Research: Ten-year-olds get smarter from heavy gaming

In a study of more than 2,000 participants, psychologists found that 9-year-olds and 10-year-olds who spent more than 21 hours per week gaming outperformed their peers who did not play video games on two key intelligence traits: working memory and self-control.

Educators turn out to be wrong

These results of the study contradict pedagogical advice from, for example, the American Academy of Pediatrics organization. They recommend a maximum of 1 hour of video games on school days and a maximum of 2 hours of video games on days off.

The study also looked at whether there were changes in children’s behavior and cognitive functions as a result of gaming. Previous studies found that heavy gamers were slightly more aggressive, more likely to be depressed, and more violent. However, the same studies also found that these heavy gamers outperformed other children in traits of intelligence.

Greater self-control and better working memory

Remarkably, this did not appear from this new, much larger, study. in this study two things were measured, self-control via the Stop-Signal Task (SST) and working memory via the N-Back task. Both cognitive measures were performed while the test subjects sat in an fMRI brain scanner. the games did not outweigh gamers by about 5-10%. Their brains also showed higher activity in the areas of the brain that deal with attention and memory, and in the frontal cortex.

Both gamers and non-gamers had the same age, BMI and IQ. Despite this, the gamers were much more likely than average to be male and had lower-income parents. They even outperformed non-gaming children of high-income parents. Remarkable, because in general children of wealthy parents score higher on cognitive skills tests than children of poor parents.

One last critical note

The study has only just started, so it is not known how the children will develop further. The study also did not examine what kind of games the gaming children played. It is also possible that some form of selection took place, for example because more intelligent children may be more attracted to games than other children, which distorts the picture. If you really want to know the ins and outs, read the research critically.