Video Games and Cognitive Ability

The Wall Street Journal has published an article by Julie Jargon that asserts, “Gaming has cognitive benefits when teenagers and young adults play in moderation, though gamers who take it to an extreme perform worse in some tasks.” Jargon’s reporting is based on a meta-analysis of a decade’s worth of gaming’s effects by Alho, Kimmo, Moisala, Mona, and Salmela-Aro, Katariina in the journal European Psychologist.

Jargon adds, “Some studies also found gamers to have a higher volume of gray matter, the outer layer of the brain that processes information,” but also notes that viewing the kinds of fast-paced, action-packed videos often found on TikTok and related platforms “have been linked to shortened attention spans, and toggling between devices and apps has been proven to cause bottlenecks in the brain.”

Clearly, moderation is the key. Like so many things in life, going overboard is not a good idea and, in this case, can lead to a lack of ideas altogether. You can access Jargon’s article here: