Video Games Don't Make Kids Anti-Social
Hope Cummings of the University of Michigan and Elizabeth Vandewater from the University of Texas at Austin recently finished a study on how video game usage affects how children use their time.
According to the study, boys who play video games spend less time reading, while gamer girls spend less time on their homework. Time socializing with family and friends, however, does not suffer at the hands of a Wii or Xbox. Interestingly, the amount of time spent doing homework by boys stayed the same, and the amount of time spent reading stayed the same for girls.
As far as gaming habits are concerned, the study found that boys spend 58 minutes gaming a day during the week, and only 37 a day during the weekend. Girls on the other hand spent 44 minutes gaming on weekdays and one hour and four minutes a day on weekends.
The study did not look at grades, or how efficiently homework or reading was completed. It does, however, help dispel the notion that kids who play video games do so at the cost of social isolation.
From New Scientist
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