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Study Finds Video Games Are Not Bad for Kids
mcgrew writes with news that a study done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found game playing is all but universal among teens, and it provides a "significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement." 97% of teens responding to the survey said they played games (75% played weekly or more often), and roughly two-thirds of teens use games as a social experience. The full report (PDF) and the questionnaire with answer data (PDF) are both available for viewing. From the report: "Youth who take part in social interaction related to the game, such as commenting on websites or contributing to discussion boards, are more engaged civically and politically. Youth who play games where they are part of guilds are not more civically engaged than youth who play games alone."
Shouldn't they be called Pew-Pew Internet and American Life? :P
Commenting on website boards? Well, it certainly doesn't help their grammar, if YouTube comment sections are any indication.
Umm.. how exactly is kids being interested in politics a good thing?
Maybe I'm just old, but when I was a kid, we left grown up matters like politics to the adults. Being that children can't vote, and no-one cares about their political opinions, doesn't this survey say that they're basically worried about things they have no control over? Isn't that the definition of stress?
How we know is more important than what we know.
This "study" is about as worthless as they get. They ask a bunch of questions to both parents and teens and attempt to create a correlation to the questions they stuck in there. The parents are asked about their community involvement, and knowledge of current events. Teens are asked if they think communication is a good thing (paraphrased).
There's three numbers of any interest to me: ~70% of teens have high speed Internet at home. ~60% of them use the Internet daily. Finally, ~60% of parents think that their teen's gaming has no positive or negative effect on them.Overall, the study certainly doesn't make any quantifiable findings about the effect of video games on kids.
It does, however, show that kids today have a lot better access to the Internet than 10 years ago (surprise!) and that many of them use it on a regular basis (again, surprise!). I'd say that this study shows a stronger correlation between using the Internet regularly and civic involvement than anything to do with video games. In the end, however, it's still just correlation.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
Moderation in everything you do. I believe these words of wisdom are mentioned in the Psalms as well.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I want to see a simcity with a lot more road control simcity 4 RH dose not cut it. The NAT mod helps but still Why can't there be a road building game?
I have a thorough and complete response, but there is not enough time to complete it before my matchmaking session is complete.
Every study hides and undisputable fact of life:
"People (and groups) are self-interested first and foremost."
Games aren't a public service -- there is a profit motive behind them whether or not they're bad for children. Likewise, studies that claim the opposite (in lieu of other child-vices) have the same root -- a profit motive.
Here is a study I'd like to see:
1. Which is better for children: Throwing rocks at my neighbor's window or playing GTA?
2. Which is better for children: Attending a public school or playing Age of Conan.
At the end of the day, I'm the parent and I'll decide what's good or bad for my children -- I don't need some pointy-head-pencil-pusher to feed me agenda-ized information.
... think of the children!
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overly aggressive video games like manhunt and GTAx can be very bad for children who have not developed proper conflict resolution skills.
I certainly don't agree with banning games like that since they provide many hours of enjoyment to me.
I will not let my son play them until he's mature enough to demonstrate the ability to choose something other than aggression.
I do support game ratings and I wish retailers would enforce them. I don't agree with government regulation of games or movies. That would be censorship.
They're using their grammar skills there.
This of course is only about video games in general, and only the social aspect. I think many people will extend this to the argument over violent video games, which is a whole different topic entirely. It also has nothing to do with fat kids who don't get any exercise because they're sitting on their ass all day. Just something to keep in mind before people start making conclusions about everything video game related.
I've never been a huge fan "educational" games. I do think there are some good titles, but I think that the majority of educational games fail because they think that the emphasis is on being "educational". The underlying game has to be fun or the kid will throw it aside.
That said, I think that *all* games are educational. When my daughter was three she picked up my wife's Animal Crossing game and fell in love with it. I sat down and played with her and read all dialogue. Eventually I had to read to her less and less as she was increasingly able to recognize words. Today she's five and reads at a 3rd-grade level. Obviously it's not solely due to games like Animal Crossing, but I think it certainly helped.
My daughter has been playing computer games ever since see was 3. This weekend she was locked in the computer room playing The Sims with Aerosmith Classics blaring on the other computer... in other words, she turned out just like her daddy. Of course, she's only 7... wonder what she will be like when she's a teenager!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Whenever someone plays GTA and then shoots someone, they make that the news headline, ignoring the real fact. Oh wait, the kids had divorced parents and were abused when they were younger and were off their meds. But it must have been the GTA! GTA is corrupting every normal, healthy kid in the world! It's just stupid old people hating on something they don't understand. Good thing there's real studies like this.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
... a study will find that Video Games *Are* Bad for Kids.
Repetitive strain injuries (RSI, OOS whatever you want to call it) and obesity are not mentioned. Other than the over weight dude in the picture.
Games are definitely a social activity for my children which is positive, but we limit their access simply because it is physically unhealthy.
So wait, Jack Thompson was wrong?
I am shocked, just simply shocked at this news.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
How did they manage to prove that negative?
For instance, you can play a mayor in âoeSimCity,â and get a close-up look at what it takes to build and maintain a community. Helping a newbie get his sea legs in a game simulates the real-world experience of volunteering.
So what does mercilessly ganking a low-level player in Thousand Needles simulate?
But seriously, did they check how social these kids were before playing the games? Just because someone is being more civic in their gameplay doesn't mean that they got that way from playing games, they could've been that way in the first place.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Money is power. With money you can "lobby" the politicians for anything you want.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
And don't forget those children [and adults too, come to think of it] who have difficulty distinguising right from wrong, fantasy from reality.
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement.
Keyword potential. In the wise words of penny arcade: SHITCOCK!
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/
Online videogames are terribly dangerous!
Ban everyone under the age of 18 from playing online. That way, I can finally play online without some prepubescent screaming in my ear about how much of a n00b I am for not playing 16 hours a day.
I mean... err... so the kids won't get exposed to violence and sex and become criminals...
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
You're telling me that the kind of people you see on Gamefaqs are more engaged civically and politically than their peers?
:(
Our nation is doomed.
Those were around before video games.
those kids yelling racial slurs over xbox-live are the leaders of tomorrow
Offtopic observation: posts in this page, and other slashdot stories concerning children are a good statistical sample for tracking and/or estimating slashdot user demographics concerning age and number of children in household.
You got that right. I think Roblox has helped my son (poor social skills, just like me) learn a little bit about conflict resolution. It's almost funny to watch: the first thing any of them do to anyone else new is frag them. Then comes the "you @#$#@ n00b" phase. After awhile they realize there's no winning, so they find some common ground, make up, and invite each other to be friends.
Dealing with my workplace IT staff is just like this, BTW: the first time I deal with someone I don't already know, I get the buzz-saw treatment. Then comes the short word war, and finally we figure out how to deal with each other and can work together after that.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
Oh, 77Punker. I had one of those too.
Just today I read on /. that plastics cause heart disease and diabetes so the more time they spend touching anything plastic (including playing video games) the worse off they are unless they wrap the keyboard or controller in tinfoil I suppose...
tha is the primary message of most 'games', and it is stupid to think this is 'harmless'.
hello iraq.
... 30 something year olds living in their parents basement?
Have gnu, will travel.
because as you know both Bill Gates and Donald Trump used to play Monopoly a lot, and it taught them how to do business.
George W. Bush used to play a lot of Risk, Advanced Squad Leader, and Stratego games to help him figure out his foreign policies.
Linus Torvalds used to play a lot of Life and Scrabble which taught him sharing and unscrambling things to make them into something useful like Open Source Software.
Steve Jobs played Candy Land and Go, and got ideas from them how to make the Macintosh with eye candy and making it easy to use like Candy Land but complex like Go.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Studies can be made to show anything by simply selecting which data proves your point. Take them with a grain of salt.
DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
Has anyone done a compairison of this troll's posts? I bet that checking the differences between them, or putting them through statistical analysis, or reading every fifth character or some such would come up with something like "now hiring geeks. e-mail jobs@slashdotgeek.google.com"
Hey, I thought the political discussion was up a couple of posts?
... say the same thing.
Don't we have enough adults now who grew up playing videogames, that could tell you that it was an enjoyable activity and that's it?
As in everything, it's bad without moderation (re: 18 hour play sessions on WoW), but really, this debate is as ridiculous as they get.
Here you go
If you scroll through some of my older posts, hell my newer ones as well, you will see that I too often post on /. while drinking heavily. I think it is high time we stop it before we offend the masses. Don't MAKE me go on a long tirade that takes us so far off topic that there's no hope for return. I'll do it you know... Oh I will.
Anyhow... Drunk slashdotting != wit... I wake up in the morning and read some of the posts and all I can think of is, WTF?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Wildly off topic but on the topic of the off topic post (which is not a GOOD THING®) but the PlayStation A-Train game was kick ass. Not really roads but, still. Just sayin'...
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
a small script written by any slashdotter that takes care of this debate once or twice a month, randomly. there are only two possible outcomes based on the jack.thompson randomizer, which decreases in value daily.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Ban everyone under the age of 18 from playing online.
So how would multiple children play an indie game together? They can't play together in person because (with few exceptions such as Lego Star Wars) most PC games require one PC per player, and neither child is allowed to remove the family PC from the house. They can't play on a game console because console makers have historically shut out indie developers. Would you settle for Nintendo-style "friend codes" to protect kids from pedophiles and protect some adults from screaming kids?
From the pdf document :
"The characteristics of game play and the contexts in which teens play games are strongly related to teensâ(TM)
interest and engagement in civic and political activities. "
Finally the answer i knew all along , but never saw in any report about gaming.
Most of these reports test 1 game or 1 game genre to base their answer on , which is why you sometimes get the opposite results .
I'm glad they finally figured it out.
finds that smoking is actually OK for you.
People do not believe these "studies" anymore. They're all funded by special interests. Everyone's a liar.