Video games can be healthy

No one ever seriously proposed a ban on “Bugs Bunny’’ or “Ben 10.’’ Still, it’s easy to understand why parents and lawmakers cringe at “Modern Warfare,’’ the top-selling video game last year, which allows kids to shoot innocent people, torture enemies, and leave behind a trail of realistic-looking gore.

Indeed, much of the debate over video games has focused on whether they make children more aggressive. Research on this is inconclusive at best, and in many ways unconvincing.

However, research on other effects of the games suggests that there are healthy and unhealthy ways to play them, regardless of whether there are soldiers or athletes onscreen. As I’ve learned in my child and adolescent psychiatry practice, the focus should be not only on what kids play, but also, perhaps more so, on how they play.

Whenever I play a car-racing game with my 6-year-old for longer than half an hour, he gets tired, his eyes get glassy, and he becomes more distracted than is typical for his age. This mental fatigue looks different from physical fatigue: When I coach his soccer team and he runs for an hour chasing a ball or a friend, he never looks tired in the same way.

This difference probably is because video game play involves different mental skills. It’s a workout for brain muscles. Just as too much strenuous exercise can cause one to pull a muscle, too much video game play may tax and stretch cognitive functions.

So what do we really know? First, kids who play video games for up to 45 minutes improve their attention span shortly after game play but lose these gains if they play longer. Second, those who play shortly before bedtime have more difficulty falling asleep and go on to have memory problems the next day.

Finally, we know well that the number of electronic devices in bedrooms - from computers to TVs, video game consoles to cell phones - is associated with longer duration of use and increased incidence of sleep and academic problems.