Hard News

Cognitive effects of video games

Soli Kothari, Writer | 11/08/2021

Video games are often dismissed as a lazy and brainless activity, but did you know that video games increase your attention span, improve decision-making and problem-solving capabilities in competitive environments, and improve memory and learning? Video games improve the cognitive abilities that society values.

Role-playing and other strategic games can help strengthen problem-solving skills. Video games allow you to try things without costing you a lot. For example, in a puzzle game, you can keep trying things out with no cost to you until something works. They teach you how to learn from your mistakes and move on and have flexibility with your approach so you can succeed.

If you don’t learn from your mistakes in these games you will not enjoy them and the ability to alter strategies is a key component of problem-solving that is taught through video games.

Several studies from the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) have shown that playing video games can lead to structural changes in the brain including increasing the size of some regions and functional changes.

"People who were avid gamers before adolescence, despite no longer playing, performed better with the working memory tasks, which require mentally holding and manipulating information to get a result," said Marc Palaus, who has a Ph.D. from the UOC.

Minesweeper, one of the most popular games played in schools today, has been proven to directly improve people's hypothetical thinking.

Pewaukee high school student Charlie Bathke said “playing minesweeper has influenced my hypothetical thinking not only in the game but in the classroom too. It has opened my eyes to assessing the entire situation of whatever I encounter and asking questions to justify my thoughts.”

However, it has also been proven that playing video games can cause an increase in anxiety while simultaneously reducing activity in the frontal lobes associated with emotion regulation and executive control.

The dopamine release that comes from gaming is so powerful, say researchers, it can almost shut the prefrontal regions down.