A Comparative Study on Differences about Sustained Attention in Gamer and Non-Gamer Adolescents

Abstract

This study is aimed at analyzing the sustained attention of adolescents and at comparing them according to their condition of expert gamers or non-gamers. Method: a non-experimental, cross-sectional descriptive design. the sample consisted of 63 adolescents, aged 14 to 17 (X= 15.36 years, SD= 0.77), 55% of whom were female. The EMAV test was used to assess sustained attention in adolescents. Results: the data obtained indicated that expert gamers showed a higher capacity to sustain the attentional focus on a visual search task for a longer time period in comparison to non-gamers. specifically, it was registered that expert gamers were able to identify more goal stimuli during the task than non-gamers. Conclusions: these results show a better performance in sustained attention in expert gamers. in accordance with previous investigations, these findings seem to indicate that the systematic practice of visual attention implied in the use of videogames may have contributed to explaining the differences observed between expert gamers and non-gamers. Bearing in mind that adolescence is a period of neurocognitive development, the undertaking of future studies on the consequences of videogames use in the cognitive functioning during this life stage is encouraged. However, this does not mean that there is a causation relationship between the use of videogames and an improvement in the sustained attention of users. Future studies should continue inquiring about this possibility with a larger number of participants, more rigorous designs, with a higher amount of neuropsychological and neuroimage technique.