psychology writing assignment.

Research: Video games help with creativity in boys and girls

By Mike Snider, USA TODAY

Updated 2011-11-02 12:53 PM

By Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY

Here's another reason to include The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on those holiday shopping

lists: children who play video games are more creative.

That finding, thought to be the first demonstration of a relationship between technology use and

creativity, comes from a new study of nearly 500 12-year-olds in Michigan, conducted by

researchers at Michigan State University's Children and Technology Project. Already published

online, the study is expected to be included in the March 2012 issue of the journal Computers in

Human Behavior.

The children were given creative thinking tests – shown a drawing and asked to expand on it or

comment on what it means – and then asked about their use of cellphones, computers, the

Internet and video games. Only with video games was there a correlation to creativity, the

researchers say, and that was true for boys and girls, and across all races.

The study found that boys played video games more than girls did; boys also preferred violent

games and sports games, while girls favored games involving interaction with others (human or

non-human). Among the games the children said they played: The Legend of Zelda, Super Smash

Brothers, Madden NFL Football, Animal Crossing, Half-Life 2, Need for Speed, Star Wars

games and Spider Solitaire.

"Not only are (video games) not all bad, there's some 'intellectual' good to be found in playing

them," says the project's lead investigator, Linda Jackson, a professor of psychology at Michigan

State. "We are the first to look at creativity and technology use, finding that no other

technologies except video games was positively related to creativity."

The researchers' previous work, like this study supported by grants from the National Science

Foundation, found that video game players had better visual-spatial skills, too. "Visual-spatial

skills are viewed by psychologists and educators as the 'training wheels' of later skills in science,

technology, engineering and mathematics," Jackson says, "and there is little question that we will

need more and more workers with skills in these areas.

Other information technologies do have benefits beyond entertainment, however. In earlier

studies, the researchers found that children who used the Internet increased their reading scores.

The reason? They were reading better, Jackson says, "because the Internet required them to read.

But for the home Internet these children would be watching TV – which provides no benefits to

reading."

As for video games, further research will be needed to prove a causal link between games and

creativity, she says. Jackson says that "why is the next big research question. Does it have

something to do with the nature of the virtual environment encountered when you go 'into a

video game?' Is it the rapid succession of images and scenes that compels the mind to keep track

of many (events) simultaneously. Is it the way videogames defy/ignore reality that opens doors

in children's minds saying 'it could be otherwise.' There are a host of possibilities each difficult

to test but we can do it."

Regardless, these findings should motivate game designers to identify the aspects of video game

activity that are responsible for the creative effects. That could lead to a new wave of

edutainment video games that "will blur the distinction between education and entertainment,"

they write in the report.

The researchers have proposed a study to test whether a special touch-screen computer can help

kids, ages 3 and 4, with school readiness skills. They are also looking at the differences between

U.S. and Chinese adolescents in cellphone use, Jackson says, "believing as we do that the

handheld will be the hot information technology in this decade."