Playing Video Games Can Actually Help Young Children

Last week, The Wall Street Journal published an article that found surprisingly good reasons to let your children play video games.

According to a new study from the University of Rochester, video game playing can boost creativity and change the adult brain for the better. This includes better multitasking and decision-making abilities.

The study found that people who played action-based video and computer games made decisions 25% faster than others without sacrificing accuracy.

C. Shawn Green, a University of Wisconsin psychologist said,

“Video games change your brain.”

But he adds that,

“games definitely hit the reward system in a way that not all activities do,”

Also, gamers can make choices four times faster than most people and can pay attention to more than 6 things at once without getting confused. This is compared to the four that someone can normally keep at the top of the mind.

A study, that lasted three years with 491 middle school students found that the more often the children played video games, the higher their scores on the standardized test of creativity. The findings were regardless of race, gender, or the type of game played.  The creativity test known as the Torrance Test of Creativity, involves such tasks as drawing an “interesting and exciting” picture from a curved shape on a sheet of paper, giving the picture a title, and then writing a story about it.

They study reiterates the findings last winter from Michigan State University that established a positive connection between playing video games and creativity in children. It found that video games could foster creativity in young children.

Not surprisingly however, os that the boys in the study preferred violent games and sports games, while the girls favored games that require interactions.

The study did mention specifically, the Nintendo Franchines such as The Legend of Zelda and Super Smash Bros. A few others included: Madden NFL Football, Animal Crossing, Half-Life 2, Need for Speed, Star Wars games and Spider Solitaire.

It seems there it is not all bad to allow your children to play video games. I think it is often forgotten the positive side effects of games like they mentioned. Not all games are violent either so it is easy to find games that are family friendly and fun to play.

Note: The studies were conducted independently of the companies that sell video and computer games.