According to a new study of American children, not all screen activities are created equal. Rather than harming development, the practice of video games would have beneficial effects on intelligence.
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A excessive use screens is generally considered bad for children. However, this corresponds to a large number of activities nowadays, such as televisionthe social networksvideo games… In an article published in the journal Scientific Reportsa team of Swedish and Dutch researchers investigated the difference between these activities.
The researchers analyzed the results of the ABCD study in the United States in which children carry out tests (reading, comprehension, reasoning, etc.) and indicate the time spent in front of screens daily by type of activity. They retained data from just over 5,000 children, aged nine, who were followed up two years later; then, they created a score ofintelligence based on the results of five tasks.
The use of social networks would not have a negative effect on the development of intelligence
The researchers found that at age nine, children who watched the most videos or spent the most time on social media had below-average intelligence scores. The time spent on video games however, had no influence on this score. Two years later, the children’s scores increased by an average of 3.64 points. The results of those who spent the most time on videos or social networks increased similarly to the average score of all the children in the experiment. These activities would therefore not have a significant impact on the development of intelligence.
However, those who spent more time playing video games saw their intelligence score increase the most, gaining 2.55 points above the average. Torkel Klingberg, one of the authors of the article, warns that the study does not look at the activity physical, the sleep, well-being or school performance. ” But our results confirm that time spent in front of a screen generally does not alter cognitive abilities children and that playing video games can even help boost intelligence. »
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