The popularity of interactive video games has sparked concern among parents, educators, and policymakers about how the games affect children and adolescents. Most research on the effect of gaming on youth has focused on problematic gaming and negative effects like aggression, anxiety, and depression. A new longitudinal study conducted in Norway looked at how playing video games affects the social skills of 6- to 12-year-olds. It found that playing the games affected youth differently by age and gender, but that generally speaking, gaming was not associated with social development. However, the authors did find that 10-year-old girls who played games frequently had less social competence than 12-year-olds than girls who played less frequently.
* This article was originally published here
