Yeah. Games are a different beast, and teach you some good skills.

I would encourage gaming over, say, watching lots of Mario and Spongebob and Minecraft videos on YouTube in a maddeningly random walk where nothing ever finishes and there is never a plot. AAAAAAGH!

My partner's kid, seven years old, does this. I try to stay sane throughout, and watch along, to see if I can understand why they do this.

I sometimes suspect it's a devious experiment to see if an adult brain can be literally cooked by its own rage and confusion.

https://youtu.be/tdIUMkXxtHg

TL;DW Conclusions are that science can't measure attention span accurately, but the video paints a picture that there are bad effects from watching short form content due to the lack of agency rather than the length.

Just saying this because if you spend even 5 seconds thinking about it, how would you scientifically measure attention span? You probably can't because its impossible to track peoples thoughts. There's lots of interesting attempts but they kinda suck, like measuring how often workers switch windows at work.

Microsoft is usually the cited source for attention span being less than a goldfish and as usual they are full of shit.