Longitudinal study on internet and video game use and psychosocial predictors (Willoughby, 2008)

If I knew someone at Brock University was studying media psychology, I would have applied grad studies there… Why did I miss her?! Maybe I should contact her to see if anyone else is also interested in media psychology. 

Abstract

Prevalence, frequency, and psychosocial predictors of Internet and computer game use were assessed with 803 male and 788 female adolescents across 2 time periods, 21 months apart. At Time 1, participants were in the 9th or 10th grade; at Time 2, they were in the 11th or 12th grade. Most girls (93.7%) and boys (94.7%) reported using the Internet at both time periods, whereas more boys (80.3%) than girls (28.8%) reported gaming at both time periods. Girls reported a small decrease over time in the frequency of hours spent per day on overall technology use, mostly due to a decrease in gaming. Both linear and curvilinear relations were examined between parental relationships, friendship quality, academic orientation, and well-being measured in early high school and the frequency of technology use in late high school. Being male significantly predicted both computer gaming and Internet use. There also were trends in favor of higher friendship quality and less positive parental relationships predicting higher frequency of Internet use. Importantly, moderate use of the Internet was associated with a more positive academic orientation than nonuse or high levels of use.

Relation of time spent on video games and other activities (Cummings & Vandewater, 2007)

This is to follow up on the previous post about video game use and academic performance. This article was also referred by gamepolitics.com.

 Abstract

Objective  To examine the notion that playing video games is negatively related to the time adolescents spend in more developmentally appropriate activities. Design  Nonexperimental study.

Setting  Survey data collected during the 2002-2003 school year.

Participants  A nationally representative sample of 1491 children aged 10 to 19 years.

Main Outcome Measure  Twenty-four–hour time-use diaries were collected on 1 weekday and 1 weekend day, both randomly chosen. Time-use diaries were used to determine adolescents’ time spent playing video games, with parents and friends, reading and doing homework, and in sports and active leisure.

Results  Differences in time spent between game players and nonplayers as well as the magnitude of the relationships among game time and activity time among adolescent game players were assessed. Thirty-six percent of adolescents (80% of boys and 20% of girls) played video games. On average, gamers played for an hour on the weekdays and an hour and a half on the weekends. Compared with nongamers, adolescent gamers spent 30% less time reading and 34% less time doing homework. Among gamers (both genders), time spent playing video games without parents or friends was negatively related to time spent with parents and friends in other activities.

Conclusions  Although gamers and nongamers did not differ in the amount of time they spent interacting with family and friends, concerns regarding gamers’ neglect of school responsibilities (reading and homework) are warranted. Although only a small percentage of girls played video games, our findings suggest that playing video games may have different social implications for girls than for boys.

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

Video game use and academic performance (Anand, 2007)

Among gamers and public, there are differing opinions about video games and how it affects children’s academic performance. Most gamers say it has a positive or no effect on their academic performance, most parents and teachers I heard state the opposite. As for academia, well this article isn’t the first to look at video game use and academic performance. There are certainly others, but this was in my personal library.

 Abstract

This study analyzes the correlation between video game usage and academic performance. Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and grade-point average (GPA) scores were used to gauge academic performance. The amount of time a student spends playing video games has a negative correlation with students’ GPA and SAT scores. As video game usage increases, GPA and SAT scores decrease. A chi-squared analysis found a p value for video game usage and GPA was greater than a 95% confidence level (0.005 < p < 0.01). This finding suggests that dependence exists. SAT score and video game usage also returned a p value that was significant (0.01 < p < 0.05). Chi-squared results were not significant when comparing time spent studying and an individual’s SAT score. This research suggests that video games may have a detrimental effect on an individual’s GPA and possibly on SAT scores. Although these results show statistical dependence, proving cause and effect remains difficult, since SAT scores represent a single test on a given day. The effects of video games maybe be cumulative; however, drawing a conclusion is difficult because SAT scores represent a measure of general knowledge. GPA versus video games is more reliable because both involve a continuous measurement of engaged activity and performance. The connection remains difficult because of the complex nature of student life and academic performance. Also, video game usage may simply be a function of specific personality types and characteristics.

From the abstract, Anand suggest that it’s not a simple effect to measure. I’ll read it as soon as someone express interest, so please leave a comment.

Anand, V. (2007). A study of time management: The correlation between video game usage and academic performance markers. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(4), 552-559.

Violent video games studied as a teaching tool (Gentile & Gentile, 2008)

Now Andrew Eisen asked some questions about the study in gamepolitics.com and I can’t help but to try to answer them. The best practice of getting the right answers is to e-mail the authors themselves, the contact info should be on the first page.

Abstract

This article presents conceptual and empiricalanalyses of several of the ‘‘best practices’’ of learning and instruction, and demonstrates how violent video games use them effectively to motivate learners to persevere in acquiring and mastering a number of skills, to navigate through complex problems and changing environments, and to experiment with different identities until success is achieved. These educational principles allow for the generation of several testable hypotheses, two of which are tested with samples of 430 elementary school children (mean age 10 years), 607 young adolescents (mean age 14 years), and 1,441 older adolescents (mean age 19 years). Participants were surveyed about their video game habits and their aggressive cognitions and behaviors.

The first hypothesis is based on the principle that curricula that teach the same underlying concepts across contexts should have the highest transfer. Therefore, students who play multiple violent video games should be more likely to learn aggressive cognitions and behaviors than those who play fewer.

The second hypothesis is based on the principle that long-term learning is improved the more practice is distributed across time. Therefore, students who play violent video games more frequently across time should be more likely to learn aggressive cognitions and behaviors than those who play the same types of games for equivalent amounts of time but less frequently. Both hypotheses were supported. We conclude by describing what educators can learn from the successful instructional and curriculum design features of video games.

Now on to the questions:

“Why was a second aggression sample only done with the elementary school kids?”

Can’t really answer right away, need time. Maybe after mid-december when i’m done with undergrad thesis proposal.

“How significant was the aggression increase? I look at the table in the study and I have to wonder what the difference between a .33 and .44 overall physical aggression index is.” The table he’s refering is”Table 1″

Now I might be able to answer that. Now the table only show the raw correlational data, you can’t compare correlational scores to predict something. so they used logisitic regression (see in wikipedia).

Now speaking of only the 3-5th graders, they’re trying to predict variables measured at time 1 to time 2 ( measures take on november-February and measures taken April-May). So they controlled several variables from being a factor into their calculation: sex, race, age, lag(?), weekly amounts of video game play, and time 1 hostile attribution bias.

Therefore, figure 1 is what needs to look at, but I haven’t been taught on how to read logistical regressions. so i’m just reading from the text. So controlling all these variables, they found that playing multiple violent video games influence kids concept of aggression as a normal thing and will see things in aggressive terms, so with an aggressive cognition, which would result in more aggressive behaviours. Unfortunately, I do know they have a significant effect, but how large is the effect? Well, i don’t know. Maybe it’s small like Patrick Markey said?

 Update(11/02/08): I’ve finally read the article, see my comments after the break.