*A new study links more playing time to children's intelligence, * which partly refutes the claim that games are bad for young people's minds. Although the difference in cognitive ability is small enough to show causality, it is enough to attract attention - and the study carefully considered various variables, including differences in genetics and children's socio-economic background.
At the same time, watching TV and using social media do not seem to have a positive or negative impact on intelligence. This research should prove useful in the debate about how much screen time is suitable for young minds. "Digital media defines modern childhood, but its impact on cognition is unclear and hotly debated," the researchers wrote in their paper.
The researchers looked at the screen time records of 9855 children in the ABCD study, all in the United States, aged 9 or 10. On average, these teenagers reported that they spent 2.5 hours a day watching TV or online video, 1 hour playing video games and half an hour socializing through the Internet.
The researchers then interviewed data on more than 5000 of these children two years later. During this time, those in the study who reported spending more time on video games than the standard time had an IQ 2.5 points higher than the average.
The improvement in IQ is based on children's performance in tasks, including reading comprehension, visuospatial processing, and a task focusing on memory, flexible thinking and self-control.
It is worth noting that although this study only investigated American children and did not distinguish between the types of video games (mobile games and console games), it is still a valuable insight into games and IQ - and supports the idea that intelligence is not a fixed constant that we are born with.
Torkel Klingberg, a neuroscientist at Karolinska college in Sweden, said: "our results support the claim that screen time generally does not damage children's cognitive ability, and playing video games can actually help improve intelligence.