As technology progressing, the problem of internet addiction (IA) has turned out to be more and more serious. Online game and chatting room are two major forms of IA, and the former has become one of the most popular activities among junior high school students. The IA prevalence of junior high school students in Taiwan was 10.9% in 2012. It’s well known that IA of junior high school students leads to the difficulties in academic performance and social/interpersonal relationship. Despite of the abovementioned facts, few researches are devoted to the understanding of the effects of IA on cognitive capabilities, of either adults or younger students. Because working memory (WM) and attention are important cognitive capabilities for academic performance, and deficits in impulsivity inhibition is common for people with addictive disorder. This study was aimed to understand the changes in cognitive capability among junior high school students of internet gaming addiction (IGD). The 7th and 8th grade students in Taichung were recruited as research participants, which was grouped by the performance in “Online Gaming subscale of Internet Using Behavior Scale.” The participants with scores lower than 2 were control group, and those with scores higher than 5 were either “Intervention group ” or ”Waiting list group” . Three computer programs (CPT-IP,N-Back, and Change task), written with E-Prime, were used to assess the capability. The results indicated that RT in WM and attention were longer only in male students with high risk in IGD. Besides, the students of IGD are better in impulsivity inhibition. Taken together, the effect of IGD on cognitive capabilities, either improvement or impairment, is dependent on the types of cognitive capabilities. But further study is still needed for the clarification of effects and mechanisms of IGD or other types of IA on cognitive capabilities.
