Study: games and video-watching correlate with kids getting smarter, social media a wash

[beschizza]

Originally published at: Study: games and video-watching correlate with kids getting smarter, social media a wash | Boing Boing

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[FGD135]

Yes! Vindication!

[Jesse13927]

Social media is a game. Just without a story or a point.

[mr_raccoon]

Media literacy is an more important thing to focus on than the usual new media hatefest that happens all the time.

[Papasan]

I’m reading a book about this.

[gracchus]

There’s a reason that the various purveyors of the big social media networks don’t let their kids get anywhere near their own product. Studies or not, they’ve always known their services are toxic.

[Otherbrother]

I just have to point out that the methods that the study used to measure intelligence were all computer-based, and some of them seem kinda game-like:

we created an index of intelligence based on the remaining tasks and added two new relevant cognitive tasks that were available at both time points. The tasks we used here were: Picture Vocabulary Task, Flanker Task, Oral Reading Recognition Task, Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task, and Little Man Task. For details on each task, see Luciana et al.81.

• The Toolbox Picture Vocabulary Task (here called Vocabulary) measured language and vocabulary comprehension. Children hear audio files of words and are shown four pictures in a square, one of which depicts the concept, idea, or object referenced by the auditorily presented words. The child is asked to touch the picture that matches the word. Computerized adaptive testing was implemented to control for item difficulty and avoid floor or ceiling effects.
• The Toolbox Flanker Task (here called Flanker) assesses participants’ inhibition of surrounding stimuli distracting from the target (arrows). Four flanking arrow stimuli (2 on the outer left and 2 on the outer right) all face the same way, either left or right, and the middle arrow is then either facing the same way (congruent trial) or a different way (incongruent trial). Children have to push a button to indicate whether the middle stimulus is facing left or right.
• The Toolbox Oral Reading Recognition Task (here called Reading) measures language decoding and reading. Children were asked to read aloud single letters or words presented in the center of the screen. Item difficulty was modulated using computerized adaptive testing.
• The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task (here called RAVLT) measures auditory learning and memory recall. Participants listened to a list of 15 unrelated words and were asked to immediately recall these after each of five learning trials. The total number of items correctly recalled across the five learning trials was summed to produce a measure of auditory verbal learning.
• The Little Man Task (here called LMT) was used to test visual-spatial processing, including mental rotation. During the task, a male figure holding a briefcase in his right or left hand is presented. The figure is shown in one of four positions; facing the respondent, with his back to the respondent, right side up, or upside down. Participants should indicate in which hand the man holds the briefcase, via button press. The task includes practice trials and 32 assessment trials. Performance is represented by percent correct in all 32 assessment trials.

As is always the case with intelligence tests, the results may be as much a reflection on how good the subject is at taking tests as it is about the true intelligence of the subject, so being super practiced on using computers could be a factor.

[GospelX]

It wouldn’t surprise me if a number of people here don’t buy into IQ tests. Even if we considered them credible, the results here don’t seem especially significant. But let’s humor it for a moment anyway.

If there’s a true correlation, I’d argue that it’s not games leading to higher IQ but rather the reverse. Kids with higher IQs likely need additional stimulation that you can only find in an interactive medium. Games require puzzle solving, planning, timing, etc. (depending on the game, of course) whereas viewing something is incredible active and social media…is potentially more emotional stimulation, positive or negative, than anything else.

[Ceran_Swicegood]

I bet they get different results with adults.

[cannibalpeas]

@Jesse13927

Social media is a game.

(In faux Russian accent)

In social media, game plays you.

[Tamsin_Bailey]

If kids get genuine interactions then they develop better, huh?

*eyerolls in Gen X.

[oldstevo]

There’s a story, it’s just not a very good one

[girard]

I was about to share this. They really shouldn’t just throw around the very vague term “intelligence” to pull together these very particular measures of particular types of activity. (Especially when it leads them to fall backwards into eugenicist talk with phrases like “genetic predisposition for intelligence!”)

Specificity in language, especially with research, is really important.