 is probably the most likely to produce entrepreneurs. H3 taught real social skills and teamwork.

I was a Master SC2 player and strongly disagree with this. SC2 is heavy on execution and ops, which are not good 0 -> 1 skills. SC2 also has very short feedback loops and no long term consequences.

The things I will say it has going for it is that it has an extremely steep learning curve and you have to grind. Though many other games also have these attributes at a sufficiently high level.

The reality is that most people who are very good at video games wouldn't be able to maintain the long-term discipline or focus to run a company, nor be able to handle the responsibility of leading a team.

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

#235
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..

> Also spreadsheets..

The best skill in life

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

#236
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 the original sid maiers pirates in teaching me at least some english, you swashbucklers and cutthroats.

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

#237
post #224

As an Italian teenager in the 90s, Ultima Online was the reason why my English vocabulary was so rich compared to my peers. I strongly believed it has contributed to me traveling and experiencing living abroad, which has since defined my life.

Same for me. I still credit video games to my higher-than-average English. I remember playing RPGs (savage empire) with a dictionary by my side

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

#238

I'll add the classic comment here: "correlation does not mean causation". Maybe it's the kids with better cognitive performance that like videogame better. I wouldn't find that unlikely considering it's more mentally stimulating than other "real-world" activities. Also, I personally learned to code by writing bots for an MMORPG, so I definitely owe my career to videogames.

I would also add that it's impossible to find direct causation in psychology or sociology because it's impossible to have all the variables when it comes to humans. So this is the best we can get.

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

#239

I'll add the classic comment here: "correlation does not mean causation". Maybe it's the kids with better cognitive performance that like videogame better. I wouldn't find that unlikely considering it's more mentally stimulating than other "real-world" activities. Also, I personally learned to code by writing bots for an MMORPG, so I definitely owe my career to videogames.

I had an access to personal computers in my school after classes, most of the time we were gaming. After some time teacher said that games are not allowed anymore except ones we wrote ourselves. That's how my software engineer career started.

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why unhealthy? I've been using games as a coping mechanism for stress and personal issues for about twenty years and as far as I can tell I'm reasonably healthy. Most people my age that are clearly unhealthy it's because of drugs, alcohol or weight issues, not videogames. I'm somewhat prone to stress, and I find taking a few days off to play games helps in recovering from burnout, while something like travelling whic…

You sound healthy! but you probably know someone who's unhealthily using them to cope and resorting to video games instead of life. some people take a few days off and forget to get back on

English is not my first language so maybe that's why it's strange to me to call something unhealthy that doesn't cause health issues. I could understand calling videogames "problematic" or "antisocial", but unhealthy seems a bit of a loaded term because I often shut myself in and forget about the rest of the world playing videogames and it rather improves my health. It's the stress that I find unhealthy, causing me eye strain, irritability and other problems. Meanwhile playing games helps, doesn't require a lot of time and effort, it's cheap, reliable and I enjoy it, so even if I know that sometimes I'm being antisocial and prioritising it over socialising with friends for example I still do it.
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