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Point & counterpoint on young video gamers: 2 studies

June 11, 2013 By Anne Leave a Comment

What an interesting point and counterpoint about videogames have been turned up by two just-released studies, one from Northwestern University in the US and one by University of Victoria in Canada:

On the one hand: “Parents assess video games more negatively than television, computers, and mobile devices. More parents rate video games as having a negative effect on children’s reading, math, speaking skills, attention span, creativity, social skills, behavior, physical activity, and sleep than any other medium,” write the authors of “Parenting in the Digital Age” at Northwestern (stay tuned for more of their findings).

On the other hand: When asked by the Toronto Globe & Mail about teens’ video game play, Kathy Sanford, author of the Canadian study said:

“What we found [after following a group of 13-to-17-year-old videogamers for five years] was that what they were learning was a whole lot deeper and more profound than we had imagined, or that you can see from watching them. They are doing a lot of problem solving and strategizing. They are learning collaboration and leadership skills. But the most profound thing that got me really thinking about their civic engagement is that they are actively making ethical and moral decisions all the time. They are trying out roles through the characters in the stories. If they act badly, if they choose to be evil, they see the significant results of each of the decisions they make.”

I’ll shortly be blogging about both studies more, but I found this contrast interesting, and I hope parents concerned about frequent media reports about videogames’ negative effects might find some comfort – or at least some talking points for further discussion – in Dr. Sanford’s findings, because she also told the Globe & Mail that “educators and parents need to learn about this world if they hope to connect with kids who are comfortable moving in an alternative landscape.”

Related links

  • “Why kids love videogames & what parents can do about it”
  • “What Net safety can learn from digital game design”
  • “Power of play: A mom & son in World of Warcraft”
  • “Unboxing learning”
  • “Challenging the idea that games can’t be fun *and* meaningful”
  • “The whitewater-kayaking kind of learning needed today”
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Filed Under: gaming, Parenting, Social Media, videogames Tagged With: digital media, Kathy Sanford, Northwestern University, Social Media, University of Victoria, video games, videogames

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Our (DIGITAL) PARENTING BASICS: Safety + Social
NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education
CASEL.org & the 5 core social-emotional competencies of SEL
Center for Democracy & Technology
Center for Innovative Public Health Research
Childnet International
Committee for Children
Congressional Internet Caucus Academy
ConnectSafely.org
Control Shift: a pivotal book for Internet safety
Crimes Against Children Research Center
Crisis Textline
Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's Revenge Porn Crisis Line
Cyberwise.org
danah boyd's blog and book about networked youth
Disconnected, Carrie James's book on digital ethics
FOSI.org's Good Digital Parenting
The research of Global Kids Online
The Good Project at Harvard's School of Education
If you watch nothing else: "Parenting in a Digital Age" TED Talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone
The International Bullying Prevention Association
Let Grow Foundation
Making Caring Common
Raising Digital Natives, author Devorah Heitner's site
Renee Hobbs at the Media Education Lab
MediaSmarts.ca
The New Media Literacies
Report of the Aspen Task Force on Learning & the Internet and our guide to Creating Trusted Learning Environments
The Ruler Approach to social-emotional learning (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)
Sources of Strength
"Young & Online: Perspectives on life in a digital age" from young people in 26 countries (via UNICEF)
"Youth Safety on a Living Internet": 2010 report of the Online Safety & Technology Working Group (and my post about it)

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