Video Games May Divert Kids From Homework

(WebMD)  Playing video games may mean spending less time reading or doing homework, according to new research on video games and children.

That news appears in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Data came from diaries completed by nearly 1,500 U.S. kids and teens aged 10 to 19 during the 2002-2003 school year.

In the diaries, participants accounted for how they spent their time. They kept the diaries twice, once on a randomly chosen weekday and once on a
randomly chosen Saturday or Sunday.

More than a third of the group — 36 percent — reported playing video games. Most of the video game players — 80 percent — were boys.

"Compared with nongamers, adolescent gamers spent 30 percent less time reading and 34 percent less time doing homework," write researchers Hope Cummings, MA, and Elizabeth Vandewater, PhD.

Cummings works in the University of Michigan's department of communications studies. Vandewater works for the University of Texas at Austin's Center for Research on Interactive Technology, Television, and Children.

Time Playing Video Games
Gamers played video games for an hour on the weekdays and 1.5 hours on weekend days on average.

Boys tended to spend more time than girls playing video games.

"Female gamers spent an average of 44 minutes playing on the weekdays and one hour and four minutes playing on the weekends," write the researchers. "Male gamers spent an average of 58 minutes playing on the weekdays and one hour and 37 minutes playing on the weekends."

Effect of Video Games on Kids' Time
The study shows that gamers and nongamers spend a similar amount of time with their parents and friends. But schoolwork was another story.

"Although gamers and nongamers did not differ in the amount of time they spent interacting with family and friends, concerns regarding gamers' neglect of school responsibilities (reading and homework) are warranted," write Cummings and Vandewater.

The study appears in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang
©2007 WebMD, Inc. All rights reserved

[michellem99-2009]

Common sense is knowing right from wrong. The same is true is knowing life is not a visual game. I am 52 and I am grateful you are thinking and talking even if it is the typed word. Children learn from adults. Ww set examples and they learn the good and bad. So they do not what I.I can multi task and most ladies do. Rudeness they learn to early so that is passed on.Children learn what they see others do. Children grow up and did we as adults do the things so they can and will be the adults of the future. You better be sure. You will be a senior some day. I am clildness and 52.

Genius! Who would have thought a child engaged in one task would be unable to complete another!

Common sense is fighting a losing battle here.

[michellem99-2009]

I learn by doing and the studies do nothing but give info that is not helpful. So if we have the tools use them. If a person can do his/her homework,have time for people,do extra class time ,use computer for games after the other duties are met then play as your not hurting anyone. Some need to know the games are not real and if they can't than they must not play.

[shaka1989]

OK this kind of reports annoys me I am a video game player and I play about 3 to 4 hours a day and a lot more in the weekends and you can ask anyone I know that it is not a problem for my performance in school as I keep and average 3.4 GPA and I also play sports in school, this is not about how long you play video games but about how mature you are an the way you can handle responsibilities.

[michellem99-2009]

I like the post from the high school pupil. It is a fast pace world and no it is not the games or anything that causes a pupil to not do the homework but laziness and care NOT about his/her future. But did the parents not do the same thing but with different things. I WANTED A PROPER EDUCATION YEARS AGO. When the teachers told me they would not educate me due to tblindness and other handicaps things out of my control what could I do, a minor then. They felt it be wasted on a girl as the boy is the head of house. Sorry I nevry fell for that hype. So you have girls so dumb to they can't do anything but have babies they can't teach them right and wrong cos they can't read write very well. I am for the means if that be a visual game that teach. Fine. I wish they had computer back then. So how can a woman raise her child with very little schooling. We may see the fruits of that in future. Scary yes. I never had kids. So if you can bal everything and be a good kid then our tax dollars paid for that kid to make different as future adult. I am 52. I don't know who dreams up them studies, Ya have take thea with a grain of salt as the saying goes.

[donteplays]

Man all these "studies" starting to annoy the heck out of me! Why dont these people research something that will improve society? I'm a high school senior and attend one of the most highly accredited public schools in the nation, number 48 or so in "USA Today". I spend a lot, and when i say a lot i mean it, of time playing video games, but somehow still have managed a 3.94 gpa on a 4 point scale. The problem doesn't lie with the video games, but within the individuals: it's all about time management.

[ajaxrose1]

Video games MAY keep kids from their homework. Gee, ya think?! ONLY if half-@ssed parents let them. Oh, that's right, a lot of today's kids are being "raised" by the half-@ssers. Never mind.

[jshmks]

I played online games for the ps2 all the time, and graduated high school without a problem. It takes like 15 minutes for homework. These kids are just fat lazy slobs now a days. It's a disgrace, all pale coming out of the house looking like casper. You parents need to knock some common sense into your kids now a days.

[blackbug99]

I'm applying for a grant to see if a group of flatworms, one placed in front of a video game and one not, do more or less homework. Scientists are out of control.

It's called, "Parenting!" You know, where Mom or Dad says(In my olden days it was baseball/football or a TV show), "You can do that after your homework is finished." If parents give up their roles to an electronic babysitter, it's their choice, I guess.

[michmad2]

A lot of Americans did not believe smoking can kill until they heard of objective studies that linked lung cancer with smoking. This is an important study that proves to people the eminently obvious but easily ignored.
We are now competing in the global labor market. Almost anything not done with moderation is eventually detrimental. But think about how the next generation can compete globally with a an engineer or business major with masters degrees when we have the next generation glued to their video games. The day of reckonning is closer thn we think.