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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

#51

Post by ho_schi »

f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #46

When I was a kid I spent too much time on computers but it was mostly reading Wikipedia and googling programming questions, that kind of stuff. Where I grew up there wasn't anyone around I could ask those kinds of questions of. I know that's not the Netflix / ipad world that the study is talking about or nessecarily exists today. But I suspect that bifurcation still exists.

My entry was scripting in Counter-Strike (Quake CFG Scripts). This cannot happen with consoles and Apps on Pads/Smartphones entirely prevent this.

Some people try to bring this modification friendly things back, with BBC Microbit, RasPi and so on. But in the end you need to be motivated - and playing better was huge motivation for me!

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

#52

Post by loudmax »

objektif wrote: post #41
NateEag wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget relaxing - sometimes it's nice to distract the kids so I can, say, cook dinner without them literally hanging off my legs.

I can't even go to the bathroom in peace. How do you guys manage time for yourself??

Hang in there. Your kids will require less supervision as they grow older. But also the stakes are higher as the potential for emotional turmoil and property damage increase.

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

#54

Post by nicce »

napier wrote: post #43
nicce wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.”

“Open access” journal fees are often accounted for by institutional affiliations or grant funding donors. The upside of upfront publication charges is that the research output isn’t paywalled and therefore ideally reaches more eyeballs and brainpans than the conventional route.

That is the upside, but there are many other high reputation peer-reviewed open journals with close to zero payment. Is the domain really worth the cost?

It is kinda messed up, when you adjust the price based on the available money of institutional affiliations or donors. It is just more profits for journal and nothing for authors, while forcing authors to pay.

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

#55

Post by 323 »

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…

Playing with toys does make kids smarter. It's not such a stretch to assume that video games have a benefit too.

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

#56

Post by the_af »

erfgh wrote: post #19
christophilus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but sometimes it's really nice to distract the kids while you relax.

Why can't the kids play among themselves? I have two little daughters, ages 3 and 5 and I've never had to drop them in front of something. If I have time to play with them I do (which is most days) but when I don't have time or I'm very tired or I need to do something else I tell them to play among themselves.

What if you only have one child?

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

#57

Post by bena »

throwoutway wrote: post #29
trelane wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games are designed to be addictive, so restraint is a good option. So is television, though, so limiting both is a good policy. I would guess that games' interactivity and personalization lead to much more opportunities for deeper addiction, though (see e.g loot boxes.)

Are old games designed to be addictive? The original NES and Sega games? Like Mario Bros, etc? I think more recent games added the addictive components

They may not be as refined, or they may not have been mistaken at what qualities were addictive, but they were designed to be addictive.

Of course, the incentives were also a little different. Old arcade, for example, games wanted you to drop in more quarters. So they had to find ways to make you lose. But not just lose, lose when you're just close enough to the next level.

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

#58

Post by moduspol »

throwoutway wrote: post #29
trelane wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Games are designed to be addictive, so restraint is a good option. So is television, though, so limiting both is a good policy. I would guess that games' interactivity and personalization lead to much more opportunities for deeper addiction, though (see e.g loot boxes.)

Are old games designed to be addictive? The original NES and Sega games? Like Mario Bros, etc? I think more recent games added the addictive components

Old games were designed similarly to arcade games, where the "true" goal was to get you to keep inserting coins. Then there was kind of a slow transition away from that, but they still relied heavily on the player spending a lot of time replaying prior levels to get to the harder (final) ones due to the limited amount of content.

IMO it was addictive, but only to certain personality types. Mine is definitely one of them. Others would see a difficulty spike and/or the amount of re-treading they need to do to make progress as a deterrent.

Recent games are more addictive in a way that appeals more widely.

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

#59

Post by lettergram »

throwingrocks wrote: post #39
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.

I think the point the prior commenter was making was that this research validates people who think gaming is good. They pointed out the issues and said “if you still want to believe this, I can’t stop you”

The commenter may have a bias, but most prior research shows us the opposite of the study.

I also saw the poor experimental design and had a similar thoughts. Basically, this research looks poorly done and like an effort to prop up the gaming industry (and / or validate the authors pre-suppositions).

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

#60

Post by Aeolun »

nicce wrote: post #54
napier wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Open access” journal fees are often accounted for by institutional affiliations or grant funding donors. The upside of upfront publication charges is that the research output isn’t paywalled and therefore ideally reaches more eyeballs and brainpans than the conventional route.

That is the upside, but there are many other high reputation peer-reviewed open journals with close to zero payment. Is the domain really worth the cost? It is kinda messed up, when you adjust the price based on the available money of institutional affiliations or donors. It is just more profits for journal and nothing for authors, while forcing authors to pay.

> there are many other high reputation peer-reviewed open journals with close to zero payment

Which are those? The journals that I expect to still be up are the ones that require actual payment for publishing.

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