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Study Recommends Online Gaming, Social Networking For Kids
Blue's News pointed out a report about a study sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation which found that online gaming and social networking are beneficial to children, teaching them basic technical skills and how to communicate in the Information Age. The study was conducted over a period of three years, with researchers interviewing hundreds of children and monitoring thousands of hours of online time. The full white paper (PDF) is also available.
"For a minority of children, the casual use of social media served as a springboard to them gaining technological expertise — labeled in the study as 'geeking out,' the researchers said. By asking friends or getting help from people met through online groups, some children learned to adjust the software code underpinning some of the video games they played, edit videos and fix computer hardware. Given that the use of social media serves as inspiration to learning, schools should abandon their hostility and support children when they want to learn some skills more sophisticated than simply designing their Facebook page, the study said."
Online Gambling
How long until some person interjects claiming that this will increase the amount of child abductions that are caused by online relationships?
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
I can certainly see how online gaming or social networking might help these kids develop a better understanding of technology. However, we probably don't want them to become obsessed with these kinds of interactions and become completely inadequate in conventional social situations.
It takes a study to confirm what anyone growing up in the 90's already knows. :P
This is exactly the kind of response we need in our arsenal when smart-arsed technophobes badmouth our trade and leisure.
Well, think positively: if someone abducts your child in an online game and takes them into the depths of some dungeon, chances are your kid will only need to use his hearthstone to teleport back to the inn ;)
Plus, if it's a raid dungeon, they'll probably argue about loot and split up sooner or later anyway ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
As a parent, techy and gamer - I hope no one is swallowing this load of tripe...
If you want to teach your kids to socialize - have them go out and socialize, or socialize with them!!
This is the kind of study that tells people what they want to hear.
Hey! You parents that are sticking your kids on an XBox for 6 hours a day to shut them up: You're all doing a great job! Keep up the good work!!
And for all you guys who live your lives gaming and never see the light of day - no, you're really the outgoing, social ones!
I'm going to teach my kids to smoke - to help them build up their immunity to pollution...
Forget about this throwaway study. The real news to me is that Blue's News is still around. I haven't read them since I still played Quake 2!
1. Better/more productive interaction with trolls and orcs
2. Able to dual wield weapons years earlier than other kids
3. Greater self-esteem when leveling
and most importantly...
4. Able to talk to virtual characters of the female (elf, dwarf, whatever) persuasion!!
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
I, for one, welcome our new geeked-out child overlords.
This seems like a good study but it has one major flaw. The authors are generalizing the results of the study to the entire population, "youth." However they used a qualitative research approach which does not allow for generalization. Moreover, there is insufficient description of who actually participated in the study and how these people were recruited for the study to allow readers to make their own generalizations. I think the results of the study are good, the authors just need to be more careful about drawing sweeping inferences from them.
slash troll troll?
Its far better than dressing in tight clothes, playing with dolls and being sensitive.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
When I'm behind drivers that stare at green lights for 4 seconds or more, or wait for multi-block-long gaps in traffic before pulling out, I think to myself, we need MORE video gaming, not less. Most drivers' reaction times are in the one-second-plus range...
What follows is not a comment on the story, but a meta-comment. Feel free to mod as you wish.
This is classic Slashdot. The story is tagged "suddenoutbreakofcommonsense". If the exact same study had come to the opposite conclusion (ie. online gaming and social networking is bad for kids), it would be tagged "correlationisnotcausation", and everyone would be trashing the methodology.
Slashdot is funny. This is part of why I keep coming back here.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
I admit it, I'm an old geezer at 34. I write in complete sentences and check my spelling before sending out important communications. Most of my peers do not. I have seen many e-mails and other casual messages going out to our customers with tons of Web 2.0 speak in them.
I understand the fact that the world is moving on and communication is getting less formal. After all, most people don't send out formal business memos anymore; they write e-mail and use IM software. However, I still think people need to be able to spell and write clearly. Exposing kids to more of the Web 2.0 stuff before teaching them how to write formally is just going to make things worse IMO. Feel free to disagree, but how many times have you gotten an e-mail from a co-worker with one or more of the following:
I'm really just curious how much of my concern is due to the fact that I'm "between generations," and how much of it is the geriatric fool stuck in the 1980s/90s talking...
And no, I'm not a grammar Nazi. Readable is just fine for me -- grammatically perfect is less of a concern.
"some children learned to adjust the software code underpinning some of the video games they played" Am I the only one who thought of game cracks, or something like the San Andreas debacle, when I read that sentence? I don't have a problem with kids adjusting the code of the games they play, but in some circles those things are thought to be illegal. I'm sure that angle will come out shortly. Then we'll have a whole new reason to Protect The Children from the internet!
Moderation is key. Online gaming and social networks have a nasty habit of eating people (metaphorically, of course). That needs to be prevented. But as long as they're in moderation, carefully balanced with other activities (and more to the point, activity) and monitored for safety, then these things can indeed be great learning tools for children.
Ah, pish-posh. I learned a lot about functioning in society from games. E.g.,
- always roll "greed" on loot, unless you're going to equip it
- keep your pet on passive in instances if you're a warlock or hunter
- don't shoot if you're a priest,
- whining and drama about epic loot are perfectly acceptable as smalltalk or to pass the time on an uneventful evening,
- if your team wipes, it's _always_ the tank's fault, with the healer as a second best choice (if you're the tank,)
- your level and/or tier of epic gear are an accurate measurement of human worth and penis size, so you'll want to print them on your business card. Unless, of course, you're less than the maximum level, in which case you'll want to claim "I have 5 level 80's" instead.
- as a corolary, anything that gets between you and that epic gear is a bad thing, and should not be tolerated. (Lest people start thinking you're an underachiever or even gay.) Upon reaching the max level in some friendly guild that helped you since level 1, you should immediately (A) demand it kicks out everyone lower level and transforms into a raiding guild, or failing that (B) immediately leave the guild and start looking for a raiding guild,
- especially on RP server, you should keep in character and use the same language fitting the game's setting that everyone else uses. Examples include, "LOL, l2p n00b!!!", "asl???", "r u a grl???" and "soz m8 g2g, gt skewl 2moz" (I swear I've actually heard that one on COH.)
- especially in a RP guild and on the guild's channels, all stuff that doesn't belong in the game world should be placed between double brackets, like this, "(( ur computer suks ))". In _heavy_ RP guilds, doubly so. If in doubt, you can tell you're in a heavy RP guild or group if everything is in double brackets, and the last time you remember seeing something said without brackets was last July.
- all social situations worth role-playing through involve beating up someone weaker, or public foreplay,
- your name is the first thing anyone will see or hear about you, and your first chance to make an impression. Good, in-character names include, "l0rDn00bKilla", "Backdoor Girl" or "Faemale Shaemale". (All real names off MMOs, although some of them really short lived.) If your parents were foolish enough to give you a more archaic name like "John" or "Richard", have your name changed.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
In other news today, Jenny Tildwell and Brock Johnson, both sixth-graders, broke up on Facebook in the late afternoon, between seventh and eight period. A rampaging horde of schoolchildren across the country, composed of Jenny and Brock's entire extended networks, clogged the tubes to post, twitter, stream, or otherwise network their personal reactions to this saucy development. The internet promptly refused to put up with that shit and died. "We accidentally the whole internet," said one fifth grader, showcasing what was either a working knowledge of internet memes or the total and utter failure of the public school system's English language instruction. Neither Jenny nor Brock could be reached for comment, but the sharp increase in the amount of Facebook wall posts made by Brock on the profile of one Pearl Jaysberg, eighth-grader, seems to indicate that the drama is only beginning to come to a boil. We have been assured that the entire goddamn school will keep us updated.
My son is learning to type by entering in his favorite cheat codes for Jedi Academy. For the longest time I've had to put them in for him, but recently I decided to have him do it and now he's all over it. Having fun and learning a new skill at the same time. Who'd a thunk it?
Well played sir, well played
"MacArthur Foundation recommends for children more of everything you currently hate about teenagers."
---don't make me break out my red pen.
I don't think this is a good idea at ALL. I agree with gaming, but allowing kids to use social networking websites??? That sounds bad. Very bad.
There goes the REAL computer geek generation, I guess. Now all the kids will be on MySpace for hours making their profiles look pretty by jamming so many random CSS stylesheets and Flash music players that automatically play at full blast (most of whom probably don't even know what "CSS" stands for)...
MySpace has to be one of the most horrible websites out there - from it's horrible "Security", to the bloated advertisements taking up over half of every page. And this study recommends these sites for kids...
Web 2.0 took intelligence out of using the Internet. Gone are the days where you needed to KNOW something about computers to make websites or post content to the Internet. Now ANYONE can make a MySpace profile or blog....
Even the study mentions obsessive, addicted individuals with a smile and a wink thinking it's cute that:
two dating 17-year olds ... wake up and immediately instant message each other, then switch to mobile phones while on route to campus, then send text messages during class. After spending time together doing homework, they talk on the phone or send text messages
Yes, videogames and social networking can be good things for kids -- in restricted moderation, but they have to be just a supplement to physical and cognitive-developmental activities -- not the overarching structure of their entire lives. It's sickening to see people spend all their time on sites doing absolutely nothing, wondering why everyone's getting fat, lonely, depressed, and socially anxious. Moderation needs to be brought to people's lives, and not through oversaturation (I can only spend x number of minutes doing this, because I have to do x number of other things today!) but through self discipline (I'm spending x number of minutes doing this, because there are better things I could be doing with my time.... but I deserve this break.)
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
Yeah this week's study is about how online gaming within a game and your peer group is generally good for your development. Next week's study will be about the evils of allowing your kids unstructured online gaming within their peer group as they learn behaviors that parents, educators, or "others" don't like kids learning of or about, or doing.
A friend of mine is constantly annoyed that his son (who plays a lot of online games) would rather have Dad fix the problems than learn how to fix them himself.
But what really annoys him is how his son was picking up racial/ethnic slurs as acceptable casual conversation.
organizations begin to describe it as a "gateway addiction" like the police describe marijuana as a "gateway drug"?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I'm most emphatically not one of the "think of the children!" asshats, but all I can think, is that amidst a growing problem with childhood obesity and general disconnectedness from reality, we want to encourage kids to sit in front of a computer more than they already do? Instead of, say, something completely radical and outlandish, like, say, going outside, doing something physical, and maybe interacting with live, real children their own age??!? Quick, somebody do the research, find out which (or how many) of the game companies these people were paid by to do this so-called "study".
I don't believe this at all. Having played a number of online games dabbled in social networking somewhat I fail to see where the real benefit is, as described in this article. There still exists that barrier of anonymity and there is no real interaction with another human being. There's no eye contact, reading body language or a general need for considering the other persons thoughts and feelings.
Want to teach children communications skills. Hold big family gatherings where adults and children are all interacting with each other. Well, one problem I've encountered with many American families is that at gatherings children are usually segregated off to their own corner, relegated to the children's table.
I've observed this with friends and within my own family, kids are interact with real people on a regular basis tend to be more outgoing and mature. The kids and teenagers I know who are into gaming and networking either seem to always be in their own worlds at these gatherings. They either run off to the bedroom and sit in front of the computer, or they're sitting in some corner tapping away on a phone.
On a side note, I've noticed this tendency where whenever research demonstrates something positive about gaming it's embraced wholeheartedly. Whenever it shows something negative it's strongly dismissed as nonsense; the tag correlationnotcausation seems to be quite popular for those stories.
I read TFA (but not the white paper - BNTWP?) and one thing I would be interested in is how they quantify "beneficial" gaming and social networking. I don't know firsthand, but my co-workers have told me that they are often mortified/embarrassed by the profanity that the kids are using during their online gaming (they don't mention IMing, I'm assuming it's on par). Yes, the kids may have gaming friends from foreign countries, but if most of their "networking" is along the lines of "DIE, C*&KSU&%KER" as they shoot it out... Anyone else?
While I agree with some of what you're saying, I do believe the study is unbiased and got its funding from a neutral source. The MacArthur foundation has $7 billion worth of investments. It uses the money it makes each year from those investments to fund projects, non-profit organizations and studies like this one.
No one on the board of directors has any overt or influential ties to the gaming industry, tech industry or social networking giants.
I don't think the study is a load of tripe, but like you I don't think we should all rush to plop our kids in front of a computer screen and sign them up in Second Life/WoW because "it's educational!" At best it's edutainment or inspires some kids who were already technically inclined to learn more.
This is what I think is the most important lesson from the study:
"It concludes that learning today is becoming increasingly peer-based and networked, and this is important to consider as we begin to re-imagine education in the 21st century." (Connie Yowell, Ph.D., Director of Education at the MacArthur Foundation)
As long as it's balanced with real life "social networking" online interaction is beneficial. But if the next generation of young people enter the real world knowing nothing but how to text each other, run a successful WoW raid and manage friends on Facebook, we're looking at an epidemic of cognitive dissonance.
Hello no! I have already seen the detrimental effects of MMORPGS and other online games into adult's personalities, I don't even want to know what can happen to a kid.
Was the one in charge of this study a level 90 Paladin?
...emphasis mine. It sounds like any measured positive benefit is still in the noise band.
Is socl netwkng goin to teach them essntl comm skls lik speling and crct gramar?
IDTS
I had a computer ever since I was five or six, and I played tons of old DOS games while figuring out, with my dad, how to make autoexec.bat + config.sys boot disks in order to play certain games. It came to a point where I would much rather stay in my room and play video games rather than playing tag football or anything else outside with kids around my neighborhood.
Fast forward a few years, and I find myself struggling like crazy trying to relate to anyone on a personal level, up until my second or third year of college. Since much of college, at least in my experience, had to do with interaction with other people, I ended up losing a lot of confidence and went through the shitter for a while. I finally realized after a while that I had to force myself to interact with people: I started going to a coffee shop after I transferred schools and interacted with as many people as I could, while being hooped up on Zoloft in order to get rid of my social anxiety. Then eventually, I overcame my fear and am now fairly comfortable around people.
Now, of course this is all anecdotal evidence that could also possibly point to the benefits of FIRST being a socially inept geek, THEN learning how to socialize and having the best of both worlds. However, I also had the benefit of having parents encouraging me to socialize as much as possible while being somewhat understanding of me wanting to just stay at home, and I also had the benefit of growing up with computers back when they were starting to become popular (so it wasn't totally infeasible for someone else in the block to have a computer), but also back when you had to have motivation to get things to work properly.
Nowadays, Web 2.0 hands people the power to publish blogs, websites, etc. with almost no effort, and any drive to learn HTML / CSS / etc. is limited by the mere fact that most functionality is already implemented MUCH BETTER than what an average person can probably do. That, and most kids nowadays probably don't know any DOS games (and even if they did, they probably played it through DOSBox, which makes things infinitely easier than before.)
"Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig." - Bertrand Russell
My son has been reported twice for swearing and I get a nice little email from Blizzard with a transcript of the conversation. I showed him that he was busted and if it happened again, he wouldn't play again. And if he got my account banned and I can't play my guy, I'm gonna kick his f"@#$*ing a$$.
For the record, the swearing was relatively tame. My son learned, however, that even though we have more relaxed standards in our home, that society has standards we are expected to follow. The prospect of losing his Warcraft account for calling somebody a dick (probably heard me call somebody a dick while driving down the highway) was a good lesson for him.
Show me one school that will take the time to monitor what kids are learning online... they won't, it's boring for the teachers / monitors and they'd much rather shut it all down rather than take the chance that a 7th grader will pull up a picture showing a nipple, or maybe learn how to trade (illegal) .mp3 files, or find the instructions on how to build a pipe bomb.
The teachers are outnumbered and under-motivated to oversee any kind of free-form dynamic interaction between students and the real world. There's too much danger out there.
Anyway, the only lesson they really teach in K-12 school is to "do what you are told to do." Everything else is just a pretty window dressing on that single concept.
is why doing things in the real world is somehow intrinsically superior to virtual reality.
OK, i'm GOING to be quite inflammatory here! What fucking sack of shit would intentionally mod my preceding comment as "off-topic"? And, have it STICK? (Exemplifies yet another continuing flaw in the slashdot immoderation system: negative or off-topic ratings should require a tie-breaker scoring, and not be touched by sysmods, but by forcing a nay-sayer of an obviously-relevant comment to be made NOT flaggable as offtopic.
With all the fucking social problems around the world, but particularly here in the US (i live here so i cannot too legitimately rant about social ills in another country where i do not live...), addictions to games IS a problem. Games need to be MODERATED, not played willy-nilly by uncontrolled kids and adults.
Considering how GTA and other violence-filled games came under relentless fire and forced to show ratings or be pulled from shelves of some conservative stores, i don't damn see how some idiot's "offtopic" rating can be left to stand. If psychologists and police see correlations in trends of teen violence, and if teachers learn of game-playing depriving students of sleep, then what the hell is wrong with the question "How long before police and health organizations begin to describe it as a "gateway addiction" like the police describe marijuana as a "gateway drug"?
Granted, the question can be taken either way, but it still stands. Open your mind, dammit!
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The study didn't state that online games were good, or that they were bad. It studied how kids used the computer, and found that some used computers to augment their social lives with existing social groups, while other students branched out into specific areas of interest to learn and connect with interest-based groups.
All it says to me is that kids use the internet pretty much like everyone else does, and there are a number of benefits that they perceive there.
I'm an 'internet geek' - I've been using PC's since I was 12 (30 now)
I have certainly enjoyed the internet and BBS's but human to human interaction is also damned important.
I would strongly recommend some kind of activity involving outdoor excercise and genuine socialising, I can assure you my social skills on the internet can be funny and entertaining but my real life social skills are weak at best.
Get them out there, I wish I got out more.
(eats another twinkie)
I would've bought this, no questions asked before I actually became a parent. I am a total geek. I have programmed since I was little, "geeked-out" when I probably should've policed myself and added other constructive activities, and am totally immersed in tech from hardware to culture, five out of seven days per week. What I've come to realize:
1) Kids pick this stuff up so quickly, it's not only pointless to introduce it at a young age, it's detrimental.
2) The important stuff to teach them are the productivity aspects: desktop publishing, multimedia editting, and maybe some basic scripting. The virtual hangouts, games, funny video clips, and social Web 2.0 sites are pure fluff that will come easily, once the foundation is in place.
3) Teaching life lessons via computer interaction instead of face-to-face human interaction hampers their personal development.
4) Barring special circumstances (and I will grant you there are some,) most children's educational software is a parental cop-out.
No way does my eight-year old need a facebook account. Where would you want your kid to go? Play a pickup game of basketball in the park or hang on out Myspace, a "new public hangout for teens." The thought that you're not helping your kid you're hindering him is absurd. Technology is meant to enhance your life, not consume it.
Develop your kid's social ability through traditional activities, accelerate them through structured tutelage, and as they grow up, turn them loose and watch them fly.
________________________________________
http://techdojo.org/
addictions to games IS a problem. Games need to be MODERATED, not played willy-nilly by uncontrolled kids and adults.
Kids maybe but adults?
I take it you're in the "it's for your own good" camp. Where you can decide what I do with my life based purely on what you think is "good" for me.
You have no right at all to stop me sitting playing any game I choose until I develop blood clots in my brain and die.
It is a minor problem. It's in not your problem. Run your own life, let others run theirs.
as for violent games:
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/04/gaming-real-vio.html
"The graph makes no direct claims towards a relationship between real world and gaming violence, though it's interesting to see an inversely proportional trend of violent gaming releases and incidents of real crime."
So these kids "hanging out" in the malls; better or worse than joining a raid online? What about the 3 meatbags spread out on the floor in front of the TV watching Nth season of American Idol. Is that so very healthy?
Yes, sports is healthy. Yes, talking face to face is healthy, but using your brains during gaming is also healthy. Nothing is healthy to spend too much time on. Nothing!
Kids today socially interact face-to-face all day at school. If you want to worry, worry about all the elder people that don't understand online communities (games, social websites...) and haven't spoken to anyone for the last 6 days.
Insert `fortune -o` here
True, i have no right to "enforce" your not playing games til you develop brain clots, but if you leave a family behind, they shouldn't be on the public dole, either. So, hopefully, adults who DO play to the very end have contingencies in place, or they have families smart enough to "straighten out" such a "family member", or they have the cajones to abandon them.
Adult or child, an addiction is an addiction. It's likely worse if adults have them - if that adult has dependents. Adults with dependents (familial or work subordinates or weak people in their charge) MUST be held to a higher standard than willy-nilly/free-for-all adults with fewer who could be hurt by their individual acts/decisions.
Hell, i myself (when i had a home years ago, until the early/massive 2001 layoffs) would race home from Milpitas/Sunnyvale to be able get online and duke it out in CS/HL/HL2/SOF, and would play from midnight of 2130 of Friday until 1800 Sunday, damn near brain-dead. But, i kicked that stupid habit dead. When my discs got scratched, and i ran out of money to waste on ever-continuous upgrades, i was finally SAVED. Even as much as i miss Longbow Apache with all its bells and whistles, I am STILL glad i gave away (to Goodwill) my Saitek and other controllers. The fracjubg things were facilitating gaming dominating my life. Now, i devote my free hours to reading, and to doing drafting (Punch! ViaCAD)... but that is just my way of keeping games from dominating or derailing my life.
Other things DO have negative influences, but they won't be endless mind-numbing hours of gaming for me. If ever i design or oversee the building of a gaming environment, the biggest caveat -- after realism -- will be a user-enabled option for "time-out", even in the middle of a headed fight. Not just a timeout but a LOCKOUT if the system detects a continuous run of user input over some 9 or 15 hours. And, the game will collect the stats and forward to the National Institute of Health, and a few other places. THAT part will NOT be optional. Identity might be optional, unless it's Open Source, in which no registration would be required. But, play time statistics tracking would be non-negotiable.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"National Institute of Health"?
How much do you think they're gonna care? Try sending them lists of people who you see drinking too much in your local bar and they'll do little but ask you to stop mailing them.
As for gamers who play for insane amounts of time- they're less likely to have girlfriends,wives or children unless they got hooked after they got all those things.:D
And sure, I could see a game like you describe working as long as the system treated it differently from a mere disconnect and didn't leave your character/ship/whatever sitting helpless as you'd piss people off too much and lose customers, hell I can imagine there being a market for a WOW client which did that as long as your character wasn't left as a braindead punchbag until it timed out, it would appeal to parents who wanted to limit their kids time ingame.
I once saw a small MMO which to discourage people from staying on every minute (and to save bandwidth cost) it gave you a bonus leveling up for the first hour you were online, normal exp for the second, half exp for the 3rd, 1/3 exp for the 4th hour etc.
More subtle but still effective.
Just keep in mind that games aren't always bad for you.
There have been times when there have been problems in life which have been out of my control and games have given me somewhere to not think about them.
For my mental health I avoid WOW at all cost- never played it, ever and my interest in game genres tends to change fast enough to stop me getting insanely hooked on any one game.