Video Games Keep Boys from Reading and Writing, Study Says

by Honey Berk (Subscribe to Honey Berk's posts)
Feb 25th 2010 1:00PM

Filed under: In The News, Health & Safety: Toddlers & Preschoolers, Health & Safety: Big Kids

Are video games holding your son back? Credit: Getty Images

Does your son know that the road to rescuing Princess Peach is filled with Star Coins, rolling snowballs, and Mega Mushrooms, but can't tell you why Alexander is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? If so, he's not alone.

A new study reports that boys who own video games experience more delays in reading, writing, spelling, and other academic tasks compared to boys who don't. The authors quote previous research which shows that kids who own video games spend more time playing the games, less time at after-school educational activities, and earn lower grades. So why do a new study?

Previous studies do show a connection between video game play and academic performance, but were not designed to measure cause and effect. So it's impossible to tell whether struggling students may just give up and decide to spend less time on schoolwork and more time playing video games, or if playing video games actually causes students to struggle.

The current study, published last week in the journal Psychological Science, looked at boys aged 6 to 9 who did not already have a video game system. Using the game system as a reward for participation, the researchers measured the boys' intelligence, academic skills, and behavior over the course of four months, before and after they began playing video games. The results were as predicted.

Boys in the group that received the game system at the beginning of the test period received significantly higher Learning Problems scores on the Teacher Rating Scale vs. boys who received it at the end; these scores reflect delays in reading, writing, spelling, and other academic tasks. "Our findings provide initial support for the notion that video-game ownership among boys is associated with decreased academic achievement in the areas of reading and writing," wrote the researchers. They did not, however, find differences in behavior.

They added that early reading and writing problems are particularly important for young, elementary-school age children, because they can interfere with the development of more advanced reading and writing skills later on. It's interesting to note that math scores did not differ between the two groups, which may suggest that video games do not affect math skills as they do reading and writing.

Follow-up studies must be done to see if the effects remain the same beyond the short-term, four-month period studied, and to see if the same holds true for young girls. For now, parents are advised to look at the growing body of research and tips from the experts to help make informed choices regarding their family's media consumption.

Do you limit your kids' video game time?

Related: Guys More Prone to Video Game Addiction