Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine Study

Another survey-based study came out recently, this one appearing in the July issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. “Relation of Adolescent Video Game Play to Time Spent in Other Activities” was written by Hope Cummings over at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Elizabeth Vandewater at University of Texas, Austin. The abstract is here.

The sample size was larger than the Journal of Adolescent Health study also published this month, with 1491 children ranging in age from 10 to 19 years old. Data was collected in 2002 and 2003. The researchers used 24 hour time-use diaries, and studied a representative sample with the goal of determining if video game use interfered with other activities important for adolescent development.

Cummings and Vandewater found, essentially, that video games did not interfere with other interactions such as family time and homework. However, the results they presented left plenty of room for negative aspersions against video game use. The press release, picked up by several news outlets such as ScienceDaily.com, focused on negative elements of game use.

“For boys on the weekends and for girls on the weekdays, more time spent playing video games without parents was related to less time spent with parents doing other activities,” the authors write.

I’m not sure if this is a good assertion to make. For instance, what if the children read comic books or science fiction novels? Then the statement might read like this: “For boys on the weekends and for girls on the weekdays, more time spent reading novels without parents was related to less time spent with parents doing other activities.” You can see how substituting a different activity takes away the salaciousness from the quote.  

Another interesting element to the study was a focus on male/female differences, something researchers like to cue in on and likely to see considerable research in future efforts. Unlike the JAH study, only 20% of girls in the population sample were found to play video games. This quote from the press release was repeated in news coverage:

“Although we focused on the relationship between time spent in video game play and other activities among adolescents, an important next step for future research will be to assess the ways in which video game play is related to academic and social outcomes among American youth,” they conclude. “…Our results indicate that game play has different social implications for girls and boys who play. Future studies aimed at understanding how and why girls vs. boys use game play to fulfill different social needs are warranted.”

Other than the apparent negative bias against video game use for recreational purposes, this appears to be a nice non-experimental study that adds to our picture of game use in the daily lives of young people.

References

Cummings, H. M. & Vandewater, E. A. (2007, July). Relation of adolescent video game play to time spent in other activities. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 161(7). 684-689.

ScienceDaily.com (2007, July 4). Study examines video game play among adolescents. [Online]. Available: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070702161141.htm