See, Mom? Video games *aren’t* a waste of time

Gamers might finally have the ultimate comeback to all those “go touch grass” comments.

Spending just ~20 hours playing a cognitive training video game can significantly reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia at older ages, a new study suggests.

The findings, published this week, come from rare long-term research that’s been running since the 1990s.

How it went down

Researchers enrolled 2,802 adults over age 65 and randomly assigned them to one of three cognitive training programs: speed training, memory training, or reasoning training. Participants completed up to ten small-group sessions, with half receiving periodic “booster” sessions over the next three years.

Two decades later, only one group stood out:

• Participants who completed the “speed training” game, which focuses on quickly identifying and reacting to visual information, saw their dementia risk drop by ~25% over a 20-year follow-up period.
• The memory and reasoning programs showed no statistically meaningful effect.

It’s still an open question why speed training worked, and the others didn’t. One leading theory is that it taps into implicit learning—automatic and reflexive brain systems—rather than conscious memorization or logic.

The potential impact: Dementia is projected to affect ~42% of Americans over the age of 55 at some point, with no known drugs on the market that reliably prevent the condition.

In other dementia-preventing news: Consuming 1-2 cups of tea or 2-3 cups of coffee daily is associated with a 14%-18% lower risk of developing dementia—but only if those hot drinks are caffeinated, per a newly published long-term study of ~132,000 healthy adults.