One side says screens are rotting our attention. The other says action games are training the brain. The research says something more awkward than either: games improved one measure of memory, barely touched a second, and did nothing at all to a third.
📚 What you need to know
Cognitive load theory suggests excessive exposure to technology can overwhelm cognitive resources, impairing memory and thinking.
Digital immigrants were born before widespread internet and personal computer use. Digital natives were born after those technologies were established.
One view is that digital natives depend too heavily on constant access to technology, impairing their cognitive processes.
Another view is that modern technology can enhance cognition in both groups.
Hyperconnectedness means constant access to multiple streams of information and communication.
Games involve multitasking — switching scenarios, reacting to threats and rewards — which may sharpen attention, processing speed and working memory, and encourage metacognition.
The study you need is Blacker et al. (2014).
Two arguments, both plausible
The pessimistic case runs through cognitive load. If working memory has a fixed capacity and technology floods it with competing streams, learning suffers. The optimistic case runs through training. Action games demand fast switching between scenarios and constant tracking of what is on screen, which is exactly what working memory does, so practising it should help.
Task switching in games may also encourage metacognitive awareness — thinking about how we think — which is linked to better memory, problem-solving and flexible thinking.
Key study: Blacker et al. (2014)
Part of the study
What happened
Aim
To investigate the extent to which action computer games improve visual working memory (VWM).
Participants
A self-selecting sample of 34 male university students, mean age 20.
Procedure
Participants were randomly allocated to one of two conditions. Condition 1 played active games such as Black Ops and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, in single-player mode. Condition 2, the control, played a non-active strategy game, The Sims. Each group trained — playing and practising the skills involved — for over 30 hours across a continuous stretch of 30 days. Before training, participants rated on a 0 to 9 self-report scale how motivated they were to complete a VWM task. Afterwards they completed a second self-report on how engaged they had been.
Results
There were no significant differences in self-reported motivation or engagement between the two groups. The action-game group showed significant improvement on one measure of VWM capacity — a change detection task involving switching attention quickly — a small improvement on a colour wheel test, and no improvement on a complex span task, compared with the Sims group.
Conclusion
Action computer games may directly improve VWM, or may improve it indirectly by enhancing selective attention.
The equal motivation scores matter: the improvement cannot be explained away by the action group simply trying harder.
Resist the urge to simplify this into ‘games improve memory’. The mixed result is the finding, and an answer that reports all three outcomes will beat one that reports the flattering one.
Evaluating the research
What is strong about it
Good application. It highlights how responsive VWM is to training, which could matter in educational settings where improving cognitive skills is a key objective.
The procedure ran over 30 hours, so participants could immerse themselves in whichever game they were playing across time. That makes the findings more valid than a snapshot design would.
Random allocation to conditions, plus a control group playing a non-action game, isolates the variable well.
What is weaker about it
There is no way of knowing whether participants stuck strictly to the 30-day practice period. Some may have played more and some less, which reduces reliability through a lack of consistency across conditions.
The study shows what happened — improvement on one measure — but cannot explain why. It lacks explanatory power.
34 self-selected male students is a narrow sample, and self-selection means these were people already willing to play 30 hours of video games.
Link to concepts
Perspective: there is a competing concern that technology-based laziness — from too much gaming or over-use of technology generally — may result in less neuroplasticity. On that view plasticity is put on pause and neural pruning proliferates in the parts of the brain gaming uses most, such as the hippocampus, which handles both memory and spatial navigation. There is also evidence that heavy gaming reduces the ability to recognise faces, as screens interfere with reading emotion in face-to-face encounters.
Responsibility: researchers studying gaming must screen participants beforehand to ensure none has a gaming addiction or is vulnerable to developing one. There is a fine line between enjoying gaming and depending on it, and researchers have a duty of care to establish that line rather than make an existing problem worse.
EXAM PRACTICE
Discuss the effect of technology on one cognitive process. [22]
Step 1: set out both sides
Cognitive load theory predicts overload and impairment; the training view predicts sharper attention, processing speed and working memory.
Step 2: the study
Blacker et al. (2014). 34 male students, action games versus The Sims, 30 hours over 30 days.
Step 3: the mixed resultSignificant improvement on change detection, small on the colour wheel, none on complex span.
Step 4: the control that matters
No difference in self-reported motivation or engagement, so effort does not explain the result.
Step 5: evaluate
Long training period and random allocation, but adherence unverifiable, no explanation of mechanism, and a narrow self-selected male sample.
Two views + study + mixed result + control + evaluationReporting all three outcomes shows you can handle evidence that does not point one way.
💡 Exam tip
Present both the positive and the negative case. This topic rewards balance.
Name all three measures and their outcomes. That is the whole results section.
Say visual working memory, not just ‘memory’. The study only tested VWM.
The motivation control is a design strength worth naming.
Link back to cognitive load theory and the WMM — that is where the mechanism would sit.
⚠ Common mix-up
Saying games improve memory generally. One measure improved, out of three.
Confusing the conditions. The Sims was the control; the action games were the treatment.
Calling the sample random. It was self-selecting; allocation to conditions was random.
Claiming the study explains why. It shows the effect, not the mechanism.
Treating digital natives as a proven category. It is a useful label, not an established cognitive difference.
That completes Topic 4. Up next: Acculturation and Its Effect on Mental Health — back to the start of Topic 3 if you are revising the whole course in a loop.
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