We know that we are what we eat. But what about activities? How much do they affect our behavior, abilities, and goals? Many have heard of professional deformation, but what about leisure transformation? In this article, we will talk about computer games, cognitive science , the brain, and neuroscience . Are video games as harmful as is commonly believed?
What is cognitive ability?
Before moving on to video games, you need to decide on the object.
Cognitive abilities are all the processes by which sensory information is transformed, reduced, processed, stored, retrieved, and used.
“It is transformed” because the information coming from the outside world is perceived not passively, but actively, which changes the flow of this data itself.
In this transformation process, some information may be removed.
When we talk about storing and retrieving information, we mean memory . However, there is a difference between storing and retrieving, since the fact that information is stored does not guarantee that it will be retrieved later.
Utilization means putting previously processed information into practice, such as decision making or problem solving.
Our separate online program, called “Brain and Neuroscience,” is dedicated to cognitive abilities .
Dark side of the moon
The video game industry has had a strong influence on society for decades.
Video games are one of the most common leisure activities among children, teenagers and young adults in general. Across the planet, there is a growing number of people who spend a lot of time playing action video games such as Call of Duty.
The debate about the risks associated with video games has been going on since their introduction to the market. Video games have been perceived as evil, which:
- steals time;
- interferes with school performance;
- makes teenagers more violent.
The process of the so-called “Satanization” of video games began at the beginning of the 21st century, when the Western world was recovering from the shock of the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999.
It has been argued that violence in video games acts as an “aggressive cue” that is stored in the brain. In other words, it stores violent images as a basis for aggressive behavior . Thus, video games have become negatively associated with the non-cognitive skills of players.
In the early 21st century, much was written about the fact that non-cognitive skills have a positive impact on the development of cognitive skills [ F. Cunha, 2008 ]. Therefore, if violence in video games negatively affects children’s non-cognitive skills, it will also affect their cognitive skills.
The apotheosis of “Satanization” was the World Health Organization’s inclusion of video games as possible factors of diseases and addictions in its International Classification of Diseases of 2018. At that time, the WHO identified adolescents and young adult males aged 12 to 20 as the group of people most vulnerable to “gaming disorder.”
In addition to the craving for the joystick and console, the WHO report also mentioned other symptoms such as:
- antisocial behavior;
- poor anger management;
- severe anxiety;
- low self-esteem [ WHO, 2020 ].
In addition, the WHO classification raised concerns among parents about their children’s excessive preoccupation with gaming, as it suggested potential risks such as:
- poor academic performance;
- psychological problems;
- the risk of even being kicked out of school with a bad certificate.
In February 2022, when updating the list of diseases in the ICD-11, WHO for the first time included video game addiction in the section on mental health problems.
Video game use disorder is characterized by persistent or repetitive patterns of gaming behavior that can occur both online and offline. More and more parents are expressing concern about the hours young people spend in the virtual world and the possibility that this may have negative effects on their cognitive development, mental health , and behavior.
The position of science
However, every coin has two sides. It took scientists several decades to accumulate a sufficient clinical base that allowed them to put forward at least somewhat weighty hypotheses. As they used to say in ancient times, “a tale is soon told, but a deed is not soon done.”
We present the key scientific findings regarding the impact of video games on humans.
Scientists in the early 21st century were drawn to first- and/or third-person action video games for their research relevance, as players were required to:
- adjust your attention;
- process information;
- make decisions quickly.
Finally, an article published in the prestigious journal Nature in 2003 concluded that “action video games alter visual selective attention” [ C. Shawn Green, D. Bavelier, 2003 ].
Scientists have suggested that these characteristics may play an important role in the cognitive processes of players, so it is worth asking to what extent these video games are able to modify cognitive abilities.
Attention, cognition and thinking
Over the past decades, there has been increased interest in studying the effects of video games on various cognitive abilities, such as attention .
Two meta-analyses were conducted to examine both the cognitive profile of video game players and the effects of an intervention based on the use of this type of video game on various cognitive abilities.
The results of the first meta-analysis show that, in general, the cognitive abilities of regular gamers are superior to those of non-gamers [ B. Bediou, 2018 ].
However, average players do not excel equally in all the cognitive skills considered. They excel especially in tasks that require:
- cognitive skills of perception;
- spatial cognition;
- attentional processes controlled by humans (what is known in the literature as top-down processes).
For example, players are faster and more accurate at detecting relevant stimuli when presented with a set of distractors. Similarly, young adults who have acquired a taste for video games also excel at multitasking and inhibition skills.
Similar results were found in a second meta-analysis, in which the authors compared the effects of action video games on non-action-oriented people with the effects of other computer games, such as Tetris.
Although the overall effect was small, the results of the second meta-analysis confirmed that video game training can improve both spatial cognition and human-controlled attention processes.
Thus, the results of both studies demonstrate not only that there is a link between video games and the cognitive skills of regular gamers, but also that video games can improve the skills of those who normally avoid the joystick.
However, the authors caution that the effects found are limited and require studies with longer follow-up periods.
This raises the question of what practical consequences there are from playing action video games, as well as the level of generalization of cognitive skills trained through this type of video game [ D. Bavelier, 2016 ].
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Criticism of meta-analyses
While the literature supporting the potential of video games for cognitive learning appears promising, there is evidence that challenges the results published to date.
For example, a 2019 meta-analysis challenged the findings of previous studies by Benoit Bedou by reanalyzing his data using multiple methods to detect and correct for the original publication’s bias.
The authors of a 2019 paper found minimal evidence of effects of video game training on other cognitive abilities. Therefore, it is possible that there is no real benefit and that the positive results found in the original meta-analyses were a result of excluding null results. In other words, video games have been overrated [ J. Hilgard, 2019 ].
Another piece of evidence that challenges the literature in favor of video games as cognitive training is that results from several reviews suggest that this type of training only improves performance on tasks performed during gameplay [ G. Sala, 2017 ]
However, there does not appear to be strong evidence for generalizability to other areas, i.e. extrapolation. Thus, in other meta-analyses, researchers have found no evidence of a causal relationship between video game playing and improved cognitive abilities.
Video games and reading
But the researchers were interested in more than just thinking.
The works of Italian scientists led by Sandro Franceschini in 2013 and 2017 demonstrated that visual attention and reading speed in children with dyslexia improve after exposure to video games [ S. Franceschini, 2013 ], [ S. Franceschini, 2017 ].
Despite these promising results, caution must be exercised in drawing conclusions from this type of research, warn scientists from the University of Valencia in Spain.
While it is true that faster readers tend to score higher on reading comprehension tasks, this does not mean that video games actually improve players’ reading comprehension. Rather, they increase the speed of vocabulary access by improving attentional abilities.
However, understanding text requires higher-order cognitive processes (such as making connections between ideas in a text) that go far beyond quickly and accurately recognizing words, recalls evolutionary psychologist Inácio Mañez [ Ciencia Cognitiva, 2019 ].
Can video games really improve cognition?
Some video games are particularly cognitively demanding, for example, because they require players to maintain focused attention for long periods of time or make quick decisions. This has led to the hypothesis that regular video game play can improve cognitive and perceptual abilities.
The 2013 study, “Shooter and racing video games enhance top-down navigation in visual search,” is a great example of this line of research.
Even non-video gamers were found to improve their performance on the cognitive tasks assigned to them after just 10 hours of playing the console. There was no proportional benefit in the control group, suggesting that the improvements were due to the cognitive training provided by video games. These findings supported positive results from 2003 that showed the ability of video games to alter and improve visual skills.
The ability to train various cognitive skills simply by playing video games seems promising and could be extrapolated to other areas to find practical applications.
However, more convincing evidence is needed before concluding that learning through video games actually impacts performance on other cognitive tasks.
Today, this conclusion seems premature, given the existing publication bias, which entails the possible omission of insignificant results compared to positive and novel results. Much work remains to be done, requiring studies with better methodology and longer duration, with more participants and greater transparency of the data obtained, emphasizes Luna Peña Gutiérrez from the University of Granada [ Ciencia Cognitiva, 2022 ].
Video Games and Middle School Students
Previous research has focused on the effects of video games on adolescents, adults, and children learning to read.
More recently, a large-scale study was conducted in the United States on the habits of 10-year-old schoolchildren. This age group has been the least studied in previous studies.
Researchers at the University of Houston followed 160 students from a variety of urban public schools (70% from low-income families). The students reported playing an average of 2.5 hours a day, with the heaviest gamers in the group spending up to 4.5 hours each day.
The researchers looked for a link between video games and academic performance using a standardized cognitive ability test known as CogAT. It measures:
- verbal;
- quantitative;
- spatial skills.
The results of the study did not show a direct link between gaming and cognitive abilities, despite the fact that their presence was assumed.
CogAT was chosen as the standard measure, as opposed to teacher-reported assessments or self-assessments of learning, which previous research projects had been based on.
Overall, neither the duration of play nor the choice of game genres had a significant correlation with CogAT scores, according to the material, which was published in the Journal of Media Psychology [ M. Jadallah, 2022 ].
The study also found another side to the problem: It found that certain types of video games that improved cognitive function in adolescents did not have the same effect on much younger children.
What was definitely confirmed was that children were distracted from other, more productive activities, such as homework, which psychologists call bias. But even in these cases, the differences between participants and their peers on CogAT cognitive performance were small.
“The results of the study suggest that parents probably don’t need to worry so much about cognitive delays in children who enjoy video games. A reasonable amount of gaming appears to be a normal leisure activity, which is good news for children. But beware of obsession,” warned researcher Jie Zhang of the University of Houston.
According to him, in this area it is very important to find a balance between healthy play and the child’s development [ El Confidencial, 2023 ].
Movements and self-regulation
Another noteworthy study was published in the journal Healthcare in 2023.
Its authors demonstrated the positive impact of video games on attention, memory, executive function, and motor control skills. The scientists involved in this work suggested that playing video games could be a behavior that could enhance productivity, rather than simply reduce it.
It turns out that the length of gaming sessions affects productivity, but the frequency of gaming does not.
Longer sessions were associated with improvements in specific cognitive functions and motor control skills, leading the study authors to suggest that skills acquired during gaming can be transferred to other similar tasks, highlighting the importance of self-regulation in everyday life [ H. Ahn, 2023 ].
What if it’s simpler?
Scientific research is a field where millions of facts, arguments and hypotheses coincide or do not coincide. In order to obtain a consistent conclusion understandable to the average person, scientists and scientific journalists sometimes have to spend many years on this. And at any moment this conclusion can be refuted, which destroys to the ground the lovingly constructed pyramid of causality that the human brain loves so much.
In search of cause and effect, let us turn to the speech of the Mexican expert in the field of neuronal plasticity and neurobiology of learning and memory, Federico Bermudez Rattoni from the Institute of Cellular Physiology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He broke down the impact of video games on cognitive abilities “in detail” and, what is even more important, took responsibility for his words.
This scientist assumes that video games not only modify the brain, but also allow development in other areas that are necessary for personal development.
“It is not a passive activity, as is commonly believed, because we have to interact with what we see on TV. If I play football, I have to understand how to move to score a goal. If it is an action game, I have to analyze my actions before performing them so that my character does not die. Video games actively engage our brain, as well as other types of skills, such as audiovisual skills,” explains Bermúdez Rattoni [ UNAM, 2024 ].
By forcing our brain to work in this way, video games improve our central nervous system and attention. They increase our ability to process information and our ability to perceive.
Video games stimulate:
- Short-term memory (the ability to store and remember recent events).
- Working memory (the ability to store and remember recent events and to manipulate or transform this information for use).
- Episodic memory (that which refers to remembering places, emotions, context, and other details of life episodes).
All of these benefits occur because when we play video games, different areas of our brain are “turned on . ”
A study conducted by the Open University of Catalonia has shown that when we play on a console, the following areas are activated:
- frontoparietal network;
- anterior cingulate gyrus;
- ventromedial prefrontal cortex;
- entorhinal cortex;
- right hippocampus;
- orbitofrontal cortex;
- dorsolateral prefrontal cortex;
- occipito-parietal network.
By keeping us engaged in this way, video games help improve cognitive functions such as attention, perception and memory, as well as executive functions.
Although video games have been correlated with improvements in various mental processes, Bermudez Rattoni clarified that the changes are not that radical: “The benefits are obvious, but it does not mean that by playing video games I will become super smart. Of course, it will give me the opportunity to develop in other areas, such as technology or programming.”
Online video games can not only help develop creativity and make better decisions. When combined with other activities, they can promote teamwork and communication, and encourage young people to demonstrate leadership skills .
Although the various studies conducted on this topic are very encouraging, in order to be able to better assess the effects of video games, Bermudez Rattoni called for taking into account the following variables:
- age range of players;
- choosing a specific video game;
- time spent on the console;
- information about whether a person was less sociable before playing video games.
This way we can avoid falling into extremes, i.e. considering video games only good or, otherwise, only bad.
A Mexican scientist asks that if they were so terrible, how would they find use in some areas of medicine?
For example, video games are used in neurorehabilitation. Some people who have suffered a traumatic brain injury have problems with motor skills, such as grip or hand mobility. By stimulating their work with video games, patients are able to significantly improve their seemingly lost skills.
Similarly, video games have been used to combat cognitive decline, improve performance in people with multiple sclerosis, and treat dyslexia.
They have also become a tool for treating patients with spinal cord injuries and for “virtual anesthesia,” a form of distraction therapy during pediatric surgical procedures (such as dental ones).
To summarize Bermudez Rattoni’s theses, it turns out that:
- Video games, used wisely, can benefit social and cognitive development.
- Interacting with video games stimulates a variety of brain skills and functions.
- Online video games develop social skills such as teamwork and leadership.
- To assess the benefits of video games on cognitive development, specific variables need to be taken into account.
- Video games have practical applications in the field of medicine, for example in neurorehabilitation and the treatment of various diseases [ UNAM, 2024 ].
Bermudez Rattoni’s compatriots have compiled a whole list of cognitive abilities that, in their opinion, are positively influenced by computer games.
Here it is:
- Critical Thinking [ Cl. M. Mejía Ramírez, 2015 ].
- Logical thinking [ L. Peñalva, 2009 ].
- Digital literacy [ R. Casado, 2006 ].
- Creativity [ Jackson, 2012 ].
- The game is a means by which the subject learns to live and develop in society. According to this logic, video games are agents that transmit content, reinforce values, relationships, and norms of social control.
Those who want to develop the above mentioned types of thinking without the use of video games can enroll in our online program “Cognitive Science: Thinking Development” .
In Europe, David Carbajal from the Polytechnic University of Madrid is actively promoting the approach to video games as a means of developing cognitive abilities.
He insists that the evil some people see in video games comes from people themselves. In other words, it’s a case of reversing cause and effect.
“If someone reads Shakespeare or Edgar Allan Poe (to give two famous examples), no one would say that it is harmful a priori. On the other hand, if that person does not read anything else or does almost nothing else in his life, if he begins to obsess over the works of these authors, their plots, their characters or the drama they entail, for some mentally unstable people this can be fatal,” recalls Carbajal [ E-Politécnica, 2024 ].
According to his concept:
- Any video game, even a commercial one, can be used for educational purposes.
- Video games are a highly effective learning tool due to their high level of motivation and direct interaction with the concepts being taught.
- In adolescents and young adults, video games increase interest in learning, promote the development of specific skills (both social and personal development, as well as reasoning or problem solving), enable the development of various cross-cutting areas of the curriculum, and strengthen self-esteem .
- In older people, video games help slow down the deterioration of vision, memory and concentration [ E-Politécnica, 2024 ].
Carbajal does not hide the fact that for him, video games are not only an object of scientific interest, but also a favorite pastime. In this regard, his position can be characterized as biased. This version is supported by the fact that his key work “The Role of Video Games in Cognitive Development” was published at an international conference back in 2014, long before the WHO report on “gaming disorders” was released [ V Congreso Internacional de Investigadores Audiovisuales, 2014 ].
Results
In the modern world, the attitude towards video games is developing along roughly the same path that weapons once took. From a handy means of obtaining food, it has turned into a socially dangerous object, the use and storage of which is regulated by many state and medical acts.
The results of several decades of research are beginning to clarify the potential effects and consequences of using action video games as a tool for training various cognitive skills and, overall, the outlook is positive.
Despite the beneficial effects of video games on some cognitive skills, the negative effects that can result from excessive video game playing in general should not be ignored, as they can cause psychosocial problems such as isolation or difficulty distinguishing between fiction and reality.
Video games have cognitive effects on people who interact with them, whether they are experienced players or amateurs. Cognitive benefits are evident in a variety of basic and higher skills and processes.
However, further research needs to be done to assess whether the effects are short-term, medium-term or long-term, whether they are distributed equally and uniformly in each person or, on the contrary, whether there are individual differences in terms of the acquisition and duration of these cognitive effects due to age, gender, level of education, profession, etc.
So in the short term, you can treat video games like Grandpa’s double-barreled shotgun: protect your little ones from them by instilling a sense of proportion and showing them the diversity of colors in the world beyond video games. However, when your little ones grow up and become adults, respect their wishes, choices, and right to view video games as one of many tools for developing cognitive abilities.