Is solitaire good for your brain? What the studies say

Our last two posts were about numbers: how often people win and how many deals can be won at all. This one is about the people playing. Many websites say that solitaire "boosts your memory" or "prevents dementia". They rarely say where that comes from. We went to the studies themselves.

The short answer

Older people who often play cards, board games and puzzles tend to keep their memory and thinking a little better than people who don't. That link has been found again and again. What nobody has shown is that the games cause it. A game of solitaire is a good habit, not a medicine.

Card games and the ageing brain

The best-known study comes from Scotland. In 1947, almost every child in Scotland born in 1936 took the same intelligence test at school, at age 11. Decades later, researchers in Edinburgh found 1,091 of them again, the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936, and tested their memory and thinking at ages 70, 73, 76 and 79. They also asked how often they played games "like cards, chess, bingo or crosswords".

People who played more had slightly better thinking skills at 70, even compared with others who had scored the same at age 11. And from 70 to 79, they declined a little less (Altschul and Deary, 2019). The difference was small: about one point on an IQ-like scale over those nine years. Memory showed the biggest difference, though that result was less steady when the researchers checked it in other ways.

What it can't prove: this is an observational study. Nobody was asked to play more. The researchers took many things into account, such as childhood intelligence, education, health and social class, but they write themselves that, without an experiment, "causal effects cannot be inferred". Note also that cards were counted together with chess, bingo and crosswords.

In New York, a team at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine followed 469 people over 75 who did not have dementia (Verghese and colleagues, 2003). Over about 5 years, 124 of them developed it. Reading, playing board games, playing a musical instrument and dancing all went with a lower risk. The researchers gave each person a score: one point for each day a week they spent on a mentally active hobby, such as reading or a board game. Each extra point went with about 7% less risk of dementia.

What it can't prove: dementia starts years before anyone notices it, and it may make people give up their hobbies early. The researchers tried to rule this out by leaving out people who may already have had early signs, and the link held. Even so, they ended their paper by calling for controlled trials to find out whether the activities really protect.

In the UK, the PROTECT study asks people over 50 to do memory and thinking tests online. Researchers at the University of Exeter looked at 19,078 of them, aged 50 to 93, and asked how often they did number puzzles such as Sudoku (Brooker and colleagues, 2019). The more often people did them, the better they scored, on all 14 of the tests used. A companion study on word puzzles, by the same team, found the same.

What it can't prove: the tests were taken once, so we can't tell which came first. Puzzles may keep the mind sharp, or sharp minds may simply enjoy puzzles more. The volunteers also signed up for a brain study online, so they are not a typical group. The authors say more research is needed before puzzles could be called an intervention. And these were number puzzles, not card games.

Why "linked to" is not the same as "caused by"

All three studies above find the same thing: people who use their minds for fun tend to stay sharper. There are several ways that could happen. The games might help. Or people who are healthier, better educated or less lonely might both play more and age better. Or the first, unnoticed changes in the brain might make games less fun, so people stop. Good studies try to account for all of this, and these did, but only an experiment can settle it. That is why you will see the words "associated with" in every one of them.

What about brain-training games?

Experiments do exist for one kind of game: brain-training apps, which were built to make you smarter. In 2016, seven psychologists reviewed every study that the leading brain-training companies cited as proof (Simons and colleagues, 2016). They found plenty of evidence that people get better at the games they practise, less evidence that they get better at similar tasks, and little evidence that the training helps with other tasks or with everyday life. Many of the studies also had serious flaws.

Solitaire was never sold as brain training, which is just as well. Play often and you will get better at solitaire: you spot moves sooner and walk into fewer dead ends. Whether that makes you better at remembering where you left your keys is another question, and nobody has shown that it does.

A short break that works

There is better evidence for something more modest. A review of 22 studies with 2,335 people looked at "micro-breaks" of ten minutes or less (Albulescu and colleagues, 2022). People came back from them with a little more energy and a little less tiredness. Work after the break wasn't clearly better, except for simple tasks, and longer breaks helped more.

A game of solitaire fits a short break well. On Solitaire Land, a typical Tripeaks Solitaire win takes just over a minute, and a FreeCell Solitaire or Klondike Solitaire 1 Card win about three (our numbers). The review didn't test solitaire. It tested breaks. But a game you can finish and close is an easy break to take.

Games, stress and mood

In 2008, East Carolina University measured the heart rhythm and brain waves of volunteers before and after they played a casual game or searched the web. News reports put the number of volunteers at 134. According to the university, the gem-matching game Bejeweled reduced physical signs of stress by 54% compared with the web searchers; two other games didn't, though they did improve mood (East Carolina University, 2008).

What it can't prove: the study was paid for by PopCap, the company that made all three games. It looked at what happened around a short session of play, not over months, and the lead researcher called it "a first step". It is interesting, but it is not strong evidence.

Researchers at the University of Oxford took a different approach. Instead of asking people how long they play, they got the real playing times from the game companies. In a first study of about 3,200 players of two games, play time had a small positive link with well-being (Johannes, Vuorre and Przybylski, 2021). In a larger one, 38,935 players of seven games over six weeks, play time made practically no difference either way: an average player would need to play about 10 hours a day more than usual before they felt any change (Vuorre and colleagues, 2022).

What did matter was why people played. Those who played because they enjoyed it felt better. Those who played because they felt they had to felt worse. What it can't prove: these were video games, not solitaire, and they were observational too. But the message is simple: how a game feels matters more than how long you play.

An aside: what a game of Klondike can show

Here is a study few people know about. At KU Leuven in Belgium, researchers asked 23 older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI, memory and thinking problems that are more than normal ageing but are not dementia) and 23 without it to play three games of Klondike on a tablet, which took about 17 minutes. They then compared how the two groups played: how long they took, how often they undid moves, how many moves were mistakes. 12 of the 23 measures they defined showed clear differences between the groups (Gielis and colleagues, 2021). In a second paper, a computer trained on the same games learned to tell the two groups apart fairly well (Gielis and colleagues, 2021).

This is research, not a test. The groups were small, and the people with MCI were also older and less used to tablets, which the researchers had to correct for. The authors say solitaire may one day help doctors keep an eye on memory over time, alongside proper tests. A bad game of solitaire says nothing about your brain. Everyone has those. If you are worried about your memory, see a doctor.

What this doesn't mean

• It doesn't mean solitaire prevents dementia. No study has shown that.
• It doesn't mean more is better. In the Oxford studies, play time made almost no difference. Enjoyment did.
• It doesn't mean solitaire replaces anything. Exercise, sleep and time with other people matter too.
• It doesn't mean a lost game is a warning sign. Some deals can't be won at all.

So, should you play?

If you enjoy it, yes. Play because you like it, not because you feel you should. Use a game as a short break, and then get up and stretch. Try a harder game now and then, so it stays interesting. And keep it as one good habit among many. That is what the studies support, and it is plenty.

Sources

1. Altschul DM, Deary IJ (2020; online 2019). Playing analog games is associated with reduced declines in cognitive function: a 68-year longitudinal cohort study. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B 75(3):474–482. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
2. Verghese J et al. (2003). Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the elderly. New England Journal of Medicine 348:2508–2516. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa022252
3. Brooker H et al. (2019). The relationship between the frequency of number-puzzle use and baseline cognitive function in a large online sample of adults aged 50 and over. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 34(7):932–940. doi:10.1002/gps.5085
4. Simons DJ et al. (2016). Do "brain-training" programs work? Psychological Science in the Public Interest 17(3):103–186. doi:10.1177/1529100616661983
5. Albulescu P et al. (2022). "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance. PLOS ONE 17(8):e0272460. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0272460
6. East Carolina University (2008). ECU study shows casual video games relieve stress (press release; study funded by PopCap Games). news.ecu.edu
7. Johannes N, Vuorre M, Przybylski AK (2021). Video game play is positively correlated with well-being. Royal Society Open Science 8:202049. doi:10.1098/rsos.202049
8. Vuorre M et al. (2022). Time spent playing video games is unlikely to impact well-being. Royal Society Open Science 9:220411. doi:10.1098/rsos.220411
9. Gielis K et al. (2021). Dissecting digital card games to yield digital biomarkers for the assessment of mild cognitive impairment. JMIR Serious Games 9(4):e18359. doi:10.2196/18359
10. Gielis K et al. (2021). Detecting mild cognitive impairment via digital biomarkers of cognitive performance found in Klondike Solitaire: a machine-learning study. Digital Biomarkers 5(1):44–52. doi:10.1159/000514105