Video Games and Kids
As an avid gamer and a parent who aspires to do the right thing by his kid, what is the correct stance to take towards kids playing video games?
The conventional wisdom is that games are bad for you. They encourage lethargy and lead to entire generations of kids being converted into glazed-eyed, slack-jawed zombies ever eager for their next fix of pixelated crack.
New research is showing, however, that games have definite benefits. Steven Johnson's book Everything Bad is Good for You purports to show how popular culture, and video games in particular, hone cognitive skills. After all, hunting down and capping rival crack dealers in a limited time while evading police is really an exercise in thinking out the box, albeit one wrapped in a package that is unsavory to many.
There was also a recent report (which I now can't find) saying something along the lines that military recruits who were heavy gamers were often best suited for some tasks that rely heavily on video feeds and manipulation of on-screen data.
Personally, I let my 4-year-old son have some limited playing time on our Xbox (now 360!). At his age, I think the benefit is probably more in the area of hand-eye coordination than any kind of problem solving. Indeed, I've seen him progress in racing games from simply crashing cars straight into walls, to now being able to steer (somewhat) around corners. I'm sure that's largely natural development as he matures, but I figure he can always use the practice. He's also getting better at manipulating things in kid-oriented platformers like "Lego Star Wars" and "SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom".
Moreover, I expect to buy my first handheld gaming device when Nintendo's DS Lite launches Stateside in a few months. There are some unique games that I think resonate with parents a bit more than your typical shooter, titles like "Nintendogs", or a game that has you perform surgical procedures using the DS's touch screen (think "Operation" uploaded into the 21st century).
One other reason I let him play is that it's yet another activity we can do together. And unlike watching a movie or cartoon, it's something that has a high-degree of interaction and a sense of accomplishment for "winning". Should it preclude other forms of parental bonding? No, of course not. And we play board games, and do puzzles, and read books, and draw pictures together, too. Video games is just another thing we can do together.
In the end, I guess I take a common-sense approach. The main possible drawbacks of video games include increased aggression and unwillingness to engage in healtier physical activity. So far, my kid hasn't turned mean or lazy, and as long as it stays that way, I don't see any reason not to continue to allow him to have limited, supervised playing time.
What do you guys thing? I better wrap this up because I need to finish rescuing the Mexican president in Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. I'm not even joking.
The conventional wisdom is that games are bad for you. They encourage lethargy and lead to entire generations of kids being converted into glazed-eyed, slack-jawed zombies ever eager for their next fix of pixelated crack.
New research is showing, however, that games have definite benefits. Steven Johnson's book Everything Bad is Good for You purports to show how popular culture, and video games in particular, hone cognitive skills. After all, hunting down and capping rival crack dealers in a limited time while evading police is really an exercise in thinking out the box, albeit one wrapped in a package that is unsavory to many.
There was also a recent report (which I now can't find) saying something along the lines that military recruits who were heavy gamers were often best suited for some tasks that rely heavily on video feeds and manipulation of on-screen data.
Personally, I let my 4-year-old son have some limited playing time on our Xbox (now 360!). At his age, I think the benefit is probably more in the area of hand-eye coordination than any kind of problem solving. Indeed, I've seen him progress in racing games from simply crashing cars straight into walls, to now being able to steer (somewhat) around corners. I'm sure that's largely natural development as he matures, but I figure he can always use the practice. He's also getting better at manipulating things in kid-oriented platformers like "Lego Star Wars" and "SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom".
Moreover, I expect to buy my first handheld gaming device when Nintendo's DS Lite launches Stateside in a few months. There are some unique games that I think resonate with parents a bit more than your typical shooter, titles like "Nintendogs", or a game that has you perform surgical procedures using the DS's touch screen (think "Operation" uploaded into the 21st century).
One other reason I let him play is that it's yet another activity we can do together. And unlike watching a movie or cartoon, it's something that has a high-degree of interaction and a sense of accomplishment for "winning". Should it preclude other forms of parental bonding? No, of course not. And we play board games, and do puzzles, and read books, and draw pictures together, too. Video games is just another thing we can do together.
In the end, I guess I take a common-sense approach. The main possible drawbacks of video games include increased aggression and unwillingness to engage in healtier physical activity. So far, my kid hasn't turned mean or lazy, and as long as it stays that way, I don't see any reason not to continue to allow him to have limited, supervised playing time.
What do you guys thing? I better wrap this up because I need to finish rescuing the Mexican president in Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. I'm not even joking.
posted by Scott at
4:20 AM
1 Comments:
My sense is it's sort of an ad-hoc thing since there are so many variables involved, from the kid's personality, to what friends he hooks up with, to societal trends and whatnot. A one-size fits all approach, like "kids should never play more than two hours of games a week" is probably unrealistic. As a parent, you just need to be involved. If you're telling the kid to put down the game controller, you need to be willing to pick up the baseball glove and go out with them. I remember wasting tons of time with my Atari as a kid. My parents were generally hands-off when it came to games and TV.
Interestingly, I lost interest in video games from high school up until the launch of the Xbox in 2001. I also completely stopped watching TV in college (except for Star Trek: The Next Generation and SNL). This is in contrast to one of my best friends growing up. His parents were divorced, and he spent most of his time with his mom, who got rid of her TV out of the belief that it was a bad influence. She was undoubtedly right in some way, but I'm not sure her solution was the best. As an adult, my friend morphed into a complete couch potato with a 40" HDTV, etc.
From this highly scientific, representative survey of two people, I conclude that kids who got plenty of TV grow up to be involved in many more kinds of activities. Plus, we can get all the hilarious pop culture references on "Family Guy". Meanwhile, the kids who are completely deprived of electronic media perhaps are more apt to want to make up for lost time as adults!
By
Scott, at 4:57 PM
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