Video gaming addiction and its association with memory, attention and learning skills in Lebanese children

BACKGROUND: Examining whether any association exists between addiction to video games and cognitive abilities in children could inform ongoing prevention and management of any possible harm. The objective of this study was to investigate the associations between addiction to video games, and memory, attention and learning abilities among a sample of Lebanese school children. METHODS: This cross-sectional study, conducted between January and May 2019, enrolled 566 school children aged between 9 and 13 years. Three private schools were chosen conveniently for this study. Students were randomly chosen from the list given by the school administration. The students’ parents are those who responded to the questionnaire. RESULTS: The results showed that higher addiction to video gaming salience was significantly associated with worse episodic memory, problem solving, basic reading skills, written expression skills and worse clinical attention. Higher addiction to video gaming tolerance were significantly associated with worse novel problem solving and worse attention. Higher addiction to video gaming withdrawal were significantly associated with worse attention, factual memory, attention, processing speed, visual spatial organization, sustained sequential processing, working memory, novel problem solving and worse written expression skills. CONCLUSION: The results suggest a correlation between addiction to video games and worse memory, attention, as well as cognitive and academic abilities among school children. Those findings indicate the need for more extensive research, and serve to highlight vital next steps needed in future papers, such as identifying predicting factors that could aid in early detection of video gaming addiction in children.