I didn’t really start playing videogames until I was 18 years old. I have mixed feelings about that – on one hand, I deeply regret letting them influence my childhood. Reading stories from people who cried at “Final Fantasy” and felt inspired to be braver by “The Legend of Zelda” is always a treat, and I really do feel disdain for the fact that I don’t have any such stories related to games. But on the other hand, at least I was never given the obligatory “games make you dumb” speech that has been a staple of parents everywhere for over 30 years now. We all know how it goes, even those of us who have never personally heard it – “Why are you wasting your time with those stupid games, they’ll never teach you anything, it’s just nonsense, go read a book or something!” Of course, most of us rightfully dismissed these notions as being ridiculous… But was there more to them than we thought? Maybe. Or maybe not. It’s complicated.
Recently, the National Children’s Bureau of Northern Ireland released a report asking the question of “How does the use of laptops, tablets and games consoles affect a child’s education?” And the answer is – a lot, it seems, and not in a good way. Basically, children who spend more than three hours a day playing games perform worse in school, with only 40% of the study subjects who use a handheld games player more than once a day achieving 5A*-C. Ouch! That sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? The study, which is about a hundred pages long, goes into quite a lot of detail about the various ways in which games ruin children’s lives not only in terms of grades, but in terms of social interaction as well. Well, it’s settled – take those games away from little Emily, they’re going to destroy her as a person! Except they probably won’t.
Popular gaming site Kotaku took a look at the report and found quite a lot of flaws in it. For instance – the report doesn’t really specify what is considered a “handheld games player”. A PlayStation Vita or a Nintendo DS would certainly qualify, but so would a phone or a tablet. So were the children evaluated in the study only those who own a gaming console, or were those with a mobile device considered too? Additionally, the focus groups of the study had all kinds of faults – for example, a giant chunk of the test subjects were boys, who statistically have lower grades than girls regardless of how many games they play. The notion that only boys play games is outdated and kind of sexist, so why an important gender demographic was omitted is beyond me. Additionally, a focus group of children who don’t play games was not examined at all, so there’s no way to tell if the study’s results even mean anything.
I highly recommend reading the entirety of Kotaku’s article, as it’s a really fascinating read. While the author does agree that the study’s overall points may be legitimate, the study as it is is too flawed to be taken seriously. So until it can be peer-reviewed and authenticated with additional studies that verify the results, I’d advise all parents to calm down and let their children play, because there’s plenty of studies out there proving that games have more benefits than downsides. Game on!