Many children always like to play a stimulating computer game to relax and rest after finishing their homework at night. However, a new study finds that stimulating computer games can affect children’s sleep quality and memories of what they have just learned.
The findings were published in the recent issue of Pediatrics. The researchers conducted a two-day trial of 11 12- to 14-year-old healthy children who had no sleep problems. Two to three hours before going to bed every night, they let their children play a racing computer game.
The study found that the time it takes for children to fall asleep after playing a racing game increases, and slow-wave sleep time decreases. Slow wave sleep is a deep sleep period of people, the best time to restore energy and physical strength, and also a key period for people to enhance their memory.
In addition, the researchers gave them cognitive tests before and after playing computer games, and found that the children’s memory decreased after playing the game.
Researchers believe that after people learn new knowledge, it takes a while to consolidate. If a large number of emotional experience activities are carried out within a few hours after the completion of the study, it will affect the brain’s consolidation of knowledge.