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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

#241

Post by Silverback_VII »

lucasfcosta wrote: post #221

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.

Maybe it is more of a gender difference. I have yet to encounter a boy who doesn't like some kind of videogame but not so for girls... But this would mean that intelligence in not distributed equally among gender.

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

#242

Post by LatteLazy »

We really need to ban studies that are just designed to find "associations" or correlations etc. They're useless. They just waste resources that could be used to find actual causation and fuel people talking about things no one actually knows which just reenforces people's prejudices.

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

#243

Post by awestroke »

zbobet2012 wrote: post #196
drooby wrote: 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..

This is hilarious to me.

I love reading about eve, but I can't imagine ever having enough free time for it

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

#244

Post by Silverback_VII »

Aeolun wrote: post #226
zbobet2012 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

EVE online taught me how CEO’s feel when one of their minions starts talking to them, and they have no idea who the person is, nor who hired them. Also the value of realtime market information.

EVE online taught me that you can be CEO while being unemployed and living in a crappy appartment.

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

#245

Post by CarnunMP »

Haven't read the study (and tbh I'm skeptical of such scientism, e.g. reading too much into FMRI tea leaves). But perhaps one thing in the mix here, if there is indeed an effect, is that kids who get more time to themselves to pursue what's interesting to them and play, away from meddling adults who know what's better for them, develop faster.

Or indeed kids whose parents share their interests and play with them.

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

#246

Post by corsac »

lucasfcosta wrote: post #221

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.

Video games are more mentally stimulating than non-screen-based activities (building a fort, catching animals, reading a book)? People with better cognitive performance prefer more external mental stimulation? I didn't know any of that.

Your classic comment certainly stands, though. It could easily be that e.g. the large gender difference between the gamer and non-gamer groups alone can account for the difference. Many likely confounders aren't mentioned in the study at all.

But whether or not there's causation involved, this study tells us precious little about gaming and "cognitive performance" in general, since the stop-signal and n-back tasks they used have obvious connections to gaming but very little relevance to most other areas of cognitive functioning (of course kids who play video games for hours every day will probably respond quicker to which way an arrow on a computer screen is pointing).

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

#247

Post by fangorn »

lucasfcosta wrote: post #221

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.

From TFA:

"researchers stress that this cross-sectional study does not allow for cause-and-effect analyses, and that it could be that children who are good at these types of cognitive tasks may choose to play video games."

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

#248

Post by carabiner »

I didn't learn anything from hours of Counter-strike, half-life, flight sims (ok this taught me some aviation trivia) as a teenager. I deeply regret these hours, as I could have spent them outdoors hiking, rock climbing, running. Maybe even talking to girls and building better social skills.

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

#249

Post by CarnunMP »

CarnunMP wrote: post #245

Haven't read the study (and tbh I'm skeptical of such scientism, e.g. reading too much into FMRI tea leaves). But perhaps one thing in the mix here, if there is indeed an effect, is that kids who get more time to themselves to pursue what's interesting to them and play , away from meddling adults who know what's better for them, develop faster. Or indeed kids whose parents share their interests and play with them.

Incidentally I was struck recently by how rarely in this talk[1] Jon Blow says 'children' or 'kids' when he's clearly talking about young humans. Instead it's just 'people'. :)

[1] Video Games and the Future of Education: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWFScmtiC44

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

#250

Post by mattlondon »

lucasfcosta wrote: post #221

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.

This was mentioned in the article.

Plus I am not sure that this is "better" cognitive performance, vs just "different". Perhaps kids who don't play video games are better at e.g. music? The article doesn't go into that.

Likewise I am not sure that video games are necessarily more stimulating that other real-world activities. Sure there are lots of boring things we make kids do, but there are also other joyful things that they really like too which are "real world" (adventure playgrounds, lego, swimming parks etc)

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