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The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

nature.com

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Re: The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

#31

Post by fullstop »

javajosh wrote: post #26

The only program I let my kids use is KidPix on the iPad. It's a (rather remarkable) drawing and animation program and I'm constantly amazed at what they make with it. And sometimes horrified. But the 5 yo enjoys creating scenes with sound effects (that she recorded) and animation (that she also recorded), while the 3 yo enjoys making intricate drawings and then methodically coloring everything green. It's his favori…

Tux Paint is available for iOS. There's another one that my kids loved, which was a puppet show theater app, which easily let you animate characters and add voices. Unfortunately, I don't recall the name of it.

Re: The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

#32

Post by mcv »

erfgh wrote: post #14
christophilus wrote: post #5

I’ve tried to encourage my wife to choose video games over Disney+ when she needs to drop the kids in front of something, but she still has a strong resistance to the idea that games are better. To me, it’s pretty obvious. The kids problem solve when gaming, and are obviously engaged. When watching TV, they look like zombies. I think my wife’s biggest hang up with games is that she was always told that they rot your…

The problem is that games are very addictive so in extreme cases they can destroy much more thoroughly than TV can.

Tell that to my son's anime addiction. It's worse than his gaming addiction ever was.

Re: The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

#33

Post by mrtksn »

christophilus wrote: post #5

I’ve tried to encourage my wife to choose video games over Disney+ when she needs to drop the kids in front of something, but she still has a strong resistance to the idea that games are better. To me, it’s pretty obvious. The kids problem solve when gaming, and are obviously engaged. When watching TV, they look like zombies. I think my wife’s biggest hang up with games is that she was always told that they rot your…

I recall, when I was a kid the games were extremely addictive for me and I couldn't just quit playing unless I absolutely have to. I had emotionally very similar experience when quitting smoking, the feeling that if I just can have this one more smoke I will be satisfied and live happily thereafter is very similar to the desire to have one more round.

So I wouldn't call games "not addictive". If anything, watching something on TV is often less adictive because you are told a story with its introduction, climax and ending(up until the Netflix ruined everything with it's endless shovelware).

IMHO, the key is moderation. A day with diverse activities is a day well spent, kid or adult.

Today, if I play Sid Meier's Civilization, a day or two would be completely gone and I will be disconnected from the reality and I will need to re-adapt to the real world. I suspect, excessive gamings primary risk is developing unhealthy understanding of the world in the area where the game simulates the real thing.

Re: The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

#34

Post by nicce »

dash2 wrote: post #13

The fact that they "controlled" for genetics using polygenic scores already is a strong sign of low quality research. Polygenic scores are powerful, but they contain very large amounts of noise compared to the true genetic effects. Controlling for genetics using them is like controlling for income by asking whether the respondents own a Porsche. Also, be aware that Scientific Reports is, if not quite a predatory jour…

The cost is no joke.

”Scientific Reports is an open access journal. To publish in Scientific Reports, all authors are required to pay an article-processing charge (APC) of $1,495.”

Re: The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

#35

Post by deepGem »

mrtksn wrote: post #33
christophilus wrote: post #5

I’ve tried to encourage my wife to choose video games over Disney+ when she needs to drop the kids in front of something, but she still has a strong resistance to the idea that games are better. To me, it’s pretty obvious. The kids problem solve when gaming, and are obviously engaged. When watching TV, they look like zombies. I think my wife’s biggest hang up with games is that she was always told that they rot your…

I recall, when I was a kid the games were extremely addictive for me and I couldn't just quit playing unless I absolutely have to. I had emotionally very similar experience when quitting smoking, the feeling that if I just can have this one more smoke I will be satisfied and live happily thereafter is very similar to the desire to have one more round. So I wouldn't call games "not addictive". If anything, watching so…

Borrowing shovelware. This is gold Jerry!

Re: The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

#36

Post by brightball »

christophilus wrote: post #5

I’ve tried to encourage my wife to choose video games over Disney+ when she needs to drop the kids in front of something, but she still has a strong resistance to the idea that games are better. To me, it’s pretty obvious. The kids problem solve when gaming, and are obviously engaged. When watching TV, they look like zombies. I think my wife’s biggest hang up with games is that she was always told that they rot your…

Nintendo games on a console that don’t need an internet connection or include advertising. These have been the best combination for our kids where they have fun but aren’t addicted and can easily put them down.

The moment games include advertising they optimize for all the wrong things. I won’t let my kids get free games on iPad, etc for this reason alone.

Re: The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

#37

Post by versteegen »

LewisVerstappen wrote: post #3
mdrzn wrote: post #2

"At baseline, time watching and socializing were negatively correlated with intelligence, while gaming did not correlate. After two years, gaming positively impacted intelligence, but socializing had no effect. This is consistent with cognitive benefits documented in experimental studies on video gaming." So it's confirmed? Gaming > Socializing? /s

Slightly confused on how they define "socializing" They state > Socializing via social media, text, and video chat Is socializing via social media mean talking in a chat? Or does scrolling your instagram feed and liking your friend's posts count as socializing? Or scrolling Twitter and liking/replying to your friend's tweets? That could be considered socializing too?

> Following the steps of a previous study with this same dataset (measuring baseline associations only [13]), we categorized screen time here into three major groups: (a) Watching (1 + 2), (b) Socializing (4 + 5 + 6), (c) Gaming (3).

So that's why they described it as " ocial media, text, and video chat". Their data comes from the ABCD study. I didn't look much further. https://abcdstudy.org/

Re: The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

#38

Post by idontwantthis »

christophilus wrote: post #5

I’ve tried to encourage my wife to choose video games over Disney+ when she needs to drop the kids in front of something, but she still has a strong resistance to the idea that games are better. To me, it’s pretty obvious. The kids problem solve when gaming, and are obviously engaged. When watching TV, they look like zombies. I think my wife’s biggest hang up with games is that she was always told that they rot your…

Some games are incredibly addictive though. Roblox for example can completely take over a kid’s mind.

Re: The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

#39

Post by throwingrocks »

dash2 wrote: post #13

The fact that they "controlled" for genetics using polygenic scores already is a strong sign of low quality research. Polygenic scores are powerful, but they contain very large amounts of noise compared to the true genetic effects. Controlling for genetics using them is like controlling for income by asking whether the respondents own a Porsche. Also, be aware that Scientific Reports is, if not quite a predatory jour…

Your response seemed reasonable, and I was nodding along until the last paragraph. I get the impression you had your mind made up about video games and intelligence long before this study was published.

Re: The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence

#40

Post by lawgimenez »

javajosh wrote: post #26

The only program I let my kids use is KidPix on the iPad. It's a (rather remarkable) drawing and animation program and I'm constantly amazed at what they make with it. And sometimes horrified. But the 5 yo enjoys creating scenes with sound effects (that she recorded) and animation (that she also recorded), while the 3 yo enjoys making intricate drawings and then methodically coloring everything green. It's his favori…

It's amazing the researchers forgot to include categories like apps. The apps my 3 year old son used is Pokpok, YouTube and an iOS app I develop specifically for him since he's on the non-verbal ASD spectrum.

I believe this research is severely lacking.

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