11 | 15 | 2007 Posted By Regan Zambri & Long

Playing Evening Video Games Impairs Memory, Sleep Patterns: New Study

Adolescent boys who spend at least one evening hour playing video games or viewing exciting movies pay a price in reduced learning and sleep efficiency, according to a study recently published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.  The study involved 11 healthy boys between 12 and 14 years of age, who took no medications. 

The boys in the experiment viewed one hour of exciting movie or played a car racing video game for 60 minutes, 2 - 3 hours prior to their bedtime.  The same boys then participated in overnight sleep studies and visual and verbal memory tests.  According to researchers, pre- and post-video game tests of cognition showed a considerable decline in memory performance after playing a video game for one hour.  While the boys who watched movies did not show an equivalent decline in memory, they did experience diminished sleep efficiency -- a measure of the actual time spend in bed versus the amount of time spent sleeping.  Researchers believe that the results may have been affected by the fact that none of the boys in the study actually considered the researcher-selected "exciting" movies to be very exciting. 

Authors of the study suggest that recently acquired knowledge which has not been fully processed is relatively sensitive, and that strong emotional experiences in the hours immediately following a period of learning can have adverse effects on memory consolidation. 

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