Do video games impede adolescent cognitive development?

Do Video Games Impede Adolescent Cognitive Development?

Nowadays, in the technological era, it is easy for adolescents to be involved by the use of Internet, watching television and the videogames. In fact, it has become an indispensable part of their life. However, many studies have found that the effects of spending time for each of those activities are different. Especially, thepopularity’s increase in the use of video games has created a focus of concern to find out if the effects are beneficial or detrimental for the adolescent development of their basic skills for their transitioninto adulthood. What is truly known is that the media use has mental and health effects on the youth, but are those impeding their cognitive development?
Two analyzed articles connected with theissue describe the positive and negative outcomes of adolescent’s use of video games. On the one hand, the side which defends that there is no impediment in adolescent cognitive development for the useof video games, supports the idea that playing action video games by an appropriate training exercise spatial attention capacities and mental rotation, eliminating the gender differences in thoseabilities, with women benefiting more than men (Feng, Spence and Pratt, 2007). Hence, playing action video games has its practical implications: they help to develop superior spatial skills, which areimportant and useful for sciences such as mathematics or engineering, something that can motivate and facilitate youths the study of those branches, increasing women’s interest in them. Notwithstanding,those benefits are only proved by action video games, and not by any other kind of video games, which do not exercise enough the spatial attention capacities. On the other hand, the side whichsupports that exist negative effects on adolescent cognitive development by playing video games finds out an association between the time spent playing games for, at least, more than one hour a day and...