Does your child play video games a lot? If yes then it makes them smarter than the average kid who never plays any video games. Well, that’s what research says! Playing action-adventure games or puzzle-solving games like restaurant games boost children’s attention and memory.
About the research on gaming and its relation to brain development
About 2000 children between the ages of 9 and 10 were tracked in the study. The children spent more than 3 hours playing video games. Their brain imaging data were examined afterwards.
The study was conducted by:
- The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and
- The National Institute of Health (NIH).
The children who participated in the study played all kinds of videos including restaurant and ‘my cafe’ games.
How do restaurant games help in cognitive development?
The ABCD study sheds some remarkable insights on the cognitive development of children by playing video games. Notably, the number of hours in the study (3) is almost double that recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The latter says that children’s screen time should not exceed 2 hours.
Here are the findings of the ABCD study on the cognitive development of children:
- Improved attention: The MRI scans of children showed that the brain regions pertaining to attention had high activity. This means that children who played, say restaurant games, became more attentive as a result.
- Better visual processing: The frontal regions of the brain were found to be more active during playtime. It is this region of the brain that takes part in the most cognitively demanding tasks including visual processing.
- Improved memory: Since the prefrontal cortex region was the most engaged while playing ‘my cafe’ games, the impact on memory is noticeable. The children experienced improved memory functioning after the gaming sessions.
- Impulse control: Children who played video games were better able to control their impulses. This is in direct contrast to the popular claim that playing video games makes children impulsive and violent.
- Prevent depression: Due to quality mental engagement with time-bound tasks and interactive visuals, children were happier. They were much less likely to be depressed. This indicates that playing restaurant games could prevent depression.
The benefits to attention, memory, and impulse control due to playing video games is a positive development. While the underlying neurobiological mechanisms are still not understood well enough to make an overarching scientific claim on the effect of gaming, the results are encouraging indeed. Also, the depression aspect needs to be backed with further clinical studies.
Restaurant games to try if you want to improve your cognitive skills
These games produce a multiplier effect on cognitive skills. They are the perfect combo of role-playing and puzzle-solving adventure games. These games are highly immersive and engaging and target all regions of the brain connected with cognitive activity. Here are some restaurant games to try if you’d like to become smart:
1. Star Chef 2: Cooking Game
Star Chef 2 is a game with an appealing storyline and eye-catching graphics. The game begins with an emotional note of building a diner from scratch. It’s about reclaiming the glory of the once-flourishing Star Diner through cool decorations and mouth-watering cuisine preparations.
2. Cooking Fever
Cooking Fever is a great way to put your imagination to work. You get hundreds of ingredients and kitchen appliances in the game using which you have to make exciting dishes. The game has over 27 international location backgrounds that serve as a visual treat to the player.
3 .Cooking Crush
The game is full of challenging cooking tasks and time-bound progression. Cooking Crush is an engaging game where you build your restaurant and complete cooking quests in a race against time. It keeps you focused on the game throughout its many levels (>500).
4. Cuisineer
Cuisineer is a good game for people who enjoy the action of a dungeon-crawler and the thrill of solving a puzzle. Your character is more like a chef-fighter who uses his kitchen appliances creatively to fight food monsters in the game.
5. Top Chef
Top Chef is a simple but fun ‘my chef’ game. The game is your classic level-based progression adventure where you prepare a cuisine with the limited ingredients provided to you. It’s followed by the judges’ critique and approval to move ahead in the game.
Key Takeaway: Should you rely on gaming to become smart?
The ABCD Study is the largest study done so far in mapping out the brain activity of children and adolescents who play video games. The researchers are still tracking 12,000 people in this age category to come up with conclusive evidence. However, the preliminary results are quite impressive and point to a direct correlation between playing video games and becoming smart. There’s a good possibility of improving brain development if you play restaurant games. But this shouldn’t be the sole consideration for cognitive improvement. It should be complemented with reading books and other hobbies.