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Monday, August 4, 2014

Study Shows No Difference Whether You Play Videogames One Hour a Day Or Three

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Tell your parents to allow you more play time!

KoopaTV is a firm believer in the parent-child interaction when it comes to videogames. So here is something to educate your parents on (or if you're a parent, consider when making policy for your kids), if you trust these kinds of studies, this one published in The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics by Dr. Andrew K. Przybylski:
"Low levels (<1 hour daily) as well as high levels (>3 hours daily) of game engagement was linked to key indicators of psychosocial adjustment. Low engagement was associated with higher life satisfaction and prosocial behavior and lower externalizing and internalizing problems, whereas the opposite was found for high levels of play. No effects were observed for moderate play levels when compared with non-players."
If you look at the whole study (not just the abstract), and I recommend you do by reading it here, it has some good statistical information. The sample was nearly 5,000 10-15 year olds across the United Kingdom, roughly half and half boys and girls. Such statistical information includes this table, for those who do not care about the psychoanalytical statistic tables that make up the rest of the study's data:

The average amount of time kids spend per day playing console and PC games.
Unfortunately, at least in the UK, console gaming seems less popular than PC gaming. Especially among girls.


So what about those light players compared to the non-players of videogames? By the way, the study notes that most young people do play games nowadays.
"Compared with nonplayers, children who typically invest less than one-third of their daily free time playing games showed higher levels of prosocial behavior and life satisfaction and lower levels of conduct problems, hyperactivity, peer problems, and emotional symptoms."
Basically that means you're neutral or better off playing games for any length of time per day up to three hours. Which reinforces the pro-game message we have at KoopaTV!

We're not going to ignore the following tidbit though:
"However, compared with factors shown to have robust and enduring effects on child well-being such as family functioning, social dynamics at school, and material deprivations, the current study suggests the influences of electronic gaming, for good or ill, are not practically significant."
But that doesn't shoot down our message. If it's insignificant either way, then why not let the kids play? Everyone else is doing it, it's fun for them, and should be fun for you. Yes, games are expensive compared to other forms of entertainment, but most games you should be buying have a lot more value than those other forms of entertainment, from a price per hour perspective.

The study also suggests that negative effects appear when you play too much because you're more likely to be exposed to M-rated content, which makes you a worse person for one reason or another. And we agree that the stereotypical kids who swear a storm on Call of Duty for hours at a time are bad children who are maladjusted.

Anyway, the study is not all-inclusive by any means, and it has a host of suggestions for future study ideas they could do. Such as including smartphone games, which we suspect would wipe out any positive gains from console gaming. We also think PC gaming inhibits the study's positive effects and magnifies negative effects. ...Yup.


Ludwig does not have permission from the American Academy of Pediatrics to use anything from their journal. Apparently they don't let you even paraphrase text. Before KoopaTV is sued, be sure to leave your comments in the article and throughout the site. Even when KoopaTV is sued for the millions in damages this article will no doubt cause, and then KoopaTV will be taken down as a result, KoopaTV's giveaway contest will still happen! So enter it!

1 comment :

  1. Here's what AOL thinks?

    http://on.aol.com/video/study-claims-video-games-not-so-bad-for-kids-after-all-518354783

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