Video games not harmful to kids’ cognitive abilities, exploratory study finds

Video game playing caused no harm in children’s cognitive abilities, according to the results of a small exploratory study published in the Journal of Media Psychology.

The findings were published on the heels of JAMA Network Open study last October that showed children who played video games exhibited better cognitive function than those who did not. Other studies have reported negative associations.

May JadAllah, PhD, a professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University, told Healio that her team was interested in creating an educational intervention “that has the potential to increase ... 4th and 5th grade students’ spatial skills.”

“These skills are the ones children develop when they learn geometry, work with maps, are physically active in large spatial surroundings like walking in the neighborhood, or are involved in sewing or carpentry projects among other activities,” JadAllah said. “In the process, we learned that active video game playing, especially first shooter games, has clear and significant impact on adults’ spatial, response speed, and attention functions. We wanted to find out if the same results apply to children.”

JadAllah and colleagues worked with seven 5th grade classes in three public schools for a total of 160 children, comprising 78 boys and 82 girls. The children completed a cognitive ability test, which measured verbal ability, quantitative ability and spatial ability, as well as a separate survey on their gaming behavior.

The researchers found that on average, children played about 2.5 hours of video games per day. Child-themed games were the most commonly played genre at 24.4%. The second most played genre was sports and driving games at 17.7%, followed by action role-playing game/adventure such as Grand Theft Auto at 16.5% and action video games (AVGs) or a variety of first shooter games, at 13.4%.

Overall results showed no correlation between playing video games and cognitive ability performance. When children were grouped as heavy players (playing an average of 4.5 hours per day) and non-heavy players (playing an average of 1.2 hours per day), no significant differences were found between students in their cognitive ability.

JadAllah said the results were surprising “at first.”

“In some respect, we expected that our results would align with the AVG results that were obtained from numerous studies over a span of 20 years indicating [the] positive impact of AVG on certain cognitive functions of adult players,” JadAllah said. “However, simultaneously, we were uncertain due to a displacement hypothesis that points out that video gaming behavior takes children away from other cognitive activities, such as reading books for example, that can contribute positively to their academic performance.”

She added that finding “no association between duration of playing video games and the game genre on children’s performance on a cognitive ability test” was surprising.

“The results seem to point out that there are two factors canceling each other,” JadAllah said. “The decline in academic performance due to time spent away from completing homework is possibly canceled out by the benefits gained from playing action, or a variety of, video games.”

JadAllah did caution that the study is exploratory and that its results should not be assumed to be “hard facts.”

“The fact that we found no association between the duration of playing video games and game genre on cognitive ability does not absolve parents from setting time limits on how long children play games or the types of games children play,” JadAllah said. “Certain games are not rated for children and as such should not be played by them. However, a sample of students who we worked with were playing such games.”

JadAllah and her team are interested in undertaking future research calculating the correlation between paper-based cognitive ability tests that are typically used by school districts with screen-based tests that measure speed and accuracy, which are typically used by researchers conducting AVG studies, as well as creating a new classifying scheme for games that heighten special skills.

“[We would like to] design future studies that explore other factors, including more accurate measures of time children spend playing video games, life experiences, economic conditions, family structure, family size, child order, and adult supervision,” JadAllah said. “Each of these factors can potentially change, together with other factors impacting the amount and type of video games played by children.”

She added that as the landscape of video games continues to evolve, gaming mechanics and genres remain in flux.

“Similarly, children’s gravitation toward games as well as parental permissions to use handheld devices also continues to change,” JadAllah said. “This is why continuous studies need to emerge to provide caregivers with the best advice possible.”

References:

• JadAllah M, et al. J Media Psychol. 2022;doi:10.1027/1864-1105/a000364.
• Study finds video game playing causes no harm to young children’s cognitive abilities. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/979030. Published Feb. 7, 2023. Accessed Feb. 14, 2023.