In 1928, a Scottish
biologist name Alexander Fleming accidentally made a discovery
that would change the world. While studying bacteria responsible
for a number of serious diseases, he realized that the Petri
dishes he had prepared with bacterial samples were contaminated
with something else, a fungus. Then he noticed something
amazing. The dish displayed a ring where bacteria hadn't
grown around a bit of fungus. The fungus was a member of
the penicillium family. Fleming had discovered penicillin,
the cure for some of the world's most devastating diseases.
I was reminded of this story when I read a report of recent
research that sheds new light on the possible impact of
video games on a student's grade point average (GPA). A
father-son team of researchers, one an economist, the other
a mathematician, discovered something psychologists have
been trying to determine for years. And the study wasn't
even trying to examine the impact of media on students.
Instead, the researchers were interested in how study habits
affect GPA.
But Todd and Ralph Stinebrickner noticed something interesting
in the results: college freshmen whose roommates supplied
their shared dorm room with a video game console studied
an average of 40 fewer minutes a day than did the students
whose rooms didn't have an Xbox 360 or a Nintendo Wii. Even
more intriguing was this result: the students with video
games had GPAs about a quarter of a point lower than the
students who spent the 40 minutes studying. In other words,
that new Playstation 3 might explain why your child's GPA
just dropped from a B average to a B minus.
Does this study prove that video games make kids stupider?
Of course not. But it does seem to suggest that studying
affects academic performance. And it looks like it shows
that kids who have 24-hour access to the distracting fun
of video games don't study as much as they should. And as
a result, they don't do as well in school.
This study is yet another piece of evidence showing us why
we should keep media out of kids' bedrooms. While we can't
monitor college dorms, we can enforce proper time limits
for the younger ones. This will help them establish effective
study habits. It's okay if kids and teens play video games.
We just need to make sure the games don't crowd out the
habits and skills necessary for a healthy, happy life.
Corporate media advocates often accuse researchers of going
out of our way to prove the mass media are bad for kids.
The Stinebrickners just wanted to know if the students who
studied did better in class. They weren't looking to bash
games. And yet the video game variable was too big to ignore.
Their study reminds me of Fleming's story in another way
too. It reminds me of the importance of helping our children
gain a love of reading and doing well in school as early
as possible. Maybe making our kids MediaWise is like giving
them penicillin for the potential harms of media use.
David Walsh, Ph.D. is the founder of the
MediaWise Movement, a program of the National Institute
on Media and the Family (www.mediawise.org).
His latest book, No: Why Kids - of All Ages - Need to
Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It (Free Press) is
available in bookstores.
Our
media culture is changing how kids learn.
Together we make sure it's for the better. Donate
Now!
