Remember when mums said video games would rot our brains?
Children play a video game called League Of Legends during a game tactics class at the NGO AfroReggae headquarters of the Vigario Geral favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A large new US study published in JAMA Network Open on Oct 24 indicates there may be cognitive benefits associated with the popular pastime. — AFPParents often worry about the harmful impacts of video games on their children, from mental health and social problems to missing out on exercise.
These studies were however limited by their relatively small number of participants, particularly those involving brain imaging, said Charaani. This threshold was chosen as it exceeds the American Academy of Pediatrics screen time guidelines of one or two hours of video games for older children.The first involved seeing arrows pointing left or right, with the children asked to press left or right as fast as they could.
After using statistical methods to control for variables that could skew results, such as parental income, IQ, and mental health symptoms, the team found the video gamers performed consistently better on both tasks. Right now it’s not possible to know whether better cognitive performance drives more gaming, or is its result, said Chaarani.