Katharina Buczek
Since video gaming reached mainstream popularity in the United States, the activity has long been a source of struggle between parents and children.
Heated debates over screen time’s effect on the physical and mental health of adolescents have pushed many parents to limit or disallow video games in the home.
Yet, a recently published study in Scientific Reports has claimed that video gaming may actually increase your child’s intelligence.
A team of researchers at Karolinska Institutet, located in Sweden, set out to understand the link between intelligence and video game screen time in American children.
Over nine thousand boys and girls from the United States participated in the two-year-long study.
First, at either nine or ten years old, the children were presented with an array of psychological tests meant to measure cognitive ability.
At this time, every child’s screen time was also reported– including time spent watching television, scrolling social media, and playing video games.
Then, two years later, the researchers followed up with about five thousand of the children. The participants were asked to take the same psychological tests again before the scientists could study their cognitive ability differences over time.
The researchers made sure to control for any genetic differences that may lead to impacted cognitive ability scores, as well as differences in familial socio-economic status.
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