How Do Video Games Affect the Brain?

The average 11-14 year-old American spends ten hours a week playing video games. Boys play about twice as much as girls. What does all this screen time do to our children, especially our sons?

1. Sharpening perception. People who play video games improve the ability to notice events and objects at the edge of the screen, not just the center. They also develop their ability to distinguish subtle differences in shading.

2. Seeing 3-D objects in 2-D. Video gamers tend to be more adept than non-gamers at mentally manipulating 2-D representations of 3-D objects. That is, they can figure out what they’ll see when they turn a corner, or how a building or village might look from the top. This could be important, as being good at spatial perception correlates with being better able to understand such subjects as physics and engineering But do these spatial skills develop as a result of playing games, or do people with good 3D visualization skills play more because they have a competitive advantage? We don’t know.

3. Boosting intelligence. Most intriguing of all, there’s some evidence video or computer-based memory training can increase intelligence. Games that require the player to hold several images or bits of information in mind at once may build the holding power of short-term memory. This matters because it makes thinking easier. The better your short-term memory – the less effort you have to spend to hold thoughts in mind – the more fluid and efficient your reasoning will be.

4. Sagging grades. This point might seem to contradict the one above, but most games aren’t set up to make kids think hard. They’re pure entertainment, and we know that long hours spent gaming are associated with lower school performance. Time spent crouched in front of the screen is time not spent doing homework, reading, or talking with adults.

5. Getting weighed down. Heavy gamers tend to be heavy children. Are overweight, unathletic kids drawn to the excitement of video games, where they can be heroic daredevils without budging more than their thumbs? Or does sedentary entertainment lure active kids into a couch potato lifestyle where they stop burning off the calories? Sitting in front of the screen, snacking and waving a controller, is no way to keep fit.

Game creators have responded to this concern by developing movement-associated games, such as Nintendo Wii. Can swinging an imaginary tennis racket truly substitute for playing on a real team, learning to ski cross country, climbing a tree, or going on a nature hike?

6. Turning into Mr. Hyde. Of greatest concern to researchers and parents alike is the fear that violent games may lead to violent behavior. This fear has led to a ban on selling the most violent games to minors in California, a ban recently challenged in the Supreme Court as a First Amendment issue. The fear is well founded. Playing video games in which one character willfully hurts another can lead in a period of weeks to more acts of aggression among young players. Players are more likely to start hitting, kicking, and biting.

Brain scans show that as a player reacts to a violent game scenario on screen, both decision-making and emotional centers in the brain light up. But among frequent gamers, the brightness in the emotional centers quickly fades. Apparently, frequent gamers develop the ability to suppress an emotional reaction to violence. They’re desensitized.

In the midst of this accumulating evidence, what’s a parent to do? First, parents should strictly limit violent games, especially among younger (pre-teen) children. Any evidence of increased aggressive behavior should make a parent shut off the games entirely, not as punishment but as treatment for a negative effect on their children’s brains.

Beyond minimizing violence, the most important considerations are variety and dose. Kids who play video games should include movement-based games that keep them physically active, along with interactive games that ask them to cooperate with others and think hard. Parents and kids can join together in games that require movement and mental effort.

Most of all, parents should not let video games crowd out other activities, such as reading, playing sports or exploring outdoors, doodling with color on paper, jamming in the basement with friends, or plain old daydreaming. While video games carry some potential benefits, all of us benefit from more time with nature, books, friends, and the company of our own imaginations.

Boys and reading

Why do boys read less well than girls and what should we do about it? In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, publisher Thomas Spence argues that the problem is the amount of time boys spend on video games, and that our response to the problem is completely wrong-headed. His title pretty much says it all: "How to Raise Boys Who Read. Hint: Not with gross-out books and video-game bribes."

Spence objects strongly to the reasoning embraced by many publishers, writers, teachers, and parents--reasoning which says that boys don't enjoy classic books, and that to entice them into reading we need to "meet them where they are" by providing gross, vulgar entertainment at their level. Their level seems to mean Captain Underpants, books about farting and butts, and a series of books on "grossology."

Spence argues that education is meant to civilize. These books prepare boys to be boorish idiots rather than good husbands and fathers. Besides, the effort to bribe the boys with vulgar books is useless. No book, not even one about farting, will be as stimulating as a video game. So turn off the games and bring out the good books, ones worth reading, ones that will help our young savages grow into civilized men.

It's a well-written piece and definitely worth reading. We parents need lots of moral support as we try to hold our stance against the raging current of ever more electronic content flooding our kids. But I object to two parts of Spence's argument.

First is a matter of fact. Spence states, "The appearance of the boy-girl literacy gap happens to coincide with the proliferation of video games and other electronic forms of entertainment over the last decade or two." This didn't sound right to me, so I checked. It isn't right. The boy-girl achievement gap in reading, according to the longitudinal NAEP exam given nationally every few years, has existed at least since 1971. Since that time, boys' reading scores have increased substantially for 9-year-olds and to a lesser extent for 13-year-olds, while for 17-year-olds they've remained about the same. The boy-girl gap, the amount by which girls read better than boys, follows the same pattern. Among 9-year-olds it's fallen by almost half, for 13-year-olds it's fallen some, and for 17-year-olds it hasn't changed. So it's not accurate to say appearance of the gap coincides with the proliferation of video games. The gap precedes the rise of video gaming, and if anything it seems to be getting a bit better the past few years. Spence concedes as much in his response to my comment on the article.

My second objection is that Spence writes as if it's an either-or proposition: read junk or read literature. An awful lot of kids read the whole range, or progress from one to the other. Is it really so bad to read a book called Grossology which explains the science of blood, slugs, and excrement? Boys are curious about such things. Is it pandering? Yes, on one level. On another level it's telling boys that it's all right to be curious about everything, including bodily functions and things their mother doesn't want to discuss.

But I may be overstating Spence's argument. (He may have overstated it himself.) His main point I agree with. Rather than try to make books as superficially exciting as video games, let's agree that parents have the right and responsibility to limit screen time and introduce their sons to the joys of reading good, meaningful books. . . with just a little junk thrown in.