July 15, 2007
Ars Technica recently reported on at a study which appeared in last month's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. The research examined three aspects of children's lives - reading, homework, and sociability.The study looked at 1,500 adolescents who were already participating in a more ambitious longitudinal study which has been keeping tabs on the same 8,000 families since 1968. Researcher found that less than half of its subjects were gamers, and of those, time spent gaming versus other activities was negligible. They also reported that over 80% of adolescent gamers were boys.
For its part, Ars Technica took issue with major media reporting of the study, which was partially due to the tag-line the publication gave it:
Compared with nongamers, adolescent gamers spent 30% less time reading and 34% less time doing homework...
...which led to sensationalized stories such as "Video Games Cut Into Teens' Reading, Studying" over at Forbes. But Ars writer John Timmer dug deeper into the results, and found that while boys did indeed spend 30% less time reading, it was 30% of 8 minutes per day.
And although 34% less time was spent on homework, this only applied to girls, and only on weekends, although the authors point out that this shouldn't be taken as an indication of a drop in academic effort, but could show better time management.
In terms of social interaction, gaming fell in line with more traditional activities. If a teen played more games in a group, they tended to also do many other activities in a group, and vice-versa. The same held for teens who gamed with their parents. If the parents weren't very involved in their children's gaming, they tended to not participate in other family activities either.
Timmer concludes by asking if parents are concerned about adolescents' reading habits, instead of asking why boys spend 30% less time reading if they are gamers, they should be asking why non-gamers only read for 8 minutes a day...
- Reporting from Canada, GP Correspondent Colin "Jabrwock" McInnes
Comments
@ ~the1jeffy
The two tables don't show it, but it appears on table 4 in the journal article. However, I am not taught on how to read regressional analyses tables, so I have no clue at all.
But, I'm not sure how to interpret these two-charts:
1
2
The study says:
For every hour boys played video games on the weekdays, they spent 2 minutes less reading. Because boys spent an average of 8 minutes reading, this represents a 30% decrease. There were no significant relationships between reading and video game play on the weekends among boys, and there were no significant relationships for girls on either day type.
But I can't find any corresponding data in those tables, which are the only data linked from that study that seems relevant to that statement. Can any deduce where that is coming from?
Books I've read in the past 2 months:
1st two of the Inheritance Trilogy
Eregon
Eldest
3 of the Dragonlance Chronicles
Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Dragons of Winter...... (I forget the exact title)
Dragons of Spring Dawning
The Belgariad
Pawn of Prophecy
Queen of Sorcery
Magician's Gambit
Castle of Wizardry
Enchanters' End Game
Sequel to the Belgariad, The Mallorean
Guardians of the West
King of Murgos
Demon Lord of Karanda
Sorceress of Darshiva
Seeress of Kell
Prequels to Belgariad
Belgarath the Sorcerer
Polgara the Sorceress
I think that s all....
Then, summer reading happened. I'm sorry, but I felt like those were the worst books in history. A guy literally told me he skipped every other page in "Old Man and the Sea" and still passed the test. True, there were a few good ones, but by and large they were terrible (in my opinion).
However, I am constantly reading. I read the newspaper and GamePolitics regularly. Some of my favorite video games held no voice-overs, that means I gotta read to know what's happening, and I read the subtitles in the ones that do. I've even been know to... read the instruction manuals for games *gasp*. Standing in line? Time to read a poster, or magazine covers. When you break it down, I spend more time reading than I probably spend sleeping. Yet, in that study, I'd probably clock in at zero minutes of reading a week. Sorry, but you couldn't pay me to read "Old Man and the Sea" again.
I'm not really surprised that someone would use a percentage for shock value, but not reveal the numerical value. Its a common practice. They use whatever statistic agrees with what they are trying to say more.
The effect of gaming doesn't decrease it. If anything it doesn't increase or decrease the reading ability, because theres still some minor reading invloved.
Because nobody likes headlines that might make the reader feel GOOD.
At least the good studies are finally starting to trickle down, though the media will continue to spin things the way they like.
And people wonder why I've largely stopped watching TV...
Because most likely these people that do the tests probebly don't include comic books, Blog Posts, and other forms of reading mediums. im pretty sure for all of you it takes longer then 8 minutes to read all the stories on here on a regular basis, which is about 3 stories per day. also add up reading the comments and you probebly spent somewhere around 10-15 minutes. now it looks like you spend 10-15 minutes a day reading right?
wrong. If your a gamer then you probebly go to game sites where its essentially an essay collection on one topic, games. where you can pretty much spend 10 minutes to how ever long you wish to stay there, which adds up for me spending 2 hours reading that site alone. long story short include all the short bits of reading through out your day, i don't care if its reading the box of a game add it, and you will find that one of the only times your MAINLY not reading is eating, and sleeping.
With that and the help of his desire to read the Harry Potter books, my son now loves to read, and reads at 2 grade levels above his own. (He has since the 3rd grade, he's now going into 7th.)
eragon
eldest
the demonata all the book out so far
perseur jackson and the oliumpins sorry i cant spell
halo series
the cronicales of narnia
the cronicales of amber
everyone hurts
black juice
and a lot more