Video game playing tied to creativity
IMAGE: A study by Linda Jackson, Michigan State University psychology professor, found that kids who play video games are more creative.Click here for more information. 
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Both boys and girls who play video games tend to be more creative, regardless of whether the games are violent or nonviolent, according to new research by Michigan State University scholars.
A study of nearly 500 12-year-olds found that the more kids played video games, the more creative they were in tasks such as drawing pictures and writing stories. In contrast, use of cell phones, the Internet and computers (other than for video games) was unrelated to creativity, the study found.
Linda Jackson, professor of psychology and lead researcher on the project, said the study appears to be the first evidence-based demonstration of a relationship between technology use and creativity. About 72 percent of U.S. households play video or computer games, according to the Entertainment Software Association.
The MSU findings should motivate game designers to identify the aspects of video game activity that are responsible for the creative effects, Jackson said.
"Once they do that, video games can be designed to optimize the development of creativity while retaining their entertainment values such that a new generation of video games will blur the distinction between education and entertainment," Jackson said.
The researchers surveyed 491 middle-school students as part of MSU's Children and Technology Project, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. The survey assessed how often the students used different forms of technology and gauged their creativity with the widely used Torrance Test of Creativity-Figural.
The Torrance test involved tasks such as drawing an "interesting and exciting" picture from a curved shape, giving the picture a title and then writing a story about it.
Overall, the study found that boys played video games more than girls, and that boys favored games of violence and sports while girls favored games involving interaction with others (human or nonhuman).Yet, regardless of gender, race or type of game played, greater video game playing was the only technology to be associated with greater creativity.
The study appears online in the research journal Computers in Human Behavior.
IMAGE: A study by Linda Jackson, Michigan State University psychology professor, found that kids who play video games are more creative.Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/msu-vgp110211.php
New study links video gaming to creativity
For those who like to play video games, or who let their kids play, a new study linking gaming to creativity in 12-year-olds may be very validating.
It reminds me of the little flutter in my chest that occurs every time I read about the health benefits of dark chocolate. Or perhaps that flutter is due to how quickly I race to the chocolate stash in my pantry.
But I digress. The research out of Michigan State University, published online in the journalComputers in Human Behavior, suggests that of the 491 12-year-olds studied, the ones who play video games tend to be more creative, regardless of whether those games are violent--and that the more they play, the more creative they are.
Head researcher and psychology professorLinda Jackson says these findings should encourage game designers to investigate which aspects of gaming are more responsible for this creative effect.
"Once they do that, video games can be designed to optimize the development of creativity while retaining their entertainment values such that a new generation of video games will blur the distinction between education and entertainment," she says in a news release.
But before we exchange those dusty books for Portal 2 (I drool over this game almost as much as that dark chocolate), a few aspects of the study are worth considering further.
First, there is the issue of how one goes about measuring creativity. Jackson suggests this study provides the first evidence-based demonstration of a relationship between technology use and creativity. Measuring technology use was easy. To measure creativity, her team relied on the "widely-used" Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, which involved having the kids perform various tasks, such as drawing pictures from a curved shape and then naming and writing stories about those pictures.
Some of the resulting work was labeled "interesting and exciting," while other work was, well, not. So what does this tell us? That kids who play video games meet one set of criteria for creativity more than kids who don't.
Even if creativity is an objective quality, this one measure for it might not sufficiently determine one's overall creativity, and risks ignoring other types of creativity altogether. (i.e., one kid might be able to draw creatively, while another can make up new songs creatively, so only measuring the drawing could result in missing other forms of creativity.)
And then there is the issue of what is being compared. Instead of measuring one type of activity against another, this study measures one type against the absence of it, leaving a lot of room for variables. Are the kids who don't play video games watching TV? How would the video game cohort compare to kids building their own puzzles, or making mud pies, or drawing pictures from a curved shape and then naming and writing stories about those pictures?
This study may be the first of many to come. For now, I'll continue enjoying Portal and chocolate, possibly at the same time, with the added pleasure of knowing that I might possibly be maximizing my creativity. Of course, whether it's working will depend upon whom you ask.
ARTICLE DATE : November 3, 2011
By Leslie Horn
Despite what your mother might have told you, a new study suggests that playing video games might not rot your brain.
According to a report from researchers at Michigan State University, as first reported by CNET, children that play video games tend to be more creative.
The study, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, studied 491 12-year-old boys and girls and found that those who played video games were more creative at performing tasks like drawing pictures and writing stories. It didn’t matter if the games they played were violent or not, the study said.
Linda Jackson, the MSU psychology professor who headed up the study, said game developers should take this information and try to identify which parts of games stimulate creativity
“Once they do that, video games can be designed to optimize the development of creativity while retaining their entertainment values such that a new generation of video games will blur the distinction between education and entertainment,” she said in astatement.
But creativity is a rather subjective trait, so just how is it measured? The study explored how these kids’ technology use affected their creativity using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking. This “widely used test” charged the subjects with various tasks like drawing an “interesting and exciting” picture based on a curved shape, titling the drawing, and writing a story about it.
The study concluded that there is no link between creativity and the use of other types of technology including cell phones, the Internet, and computers (unless they’re used for video games). However, games of all genres were found to have a distinct correlation with creativity for both boys and girls, regardless of race.
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