Do Video Games Make Kids More Creative?

Researchers at Michigan State University studied both boys and girls and concluded those who play video games tend to be more creative.

According to the study of nearly 500 12-year-olds, 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.

Laura Spern, a Royal Oak mother of six, is not so sure about this study.

“My daughter Leah (13) is very creative, and she’s not into games at all," Spern said.  “My son Josh (21) plays games a lot, but he was creative before he started playing. He didn’t really have video games when he was younger.”

Of her other children, Spern says one is creative and plays a lot of video games, two others are not tremendously creative but play. And her youngest child? “She is grounded too much for us to tell,” Spern joked.