By TheDailyNewsHub
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has weighed in on new research examining the relationship between video-game use and cognitive performance, joking that people have only two choices: play video games or “be dumb.”
Musk made the comment on X on September 14, 2026, while responding to a post highlighting findings from a study that compared the cognitive performance of frequent, infrequent and non-video-game players.
“Play video games or be dumb! Those are your only 2 choices 😂,” Musk wrote.
The comment was prompted by a post claiming that frequent video gamers performed on cognitive tests similarly to non-gamers who were approximately 13.7 years younger.
The research behind the discussion was published in PLOS ONE and examined the relationship between video-game playing, physical activity, cognitive performance and mental health. The final analysis included 923 participants and assessed several areas of cognitive performance.
According to the study, frequent gamers performed better than infrequent gamers and non-gamers on measures of overall cognitive performance and processing speed. Frequent gamers also performed better than both other groups on reasoning, while both frequent and infrequent gamers performed better than non-gamers on short-term memory.
However, the findings do not establish that playing video games makes people more intelligent.
The study examines associations between gaming habits and cognitive performance. Therefore, it cannot by itself establish that video games caused the differences observed between the groups.
The “13.7 years younger” comparison should similarly not be interpreted as meaning that playing video games literally makes a person’s brain 13.7 years younger. Rather, it is a comparison of cognitive-test performance between groups of different ages.
The latest research does, however, add to a growing body of scientific literature investigating whether certain types of video-game activity may be associated with particular cognitive abilities.
A separate systematic review and meta-analysis published in Acta Psychologica in 2026 examined 133 studies involving 14,245 participants. Researchers found a statistically significant but small positive association between video-game play and cognitive abilities including memory, spatial ability, visual attention, cognitive control and intelligence across different study designs.
Another 2026 randomised controlled trial found that a programme of video-game training produced improvements in several executive functions among younger and older adults, although the researchers found that the effects varied across different cognitive abilities and over time.
At the same time, the scientific evidence does not suggest that all gaming is beneficial or that more gaming is necessarily better.
A September 2026 study in Computers in Human Behavior found that gaming time was positively associated with several cognitive skills, but internet gaming disorder was consistently associated with lower cognitive performance. The researchers also found that the type of game mattered, with strategy and role-playing games showing different associations from some other genres.
Musk’s comment has therefore generated renewed discussion about the potential cognitive benefits of gaming, but his humorous “play video games or be dumb” statement goes beyond what the research itself establishes.
The available evidence supports a more cautious conclusion: some forms of video-game play are associated with better performance on certain cognitive measures, but the research does not show that people who do not play video games become “dumb,” nor does it establish that gaming universally improves intelligence.
Musk’s intervention has nevertheless brought the research to a much wider audience, adding a high-profile voice to an ongoing scientific debate over how video games affect the brain and cognitive abilities.