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The unending debate as to whether video gamers are good or bad for someone has been going on for years.
Now, a new study has given us a clearer answer and found that playing video games as a kid actually makes you smarter as an adult!
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No matter how much we try to fight it, video games have always been given a bad name. But in this new day and age, video games have become an educational source in multiple ways, and even helps improve hand-eye co-ordination and serve as a viable way to interact and socialise online.
A new research published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience has shared it’s findings which revealed that children who played video games showed an increased sign of intelligence growing up, compared to those who didn’t.
The study that took place at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, in Barcelona, Spain, involved 27 people between the ages of 18 and 40. The selected group was comprised of people who had previously played video games in earlier life and those who had never touched them.
Each were “made to play 1.5 hours each day for 10 consecutive days, then straight after their training period, and 15 days after they’d stopped gaming, to measure cognitive skills,” UNILAD reported.
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The game that was selected for the group to play was the classic Super Mario 64 – a puzzle-type 3D platformer that has previously been used to show correlation with structural changes in the human brain.
While the group played Mario, the researchers closely monitored their subjects. One group underwent “transcranial magnetic stimulations” in order to see if the non-invasive brain stimulation technique would improve their video game playing skills.
Prior to the hours of game training, the participants were performing at different levels, but after the 1.5 hours of 10-day sessions were over, both groups appeared to have improved their gameplay skills – which happens after they play a particular title repeatedly.
Taking age and gender out of the equation, the researchers discovered that those who had grown up playing video games were far better at the working memory tasks than those who didn’t.
The study showed that prior gamers appeared to have an edge in puzzle solving and mind work – having played earlier in their lives appeared have given the participants long-lasting benefits.
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“People who were avid gamers before adolescence, despite no longer playing, performed better with the working memory tasks, which require mentally holding and manipulating information to get a result,” said Marc Palaus, a PhD researcher at UOC.
“People who played regularly as children performed better from the outset in processing #D objects, although these differences were mitigated after the period of training in video gaming, when both groups showed similar levels,” he added.
The study’s finding however does have its limitations, the researchers admitted. They shared that the findings may not necessarily apply to tasks outside of the digital world, but they believe that other non-gaming activities could offer similar results.
“Despite not achieving the desired effects of the stimulation, our results, although exploratory, provide valuable information regarding the limitations of stimulating healthy brains and the possible beneficial effects of exposure to video games,” the study read.
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So, the next time your mum or dad tells you to “stop playing video games and do something”, you can show them this research and tell them you’re just working on your “memory tasks”.
Share this with your friends and family who have always given you grief over playing video games!
Info via UNILAD