Member-only story
Andy’s Quick Hits (223): Video Games Can Boost Children’s Intelligence
Well, this is not the answer many of us would expect and it goes against other logic of spending more time doing other things such as reading or socialising with friends (which the science also says is extremely beneficial to developing brains).
So, what did these researchers from the Karolinska institute in Sweden find and how did they find this?
The researchers around Bruno Sauce surveyed 5’000 children in the USA between the ages of nine and ten. They conducted a battery of tests, including cognitive and intelligence tests. Their parents were also asked about the children’s screen time and how much they spent on various activities. There was then a follow up 2 years later.
They found that those that spent most time on video games increased their intelligence by, on average, 2.5 points (or about 2.5%). There was no significant effect observed for TV or social media usage (positive or negative).
In case you’re interested, the average for these 5’000 children was 2.5 hrs of TV per day, half an hour on social media, and an hour playing video games. I imagine there was a large variation in that. Remember these were between the ages of nine and ten at the outset of the study.
