There have been concerns about the potential adverse effects of video gaming since the advent of video games. Some of those concerns are legitimate, and there is evidence that excessive screen time of any kind can be detrimental in a few ways.
However, there are also significant potential benefits to gaming, and the results of one recent study may ease the minds of parents who fear their kids are spending too much time with a controller in hand.
Specifically, the data shows boosts to IQ and to some specific academic skills in kids who spend more time gaming.
Video Games & Reading Comprehension
It’s been more than two decades since I first told one of my children that playing Pokémon would be easier when they could read. Instead of guessing at the prompts or asking an adult, they’d be able to read such details as attack types, the effects of items, and in-game dialogue instructing them of the next task.
Since then, I’ve watched my kids learn new words from game dialogue, and I’ve seen how it can influence vocabulary, from oddities like using the words “items” or “inventory” to refer to one’s possessions, to picking up new words and ideas.
According to the conclusions published in Nature, what I witnessed with my kids falls right in line with what a study of nearly 10k kids in the U.S. observed.
The tasks kids were tested on included vocabulary comprehension and oral reading, as well as verbal learning. The study examined kids at two points two years apart, and found that those who spent more of their screen time gaming had a greater increase in their scores over the period.
Gaming & Spatial Awareness
If you’ve ever taken an IQ test, you’ll know that they typically weigh spatial reasoning fairly heavily. This may include pattern recognition, abstract thought in the form of visualizing a 3D shape from different angles, and map-reading, among other tasks.
It’s not hard at all to understand why gaming has positive effects on these skills. Many of the most popular games today feature open worlds and complex maps, orienting oneself in a virtual world or manipulating objects and elements in 3D space.
While the link from video games to spatial awareness is clear, there’s another meaningful connection here. The authors of the study note that spatial awareness has a significant effect on math skills, so it’s not just that kids are more likely to score higher on an IQ test. These gains can translate directly to classroom improvement and to real-life use.
What The Study Skipped Matters Too
The study examined the effects of gaming, media watching, and socializing through screens. (The numbers showed that kids who spent more time watching videos or socializing online had lower baseline scores but no significant change over the 2 years, while gaming showed a slight increase in intelligence over the same time.)
However, the study only looked at the effects of these activities on cognitive function, leaving out other important factors, according to Neuroscience News.
“We didn’t examine the effects of screen behavior on physical activity, sleep, well-being or school performance, so we can’t say anything about that,” says Torkel Klingberg, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.
We do have other data indicating that too much screen time has adverse effects on mental health, and we know that screens close to bedtime interfere with circadian rhythms.
The study also didn’t examine different types of gaming. The available games now may include first-person shooters, games like Minecraft and Roblox that encourage creative building, and games like the Zelda franchise that are packed with puzzles, among others. It’s also relevant to consider the safety factor between games that are offline (increasingly fewer options) and games that have unmoderated chat functions.
What’s The Takeaway For Parents?
This study doesn’t suggest we should let our kids have unlimited screen time as long as they’re spending it on video games instead of social media, but it does indicate that we can tone down the panic at least a little.
Your most impactful action is ongoing involvement.
That means knowing the titles of the games your child plays and being aware of the content. (You can decide for your family whether violence and mature content are allowed or banned, but that decision starts with knowing the content.)
You should also know whether your child’s online games involve cooperative play and open chat. While these functions can teach valuable teambuilding lessons, they can also make children vulnerable to adults with bad intentions. If you allow these games, you may prefer to have them played in a common area of your home for better supervision.
The ‘right’ limits on gaming will vary from family to family, and potentially even between individual children, but one good metric is to make sure that your child is getting their offline needs fulfilled, including sufficient sleep, in-persion social interaction, and physical activity.