Children today spend more and more of their free time playing video games. Guardians are many times worried that this type of diversion will be hurtful to their kids, and they look for clarity from researchers and clinicians.
There has been a lot of research done on the connection between children’s emotional, social, and cognitive development and playing video games. However, some of the findings have been contradictory.
It is known that adults’ cognition improves when they play certain kinds of video games, known as action games. Adults who play these particular games show improvements in aspects like attention, memory, and visual perception.
Kids have not been concentrated as frequently as grown-ups, and the impacts of gaming on their creating minds are not known. Despite this, they frequently suggested to parents to limit the time their children spend gaming each day.
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A brand-new exploratory study sought to determine if the nature and frequency of video gaming among children under the age of 12 have any impact on cognitive ability. Their findings, which were published in the Journal of Media Psychology, challenge the warnings that parents have been given for years that children who play video games for long periods of time or choose games in particular genres will develop cognitively in unhealthy ways.
A member of the research team and associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Houston College of Education, Jie Zhang, stated, “Our studies turned up no such links, regardless of how long the children played and what types of games they chose.”
According to Study:
The researchers looked at the gaming habits of 160 urban public-school preteens (70 percent from lower-income families), an age group that hasn’t been studied much before. Students who took part in the study took a standardized Cognitive Ability Test 7, also known as the CogAT, and reported how much time they spent playing video games each day.
The members detailed playing computer games for a normal of 2.5 hours every day, with the gathering’s heaviest gamers placing in as much as 4.5 hours every day. However, the child’s cognitive development was unaffected by the gaming time, according to the researchers. In addition, there was no correlation found between differences in cognitive ability and the content of the video games.
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Overall, there were no significant correlations between the CogAT measures and playtime or genre preference. According to May Jadalla, the principal investigator of the study and a professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University, “that result shows no direct linkage between video game playing and cognitive performance, contrary to what had been assumed.”
However, the study also revealed a different aspect of the problem. On the cognitive tests, children who played the kinds of games that are said to help build healthy cognitive skills did not do better. Despite the game’s marketing claims, playing these games had no discernible impact on cognitive function.
According to C. Shawn Green, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “the current study found results that are consistent with previous research showing that types of gameplay that appear to augment cognitive functions in young adults don’t have the same impact in much younger children.”
Do these findings imply that children are free to play on? Maybe, from the point of view of cognitive growth. Experts, on the other hand, warn that gaming can have more serious repercussions in other areas of life.
Children, for instance, are diverted from other, more productive activities like playing sports, doing homework, or spending time with friends and family. Even if a child’s innate cognitive abilities are unaffected, excessive gaming can result in social isolation and poor academic performance.
“The findings of the study indicate that, up until the fifth grade, parents probably do not need to be as concerned about cognitive setbacks among video game-loving children. It should be okay to play video games for a reasonable amount, which will be great news for the kids.
Just be on the lookout for obsessive behavior, Zhang advised. Finding common ground between parents and young children regarding video games is already difficult. At least now we know that the key is finding a balance in childhood development, so there’s no need to worry too much about video games.
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