So it turns out that gamers do less homework than non-gamers? No sh*t, Sherlock. We needed a study to tell us this?
The Universities of Michigan and Texas-Austin studied 1,500 children ages 10-19 to find these unimaginable results. It turns out that young gamers spend 30 percent less time reading (books?) and 34 percent less time doing homework than the non-gaming students. I wonder what they're doing instead of their homework.
"Although gamers and non-gamers 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," the researchers said.
Some other interesting facts from the study: over one-third of the group reported playing games, and about 80 percent of these were boys. These budding gamers played for about an hour on weekdays and 90 minutes on weekend days. Boys tended to spend more time playing than girls.
Wait, I think I see Captain Obvious circling around for a second flyby.
[via Science Daily, thanks Richard Blocker]
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
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Contest:
8:30 AM on 07.27.2007
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In fact, I'll never do homework again.
TAKE THAT MRS FRAUNHOFER!
Oddly, I find I read even less now that I have more time as an adult. I completely underestimated how much I read between classes, homeroom, lunch and while waiting to be picked up in the afternoon. Back then I'd polish off one of those 800 page fantasy megatomes in a week.
Oh and thanks too whoever wasted all the manpower, research, time and without a doubt hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell the most obvious of truths. Kids with a past-time that takes large amounts of time, do less homework...
The worst part of this is, I'm sure sports players do less homework, as does any student putting a major amount of time into something other than school homework.
But this will be another "notch in the belt" against letting kids play video games, which in turn reflects on the industry as a whole.
Still, I'd have to agree that gaming does often take time from homework ;)
I would hope that you wouldn't have to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours to do a survey to realize, "Hey, if kids play games they probably don't spend as much time doing things like school." No shit sherlock.
@Nyteshade: I found that when I was playing lacrosse in high school I did more homework and got better grades. I think it was because I had less time so I had to use it more efficiently. Also the whole "if you get more than two Ds you don't get to play" thing.
*considers fanboys*
never mind.
What boggles me about this study is that only 33% of the kids reported playing video games... where did they get these kids? Botswana?
(Too lazy to read article)
Like some have said, this study could mean that gamers are smarter so they need less homework time or that kids are learning from games and thus it replaces HW to some extent.
(I also think this was posted before)
Like some have said, this study could mean that gamers are smarter so they need less homework time or that kids are learning from games and thus it replaces HW to some extent.
(I also think this was posted before)
"On average, gamers played for an hour on the weekdays and an hour and a half on the weekends. Compared with nongamers, adolescent gamers spent 30% less time reading and 34% less time doing homework" (Source: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, where the study was published).
To be exact, ". . . boys spent an average of 58 minutes per day during the week and one hour 37 minutes on weekends playing video games, compared with girls who played for 44 minutes per day during the week and one hour and one minute on the weekends" (Any article on the internet about the study).
That means that during the week boys spent 41 minutes reading and 38 minutes studying, while girls spent 31 and 29, respectively. On the weekend (I'm guessing Sunday night), it was 68 minutes reading, 64 minutes studying for boys, and 43 minutes reading, 40 minutes studying for girls.
If my homework-deprived math is right, that's a difference of 13 MINUTES reading and 18 MINUTES studying for boys, and 15 MINUTES reading/21 MINUTES studying for girls.
These kids aren't reading or studying a lot anyway. And an hour a day doesn't exactly fall under the "hardcore" category.