Weekend Reads | Is Playing Video Games Good for Kids’ Brains? - South Seattle Emerald

by Kevin Schofield

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Last weekend, I talked astir the benefits for Black students of having a Black teacher, benefits that were proven successful a semipermanent survey of students successful Tennessee. This weekend’s read is simply a effect from different invaluable semipermanent study, this clip connected children’s encephalon development. Called the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, it recruited 11,880 children ages 9–10 from 21 sites crossed the United States and volition look astatine however those kids’ experiences and their bodies’ changing biology affects their encephalon improvement implicit the pursuing respective years. Like the survey connected students, this 1 is apt to nutrient dozens, if not hundreds, of probe papers with caller discoveries.

A radical of researchers from the University of Vermont decided to dive into a lively debate: the effect of video gaming connected kids’ brains. There is already an tremendous heap of probe papers connected the topic, often with conflicting conclusions, and an adjacent bigger heap of informed and semi-informed opinions, ranging from “video games rot their brains” to “video games amended their cognitive skills, problem-solving skills, and hand-eye coordination.” The imaginable benefits for playing video games astir often cited see improved cognitive abilities: tracking aggregate objects, switching attraction rapidly, peripheral vision, absorption time, logic, occupation solving, and adjacent creativity. The imaginable harms are often related to intelligence wellness and see increases successful depression, violence, and assertive behavior. In some cases, the underlying mechanisms done which playing video games would origin these changes are not good understood: Scientists don’t cognize what really happens successful someone’s encephalon erstwhile they play video games.

The ABCD survey collects information connected the probe subjects done respective tools: surveys of basal demographic information; a artillery of modular tests utilized by doctors and psychologists to measure cognitive abilities, carnal skills, and behavioral health; humor and different aesculapian tests; and fMRI scans connected subjects’ brains, which tin place the areas of a person’s encephalon that are progressive during a circumstantial task oregon enactment (and however progressive those areas are). 

A radical of researchers from the University of Vermont recruited astir 1,800 participants, each ages 9–10, successful the ABCD survey radical for their probe project: astir 1,100 children who don’t play video games and 700 who playfor an mean of 3 hours per day. They looked specifically astatine 2 cognitive tasks that the ABCD survey had collected information for: a “stop awesome task” trial that looked astatine however rapidly a idiosyncratic volition respond to a awesome to halt doing a peculiar task; and an “n-back” trial of a person’s “working memory” that sees however rapidly and accurately a idiosyncratic tin repetition backmost a database of items they are told (obviously, the larger the fig of items, the harder the trial is). They recovered that video gamers did amended connected some tasks, and that determination were importantly stronger fMRI signals successful video gamers successful the parts of their brains associated with analyzable functions, including attention, cue reactivity, memory, and integration of accusation — confirming their proposal that video games tin assistance bid and amended cognitive function. Interestingly, the fMRI scans besides showed that video gamers showed little enactment successful the occipital country of their brain, the portion liable for ocular processing, during the “n-back” representation test, which suggests that video gamers whitethorn person a much developed quality to unopen retired ocular distractions erstwhile they aren’t pertinent to the task astatine hand.

At the aforesaid time, the researchers besides pulled the information from the ABCD database connected behavioral wellness tests connected their 2 groups of subjects. And they recovered that the video gamers among this radical of 9- and 10-year-olds showed incrementally higher scores connected a fig of indicators of behavioral wellness issues, including attraction disorders, depression, assertive behavior, OCD, and stress. 

There are immoderate important limitations of this study. One large one, arsenic we spot with a batch of different research, is that it establishes a correlation betwixt video crippled playing and immoderate cognitive and behavioral indicators, but it doesn’t found a cause-and-effect relationship: It doesn’t archer america if video crippled playing causes these differences oregon if kids who already person these differences successful their cognitive and behavioral abilities are much drawn to video games. It’s besides a survey successful extremes: The participants either didn’t play video games astatine each oregon played an utmost amount; it tells america thing astir what’s going connected with kids successful the mediate of the range. Does an hr a week of video crippled playing person the aforesaid cognitive improvement effect arsenic 3 hours a day? Is determination a threshold wherever the cognitive and behavioral changes go important (assuming determination is simply a cause-effect relationship)?

The bully quality is that it’s leveraging a semipermanent study, which means the researchers volition beryllium capable to travel up with the aforesaid subjects implicit the adjacent respective years, repetition the tests, and spot whether determination are further changes. They volition besides beryllium capable to spot what happens to the brains and skills of kids who didn’t play video games astatine property 9 but started later, arsenic good arsenic those who were avid gamers astatine 9 but past quit.

Right now, though, this survey doesn’t springiness america a wide reply to the burning question: Is playing video games bully oregon atrocious for kids? It seems it whitethorn beryllium both, but determination is overmuch we inactive request to learn.

Association of Video Gaming With Cognitive Performance Among Children

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📸 Featured representation by jamesteohart/Shutterstock.com.

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