Are Games Turning Kids Into Jocks?

Maybe it's time to think about becoming an expatriate. Those who still harbor illusions about the accuracy of what pols and the popular media tell us about "geeks," gaming and cyber-culture ought to read one of the most interesting series of studies yet on computer games and the young, published this weekend in the Times of London. The government-funded study by the British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), finds that computer games are giving a "young Britons a level of co-ordination and powers of concentration equivalent to those observed in top-level athletes." Beyond that, gamers are smarter, more likely to go to college, have more friends, read more, and get better-paying jobs than non-gamers.

Do not look for the results of this study to be reported on your local evening news in the U.S., or on the front page of any newspaper. It will not be there. Those spots are reserved for frantic stories about pedophiles, pornographers and online identity thieves.

So much for the popular view of gamers as oddballs and outcasts, cut off from the world and deprived of healthy social interaction and intellectual activity. That's the portrait widely promulgated in American media and invoked by U.S. politicians, from so-called liberal Democrats like Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, to Republicans like Attorney General Ashcroft and the President.

The British researchers, perhaps unencumbered by uniquely American pandering to so-called "moral" political interests, see it differently. "People who play games regularly seem to develop a mental state that we have seen before only in serious athletes or professionals such as astronauts, whose life depends on concentration and co-ordination," found Jo Bryce, who led the team. "Their minds and bodies work together much better than those of most other people."

Bryce conducted her research by visiting gamers, usually during regional or national competitions around England, and administering a series of psychological tests and questionnaires to nearly 100 of them. The results were then compared with those from similiar tests of athletes and others.

A separate study by the British government's Home Office indicated that those who regularly play computer games when they are young are more likely than non-gamers to go to college and get a high-paying job. They also, said the Home Office study, tended to be more intelligent. The Times also reported that Mark Griffiths, a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University and an expert in computer gaming, found in a study of 800 children that those who play games "moderately" -- generally defined as no more than two hours a day -- had more friends, were better adjusted, and tended to read more.

This rational approach to kids and gaming -- a government actually providing useful information to parents and educators -- stands in jarring contrast to the post-Columbine hysteria still prevalent in America, which holds that gaming commonly leads to addictive, anti-social behavior, even sometimes to violence.

The British researchers did discover that children who use computers to excess could, in fact, develop emotional disorders. One 16-year-old boy spent 70 hours a week at his computer and suffered severe psychological problems. But then, we don't really need a study to tell us that. The same would be true of bicyclists or chess players.

More typically, the ESRC study found, subjects were averaging approximately 18 hours a week on computer games; interestingly, these kids were spending similiar amounts of time on sports or social activities.

"They seemed able to focus on what they were doing much better than other people and also had better general co-ordination," said one of the researchers. "The skills they learned on computers seem to transfer to the real world."

As gaming spreads and becomes mainstream, such findings become important. They are valuable and useful -- not only to gamers, who already know much of this stuff, but to public policy. Parents, employers and educators often appear woefully misinformed about gaming's true and increasingly significant effects. More and more, these studies suggest, parents should be encouraging their kids to game, not to stop. You have to particularly appreciate the comparison to superjocks. The nerds' revenge only gets sweeter.

Comments

Bad headline

[Have Blue]

You are misusing the term "jock". An athlete is one who enjoys sports. A jock is a meathead who enjoys sports and beats up geeks in high school. I assume gamers are not aspiring to become the latter.

NEWS: Video Games Cause Space-Time-DNA Wormhole!

[jefferson]

A NEW STUDY by the British Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), has determined that intelligent children with good hand-eye coordination and strong powers of concentration are more likely to play video games. "It seems, surprisingly, that these children have a greater level of success playing video games, and thus enjoy them more than the average child," said Dr. Inieda Kluu, the principal investigator in the study. Researchers in the study were also suprised to note that more intelligent children were more likely to attend college and eventually have a high-paying job. "This was totally news to us," said Dr. Klu, "we had always assumed that all children were equally likely to attend college and get good paying jobs. Isn't that what we've been taught since childhood, after all?"

Among other controversial results of the study, they found that children who played video games regularly were more likely to live in a house with a computer than those who did not, were more likely to have parents with above-average incomes, and were more likely to have parents of above-average intelligence.

"This temporal-reverse causation from children to their parents is the most astounding aspect of the study," Dr. Klu said. "Who would ever have imagined that children's video game playing could cause increased affluence and intelligence in their parents?"

Investigators from the study are considering consulting with renowned Cambridge physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking on the possibility of a temporal worm-hole created by video game playing. "We think it's something like what happened at the end of the movie A.I.," Dr. Klu explained, "where they were able to clone that woman, and extract her memories from the fabric of space-time. We think a similar mechanism is at work with video games, only backward: increasing the intelligence of the parents through a reverse space-time-DNA wormhole."

Dr. Hawking was unavailable for comment.

Problems in the study

[boots111]

Unfortunately, you will notice a decided lack of a control group in the study. One might argue that the entire populace is an implicit control group; however, that would only reveal one's ignorance. First and foremost, we should recognize the social class to which these kids most likely belong. Any child who plays video games 18 hours a week probably owns a computer (or at least his family does). Thus his family is most likely to be upper-middle class or higher, socially speaking. While this is not true for every kid there is most like a very strong statistical correlation. Now we should recognize the fact that children of such classes are already fairly likely to go to college and get a better than average job anyway

Similarly the do not mention any control group for how like situated children, score on the same battery of test. Thus, the finds could have just as easily been summarized as "well off kids found to do better in life" Of course no one wants to hear that...

70 hours in front of a computer

[truthsearch]

One 16-year-old boy spent 70 hours a week at his computer...

At my company that's considered a dedicated employee.

...and suffered severe psychological problems.

Good thing we have a comprehensive mental health plan.

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Garage sales speak otherwise

[freeweed]

Any child who plays video games 18 hours a week probably owns a computer (or at least his family does). Thus his family is most likely to be upper-middle class or higher, socially speaking.

You know, I've seen this comment repeated many times throughout the various /. articles on kids and gaming recently, and I have to disagree. At least here (Canada), more affluent kids tend to play a lot LESS games, as their parents can more readily afford spending the hundreds (and thousands) of dollars necessary these days on things like sports equipment. Poor kids just don't play hockey any more, they can't afford it. Never mind when kids become teenagers, and the 'rich' ones have cars and seemingly unlimited allowances, while the poor ones get stuck with last year's Nintendo and a couple of games, grand total cost maybe $100.

I've noticed a STRONG correlation when I browse the local garage sales. The better areas of the city tend never to have classic games or consoles for sale, it's all much more expensive goods. The 'poorer' areas all seem to have a Nintendo/Playstation/etc. And it's NOT because they need the money - I've gotten in the habit of asking 'why are you selling this?'. Most common response? 'We just bought the newer version'.