Screen time of any kind is generally believed to have a negative influence on a child’s development, but a new study from a team of European researchers presents a strikingly different case, showcasing evidence that playing video games can actually boost a child’s intelligence.

Despite decades of research on the effects of television or video games on adolescent development, the digital landscape of the past decade has radically reshaped a child’s relationship with screens. That means screen time now covers a whole host of different activities, including socializing with friends on smartphone apps, watching TV, playing video games, and even doing schoolwork on a laptop.

In recent years, researchers have begun to focus on specific types of screen time and how they influence a variety of outcomes in children. The heterogeneous nature of digital screen usage in the 21st century has made it impossible to simply say that all screen time is bad.

The very specific objective of this new research was therefore to study the relationship between the use of video games and intelligence. To assess the admittedly abstract metric of “intelligence,” the researchers first took into account socioeconomic background and the presence of intelligence-related genes.

“For our study, we created an intelligence index from five tasks: two on reading comprehension and vocabulary, one on attention and executive function (which includes working memory, flexible thinking and self-control), one assessing visuo-spatial processing (like rotating objects in your mind), and one on learning ability over multiple trials,” explain Torkel Klingberg and Bruno Sauce, two of the researchers working on the study.

About 5,000 children were followed for two years. Aged between nine and 10 at the start, participants completed cognitive tests at the start and end of the study. Screen time was self-reported and divided into three categories: watching, socializing and playing.

At the start of the study, the researchers detected no association between time spent gaming and below- or above-average intelligence. Interestingly, however, high levels of TV and video viewing, or online socializing, were slightly related to lower levels of intelligence at baseline. After two years, the follow-up results were even more surprising.

“While children who played more video games at age 10 were on average no smarter than children who did not play games, they showed the most intelligence gains after two years, in both boys and girls. daughters,” write Klingberg and Sauce. “For example, a child who was in the top 17 percent in terms of hours spent playing increased their IQ about 2.5 points more than the average child over two years.”

At follow-up, social media use was not associated with any change in intelligence, but watching television or online videos might be linked to a small increase in intelligence. The researchers note that this increase was too small to be statistically significant.

Klingberg is careful to point out the limitations of his team’s findings. The focus of the study was narrow, looking at only a few measures of intelligence. This study therefore cannot suggest that these types of screen time have no impact on other important factors such as sleep, school performance or physical activity.

“But our results support the claim that screen time does not generally impair children’s cognitive abilities and that playing video games may in fact help boost intelligence,” Klingberg added. “This is consistent with several experimental studies on video gaming.”

Another limitation of the study is the way in which all forms of video game use were grouped into a homogeneous whole, from smartphone games to console first-person shooters. It is therefore unclear whether certain types of video games confer cognitive advantages over others.

The findings certainly fit in with a growing body of research uncovering certain benefits for children in different types of screen time. A study from last year found a compelling correlation between video game use and increased mental well-being, while another recent study found a link between time spent on social media apps. and larger friendship groups among children.

Of course, not all of these findings suggest that it’s healthy for children to have unlimited amounts of screen time. But they highlight the complexity of the screen time problem and indicate that not all screen use can be harmful.

“Our results should not be taken as a blanket recommendation for all parents to allow unlimited play,” conclude Klingberg and Sauce. “But for parents embarrassed about their kids playing video games, you can now feel better knowing it’s probably making them a little smarter.”

Sources: Karolinska Institute, The conversation