Should Children Be Banned From Playing Video Games?
Excessive interest in computer games can harm the mental health of the child. But as recent research shows, they can also improve children’s cognitive abilities.
The average adult spends about seven hours in front of gadget screens, children and teenagers spend four to six hours. In addition to working at a computer, people watch TV or video on a smartphone, read e-books, communicate in social networks, play a console. For many, gaming becomes a profession: some develop video games, while others compete with each other for prizes of several million dollars.
But, despite the prevalence of gadgets and games, they are treated with caution in society. According to VTsIOM polls, more than half of Russians, primarily people over 60, have a negative perception of gamer relatives. 58% of respondents are convinced that such a hobby harms a person, including a negative impact on his psyche and cognitive skills. Especially a lot of controversy causes children’s love for computer games.
However, contrary to fears, they are not as harmful to the child as some believe. Over the past six months, at least two studies have been published that show that video games not only do not impair children’s thinking skills, but, on the contrary, can stimulate their development.
What Scientists Have Found
Both scientific articles that will be discussed are based on data obtained in the framework of the ABCD study (Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development, English “development of the brain and cognitive abilities in adolescents”). It was launched in 2015 in the USA. In total, more than 11,000 children aged nine and over take part in it, more than 2,000 of them are twins or triplets. Scientists plan to monitor how their brain changes for at least ten years. They also want to find out how factors ranging from hobbies and sleep patterns to genetics and smoking can affect adolescents’ cognitive and social development. To do this, children and their parents are interviewed every three to six months, and once a year or two they are asked to take tests, participate in experiments and do brain scans.
First study
One of the papers that analyzed the interim results of ABCD was published in May in the journal Scientific Reports. Scientists from the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden analyzed how computer games and mental skills of teenagers are connected. They studied data from children when they were nine to ten years old and 11 to 12 years old. In the first sample there were 9855 respondents, in the second - only 5374, because not all ABCD results have been collected and processed yet.
Scientists note that not any interaction with gadgets is useful for the development of the child. In particular, they point out that according to the results of previous experiments, long-term TV viewing or hanging on social networks are not associated with the level of intelligence, while the love of video games, on the contrary, correlates with it. As part of their study, the scientists tested whether this is true for the data collected under the ABCD.
They developed a special index that compared children’s thinking skills based on how much time they spent on gadgets and how well they did on five tasks. Among them were tasks on understanding the meaning of the text and knowledge of words, on the ability to learn and attention, on the level of visual-spatial perception and executive functions (for example, self-control, memory and cognitive flexibility - the ability to switch from one thought to another). In order to get accurate conclusions, in the statistical analysis of the information, they adjusted for genetic and socioeconomic factors, which determine more than half of a person’s cognitive development.
The study showed that the intelligence of boys and girls who liked to play video games at age nine or ten was higher at age 11 or 12 than that of their peers with other hobbies. For example, the IQ of a child in the top 17% of gamers increased 2.5 points more than other children over time. But watching social networks or TV did not affect the mental abilities of young respondents in any way: they did not improve from this, but they did not worsen either.
Second study
Another article on how video games affect intelligence was published in October in the journal JAMA Pediatrics by scientists from the University of Vermont. They analyzed the MRI results of more than 2,000 children aged nine to ten. The data was collected within the ABCD. Tomography was done while young respondents were solving two types of tasks: the ability to control impulsive behavior and remember information. So scientists saw which areas of the brain and how strongly they were activated.
The children were divided into two groups: those who played the computer for more than 21 hours a week, and those who did not do it at all. The researchers found that gamers completed tasks almost twice as fast and made fewer mistakes than children who did not play video games. In addition, parts of the brain associated with attention, memory and other cognitive skills (precuneus, as well as parts of the prefrontal and occipital cortex) were more activated. At the same time, the areas responsible for vision were not included in the work as much as those who did not play at all.
Scientists suggest that this is because the actions that need to be performed during the game, such as quickly reacting to an opponent who suddenly appears, help develop skills that are also necessary for solving life’s problems. And the visual cortex, they believe, learns to operate so efficiently during play that the brain eventually doesn’t need to activate it to its full capacity.
How to apply these findings in life
While a growing body of research shows that video games are good for the mental development of children and teens, that doesn’t mean that parents shouldn’t limit the hobby in any way. There are at least three reasons for this.
- A number of data indicate that excessive involvement in computer games, especially violent ones, can adversely affect the mental health of adolescents. In particular, increase the likelihood of depression and aggressive behavior. However, scientists from the University of Vermont did not find such a connection in their study. Therefore, more data will need to be collected before drawing final conclusions.
- Scientists don’t yet know which genres of games improve children’s cognitive skills. Perhaps only some of them have such an effect, while others, on the contrary, do not affect intelligence in any way.
- It is not known whether games really stimulate the development of mental abilities. There is a possibility that children with higher intelligence are attracted to gaming for some reason. More experiments are needed to find out whether there is a causal relationship between the level of cognitive skills and the passion for computer games.
Until there are consistent scientific results, one should be guided by the recommendations of doctors. For example, experts from the American Academy of Pediatrics advise limiting computer time to two hours for schoolchildren and an hour for preschoolers. The recommendations of Rospotrebnadzor are more stringent: no more than 30-60 minutes a day.
If you think your child spends too much time on the computer, talk to him about it. Psychologists advise not to ban video games altogether, but to agree on certain rules and always follow them. For example, you can play for an hour and a half in the evening if all the lessons are done. Also discuss the sanctions - what will happen if you violate the established regime. Argument your position with the opinion of doctors or scientists, so the child will understand that you are not just finding fault, but you are worried about his health.