Internet and Videogames Improve Reading Skills and Visual Spatial Skills in Children
Well yes, but only for those children initially low in these skills. Gender, race and income did not influence the relationship between videogaming, Internet use and academic performance in children.
Computers and Internet access are available in almost all schools in the US, 87% of children between 12 and 17 use the Internet, 71% of online youth in this age group rely on the Internet for school projects, 88% of the children believe they benefit from Internet for school performance, 34% downloaded study aides from the Internet, 57% used a home computer to complete school assignments.
But does the Internet and videogaming benefit academic performance in children?
They studied this question in 482 youth form 20 middle schools spread throughout the southern lower peninsula of Michigan. They measured twice during the first and second year. Besides the above mentioned conclusions it found videogaming improving visual spatial skills but it negatively influenced academic performance. Mostly so for those who were doing well on academic performance, for those with below average of average performance on academic performance videogaming looses it’s impact on academic performance over time.
So if your child has below average reading skills Internet use can improve it, the same for visual spatial skills. For those with average or above average Internet and videogaming don’t seem to improve their skills, videogaming may have an negative effect on academic performance over time for those with above average academic performance. Since Internet and even videogaming seem to become part of everyday live for children the most important concern to my opinion is not them using Internet or videogaming but getting them outside and play and exercise, what do you think?
Jackson, L., von Eye, A., Witt, E., Zhao, Y., & Fitzgerald, H. (2010). A longitudinal study of the effects of Internet use and videogame playing on academic performance and the roles of gender, race and income in these relationships Computers in Human Behavior DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2010.08.001
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ResearchBlogging.org News » Blog Archive » Editor’s Selections: Video Games, Global Warming, Religion, and Sex
September 21, 2010 @ 5:02 pm
[…] Shock says that Internet and Video Games Improve Reading Skills and Visual Spatial Skills in Children. If the kids are initially low in those skills, at […]
September 21, 2010 @ 11:29 pm
In 1989 I used a VCR and microphone to record a group of three to five year olds as they were playing Nintendo games. I wanted to understand what made the Nintendo experience so engaging for children. Having wired them up, I asked them to describe what they were doing and then became invisible.
From previous observations it was clear that themes (i.e., Batman, Turtles, etc…), whizzy sounds, and sophisticated color graphics were not the real issues. While they attracted the child’s initial interest, some of the most apparently spectacular games were missing something that others far less so had – the ability to sustain the child’s engagement. My hunch was that underneath all the multi-media whiz-bang was a special quality of engagement between child and game that emerged if the game’s deeper rhythms of play were compatible with the child’s interest and attention span.
What I discovered was that the most engagable Nintendo experiences shared certain “deep dynamics”. They all involved 1) trusting that obstacles could be overcome and 2) moving through a matrix of challenges and obstacles, learning certain movement skills and dexterities, using one’s “energy” or “lives” judiciously, and most importantly, learning when and how to: freeze the game playing, jump “off-line” to a resource screen, select a resource with which to overcome an obstacle, re-engage the play screen and employ the resource to move ahead (resources might be ladders, hammers, magic potions, jewels, rafts, money, food, a consulting wizard, etc..).
I still remember how I felt as I started to see beneath the surface of the game playing. The conceptual dexterities of these kids were stunning – here they were manipulating a rich tapestry of logical types, levels of inference, multiple contingencies, numerous specific meanings – doing it all very dynamically – and all with an effortlessness that was breathtaking to behold. I couldn’t help but thinking they were practicing the future – not the content – somehow, I felt, they were practicing the future process of processing. How was it that these kids could deal with so many interrelated contingencies and meanings at once?
Asking that question and reviewing the tapes, I saw there were cycling rhythms of challenge, frustration, creative resource application and renewal that were at the core of why they enjoyed playing the games. Yes, the sound and graphic effects were important components but it was the way the games allowed the children to creatively act upon their own frustrations – the cycle of relevancy, challenge, frustration, and resolution – all happening in real time compatibility with the ACTUAL child’s attention, that I found to be the key.
Today the debate about video games misses the point. The question is how to differentiate those aspects of education that are about learning to present to nature from those aspects of education that are inherently artificial anyway and that we should use video game like systems to teach?
YouTube video on the above: http://www.youtube.com/ImplicityLearning#p/c/ED8BE5739D236966/12/rUoTqXFVahs
September 21, 2010 @ 11:30 pm
As for reading… please see:
http://www.childrenofthecode.org
“Fiction” is not a Dirty Word | Rick:Caffeinated – RickCaffeinated
March 17, 2011 @ 2:05 am
[…] you in class without a care as to your reading levels. I try to correlate your lack of reading with your proclivity to play Halo:Reach ’til 4am every night. Then, I usually go back and start judging you improperly […]