The Study
Dr. Brendan Sauce and colleagues at the Karolinska Institutet and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam published a longitudinal study in Scientific Reports in 2022 examining whether the amount of time children spend on different digital media is associated with changes in intelligence over time.
Full reference: Sauce B, Liebherr M, Judd N, Klingberg T. “The impact of digital media on children’s intelligence while controlling for genetic differences in cognition and socioeconomic background.” Sci Rep. 2022;12:7720.
Study Design
The researchers used the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) dataset, which tracked approximately 9,855 children in the United States. Intelligence was measured at ages 9-10 and then again two years later, giving a genuine before-and-after picture rather than a cross-sectional snapshot.
Crucially, the study controlled for two major confounding factors that often complicate this kind of research: genetic differences in baseline cognition, and socioeconomic background. Both can independently predict intelligence scores, so isolating the digital-media effect required accounting for them.
What the Study Found
Children who played more video games than the average child were associated with gaining about 2.5 IQ points more than average over those two years, after the genetic and socioeconomic controls were applied.
That is a modest but meaningful difference. For context, roughly 15 IQ points separates the 50th from the 84th percentile, so 2.5 points is not transformative; it is a real and statistically meaningful signal.
The study also examined TV watching and social media use. Neither showed a similar positive association with intelligence gains. The effect appeared specific to video games among the digital media categories tested.
What the Study Does Not Prove
A longitudinal association is stronger evidence than a simple cross-sectional correlation, but it is still not proof of causation. The authors describe their findings as an association, not a demonstration that gaming directly causes intelligence growth.
Alternative explanations remain plausible. Children predisposed toward analytical thinking may gravitate toward gaming more than their peers, even after the genetic controls applied. The controls reduce but cannot fully eliminate selection effects.
The study also focused on children aged 9-10, which limits how directly its findings translate to adult competitive gaming contexts like League of Legends.
Why the Finding Is Plausible
Video games, and particularly strategically complex ones, place real demands on working memory, spatial reasoning, attention, and adaptive problem-solving. These are exactly the cognitive processes that intelligence tests probe. It is theoretically coherent that sustained engagement with cognitively demanding games might, over time, be associated with stronger cognitive growth compared to more passive screen activities.
The fact that TV and social media did not show the same effect is consistent with this interpretation: those activities are substantially more passive.
Comparisons with Other Digital Media
The study’s most practically useful finding for parents and players may be the within-category comparison. Not all screen time is equivalent. The research suggests that interactive, strategically demanding gaming may be associated with different cognitive outcomes than passive video consumption or social media browsing.
This does not mean unlimited gaming is advisable or that it replaces other forms of learning. Balance still matters. But the framing of “screen time” as uniformly negative is not well supported by this data.
What This Means for Saiki
Saiki is currently a personality assessment tool. It analyzes your League of Legends gameplay behavior alongside a HEXACO questionnaire to surface personality insights. Saiki does not currently provide an IQ score or cognitive-ability measurement.
Cognitive-ability assessment is a feature in development. Research like this Sauce 2022 study informs the scientific case that gaming behavior, particularly in complex strategic games, carries cognitive signals worth studying. When that feature launches, we will explain exactly what it measures and what its limitations are.
Conclusion
The Sauce 2022 longitudinal study found that children who played more video games than average were associated with gaining about 2.5 extra IQ points over two years, after controlling for genetics and socioeconomic background. TV and social media showed no such effect. This is a meaningful finding, though the authors describe it as an association rather than proof that gaming directly causes intelligence gains.
The research supports taking the cognitive dimension of gaming seriously. It does not support the claim that any particular amount of gaming will raise your IQ by a specific amount, or that gaming replaces other kinds of cognitive development. It is one valuable piece of a growing body of evidence.
