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the present study is the first to investigate the effects of long-term violent video gameplay

Our participants played the violent video game Grand Theft Auto V, the non-violent video game The Sims 3 or no game at all for 2 months on a daily basis. No significant changes were observed, neither when comparing the group playing a violent video game to a group playing a non-violent game, nor to a passive control group.

the question that society is actually interested in is not: “Are people more aggressive after having played violent video games for a few minutes? And are these people more aggressive minutes after gameplay ended?”, but rather “What are the effects of frequent, habitual violent video game playing? And for how long do these effects persist (not in the range of minutes but rather weeks and months)?”

Girls should play more video games.

spatial skills matter: The ability to mentally manipulate shapes and otherwise understand how the three-dimensional world works turns out to be an important predictor of creative and scholarly achievements

spatial skills can be improved by training; these improvements persist over time; and they “transfer” to tasks that are different from the tasks used in the training

I never limit my kids’ screen time. I do, however, require reading time, outdoor play time, and physical toy time. The difference between limiting screen time and requiring non-screen time is subtle, but substantial. It emphasizes the positive benefit of other activities rather than scolding the screen.

I spend a lot of time making sure my children don’t get too heavily absorbed in any one way of perceiving. I do this by paying enough attention to what games my kids are playing that I can ask them to switch games. That’s right, not all games are the same. Each one has unique narrative properties. Each one has particular mechanics that inadvertently teach a specific way of making meaning of the world. Gaming is not a singular way of being. Parenting gamer-kids is not just about monitoring the on/off switch.

Consider Minecraft. Like most kids these days, mine play it all the time. I’ve written about the good things my kids learn by playing. I love the free sandbox creativity. I think it strengthens a sense of systems thinking. But I’m also worried that so many kids develop an almost obsessive relationship to the game.

Social media and online gameplay are the most common digital venues for meeting friends

Along with texting, teens are incorporating a number of other devices, communication platforms and online venues into their interactions with friends

Video games play a critical role in the development and maintenance of boys’ friendships

At what point does a leisure activity turn into an addiction?

In the modern developed world, the dominant leisure activity is watching television, followed by other leisure activities like sports and entertaining friends. There’s no evidence that game playing is more dangerous than these other leisure activities

People watch television for far more time than they play video games. In the U.S., people watch an average of 4.5 hours of TV every day. That’s more time than they spend reading, relaxing, socializing, participating in sports, playing digital games and using computers – combined.

kids really do not like educational games; in fact, they hate them. And as I watched more kids play video games, I realized Sid was 100% correct. If given a choice between a game designed with a learning goal or a commercial game designed for fun, kids’ll choose fun every time.

when we reject the games that boys play, the games are merely a proxy for the boys themselves.We reject games because they’re violent, individualistic, competitive, engrossing and largely foreign to us as teachers, parents, leaders, adults. And these are the precise characteristics of boys that we reject when we enforce zero tolerance policies

We don’t have specific limits, because their lives are full of other things that are equally as fun and engaging for them. So, yes, it’s OK for your child to game, as long as they do it in a careful, balanced and sustained way (yes, sustained: deep engagement, grit, perseverance and other good skills are not built by grazing). Valuing their gaming activities amounts to respecting them and their culture

the last five years has seen a huge renaissance in video game design

a lot of the technologies that are going to affect our lives in the next decade are being tested and developed in the video game sphere.

A lot of the people now making, producing and funding television and movies grew up playing video games – and that influence is becoming ever more obvious and important.

we see little to be concerned about with the game

Granted, kids’ enthusiasm for Fortnite can be a little much, but we are old enough to remember Garbage Pail kids and have played Pokémon.

one of the best things educators can do is bystander training. That is, we can teach kids appropriate ways to respond when they see distrustful, harassing, or hateful behavior.

Too often, designers of educational materials and activities simply add a thin layer of technology and gaming over antiquated curriculum and pedagogy

But I’m also sure that some students found it very discouraging and disempowering. And the activity put an emphasis on questions that can be answered quickly with right and wrong answers — certainly not the type of questions that I would prioritize in a classroom.

In many cases, the skeptics apply very different standards to new technologies than to “old” technologies. They worry about the antisocial impact of a child spending hours working on a computer, while they don’t have any concerns about a child spending the same time reading a book. They worry that children interacting with computers don’t spend enough time outside, but they don’t voice similar concerns about children playing musical instruments. I’m not suggesting that there are no reasons for concern. I’m just asking for more consistency.

It’s a tradeoff, because [people who play action games] show increases in other areas of mental function,” Fonzo points out. While their hippocampus shrank, they also showed increases in grey matter in their caudate nucleus, a region of the brain partially responsible for habit learning.

subjects who played a Mario Brothers 3-D platform games saw an increase in the grey matter of their hippocampus

the ideal is a balanced use of both the hippocampus and caudate nucleus memory systems,

Sexual predators and other bad actors have found an easy access point into the lives of young people: They are meeting them online through multiplayer video games and chat apps

Games are a common target, but predators are also finding many victims on social platforms like Instagram

Six years ago, a little over 50 reports of the crimes, commonly known as “sextortion,” were referred to the federally designated clearinghouse in suburban Washington that tracks online child sexual abuse. Last year, the center received over 1,500

are video games art? The short – and long – answer is yes. While it’s impossible to categorize all games easily (just as it is impossible to categorize all fiction, let along writing), there’s no question that gaming is a thriving form of participatory creative expression.

Ironically – and tellingly – people such as Schultz are repeating the same sorts of criticisms that dog all forms of popular culture in their early stages of developments. As novels became increasingly available to non-aristocratic readers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, they were frequently criticized for impairing the morals of their then-mostly female readers by allowing them to imagine themselves in new and exciting worlds. Movies, comic books, and rock and roll – which like novels are often drenched in sex and violence – came in for exactly the same opprobrium. What good can come of allowing large numbers of people to imagine themselves transgressing conventional morality and playing different social roles for themelves, critics have asked for centuries.

the ability for a game to teach multiple skills simultaneously

does not build video games to ‘teach mathematics.’ Rather, we build instruments which you can play, and we design them so that when you play them, you cannot fail to learn about mathematics. Moreover, each single game can be used to deliver mathematical challenges of increasing sophistication.

I love the instrument analogy because I’m often explaining to my students why the Ancient Greeks saw math and music as part of the same realm–that area of experience that belonged to the god Apollo. Of course, the relationship has to do with intervals. But both math and music are also related to Apollo’s other domains, such as light, prophecy, healing, etc. The connection has been hard to understand from the rigidly measured viewpoint that has dominated Western thinking since Nietzsche inadvertently cemented the Apollonian into strict opposition with the Dionysian in The Birth Of Tragedy.