Video Games Are Good For Your Brain

Are people who are more creative really "left-brained"? Is a human brain not fully developed until a person hits 25 years old? Did my parents waste a bunch of money buying Mozart CDs to make me smarter as a baby? In this episode, SciShow tackles five myths about the brain.

Hosted by: Savannah Geary (they/them)
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[EnzoDraws]

"It's arguably the most important organ in your body"
That's what a brain would say. You're lucky that the other organs can't speak for themselves.

[Erabeth]

Describing Hank Greene as a socks salesman is such a funny, limited and specific descriptor 😂

[arrluk]

I teach in a middle school and I hear all the time “be patient with your kids. Their prefrontal cortex hasn’t developed so they don’t know what they’re doing.” I totally agree with the “be patient” part, but the research would suggest that it’s got more to do with them still learning how to function socially and figuring out who they are in the world than a prefrontal cortex issue.

[Bdoserror]

"If the brain were so simple that we could understand it, we'd be so simple we couldn't"

[Timmycoo]

A big thing for video games with growing children is that they tend to help with understanding spatial tasks, much more than those who didn't have the same experiences when growing up. It totally makes sense if you think about how a lot of a video game's progress is understanding where you are and where things are. (Journal source: The cognitive effects of playing video games with a navigational component.)

[quiestinliteris]

We really need to start explicitly teaching the difference between generalities and generalizations. Something can be true on a population level without necessarily being true for any individual person you point at on the street.

Also, yes, please do get into the problems with IQ testing (and the problems with trying to define "intelligence" in the first place in order to test it at all).

[kellydalstok]

As a teenager I would do my homework while listening to pop music on the radio. It helped keeping the hyperactive part of my brain that is trying to distract me busy. I still like to play music when reading. It prevents me from getting bored.

[kraytdragon]

Our brain is making up so much stuff about how itself works.

[AimlessSavant]

The problem society has is not "letting their brain fully develop" it is setting expectations early on in life. Children acting the way they do is a mental process rather than a growing old one.

[jamesstewart]

I've started a psychology degree. This video was essentially my first week. I'm not joking.

[purplestarfish]

Speaking as a musicologist, one issue there's always been with the Mozart brain tests - and most similar tests about music - is controlling for cultural factors. Is there something innate to Mozart that makes you do better, or is that you're doing something that you associate with things that "smart" or "cultured" people like? Something that is framed as "intellectual" (per cultural stories about Mozart's genius)? Would someone who doesn't have that association have the same benefit? One of the reasons it's important for the humanities and sciences to talk to each other in terms of our research is so that scientists make sure to factor in cultural factors that are far from universal. Lots of cultures and people have different cultural associations with different kinds of music, and those have changed over time. That's another reason why you can't extrapolate something tested on college students (who have certain expectations of classical music from years growing up in a particular society) to babies (who don't). Or even fetuses, because I've heard stories of people putting headphones up to their pregnant bellies...

[robm]

Love it. And yet, you just know that another SciFi film is just around the corner wherein someone has "gone beyond the average person" who only uses 10% (Limitless) or 20% (Lucy) of their brain to become super human due to a pill or some other idea. And each time I inwardly, sometimes audibly, groan and question whether or not to use my whole brain and decide to vacate the theater.

[PaulADAigle]

When my son was only a few months old, we played pop music while he was in his wing. Every time a particular artist played, he'd freak out as happy as he could be.

[ryan]

"You have a fully functional organ up there." My everyday experience says that many people do not have a fully functioning organ up there.

[sarahsander]

Well, I'm a videogame player and I pretty recently had a medical screening that also tested for problem solving, stress management, decision making (unter time constraint) and reflexes. I scored far above avarage, which somehow baffled the doctors, given I nearing my 40s. I play managment, puzzle and action games. So I need to make decisions fast and under high stress, but also have to asses the best decision on a long term, have high reflexes, and I have to be able to see patterns in a matter of seconds. Heck, they even told the participants to train with games like Tetris before the tests.

[ilkyway]

Socks sales man... never has a persons job been more adequately discribed. Greetings from Germany, sitting here in a beautiful pair of socks from said Socks sales man.

[Invid]

Underappreciated point in the video. Hades is an incredible game and the sound track slaps. A must play if you're into Greek mythology too.

[TheLowstef]

The descriptions of Hank and John are... *chef's kiss*. Thumbs up for that alone

[darkangelprincess]

I played metal for my babies and one of them ended up a genius. The other might have a learning disability. But they both love metal so thats a win

[phodon]

First Kurzgesagt, now SciShow. Science youtuber's fact checking teams have been cooking!