![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
Abstract
Video games are a very common leisure activity among teenagers and the aim of this study is to analyse their relations with cognitive and school performances. This study is part of a broad survey, conducted on 27,000 French teenagers (14.5 years old) in middle school (9th grade). The survey contained both a questionnaire on leisure activities practised by teenagers and school/cognitive tests: Comprehension tests, Math, School Knowledge, and Reasoning. The activity frequency (‘never’ to ‘every day or almost’) is studied on five kinds of video games (i.e. action/fighting) vs. seven reading activities (i.e. crime/thriller/fantasy). Results show that there are no correlations or very slight ones between Video Games and cognitive/school tests. Reading activities have potentially important associations with cognition and especially school tests. To conclude, video games are primarily recreational activities and the cognitive stimulation they produce is very different from the one involved in specialised academic subjects