Playing video games may boost intelligence among adolescents

Let your teenaged-kids play online video games, for they may help in sharpening their math, science and reading skills, finds a new study.

Let your teenaged-kids play online video games, for they may help in sharpening their math, science and reading skills, finds a new study.

Students who play online games almost every day score 15 points above the average in maths and 17 points above the average in science, finds a new study. (Shutterstock)

The findings showed that students who played online games almost every day score 15 points above the average in maths and 17 points above the average in science.

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“When you play online games you’re solving puzzles to move to the next level and that involves using some of the general knowledge and skills in maths, reading and science that you’ve been taught during the day,” said Alberto Posso, Associate Professor at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

However, teenagers who regularly engage in social media sites are more likely to fall in school results, the researchers said.

Students who used Facebook or chat every day scored 20 points worse in maths than students who never used social media.

“Students who are regularly on social media are, of course, losing time that could be spent on study,” Posso added.

But it may also indicate that they are struggling with maths, reading and science and are going online to socialise instead, the study said.

Read: Addicted to playing video games? You may be avoiding depression

Teachers can look at blending the use of Facebook into their classes as a way of helping those students engage as well as consider incorporating popular video games into teaching — so long as they are not violent ones, the researchers suggested.

For the study, published in the International Journal of Communication, the team tested more than 12,000 Australian 15-year-olds in maths, reading and science, as well as collecting data on the students’ online activities.

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