Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

2.8.11 | Gaming can be beneficial for pre-teen and teen girls, so long as parents play along, according to a new study from researchers at Brigham Young University.

The study of 287 families with teens age 11 to 16 found that in households where the child and the parent(s) played video games together, and in particular age-appropriate games, girls exhibited lower depression/anxiety, less aggression, and they felt more connected to their families. There were no effects, either positive or negative, on boys.

“It’s the face-to-face time, the interaction, that matters,” psychology professor Sarah Coyne, lead author of the study, said in a statement. The study appears in the Feb. 1 Journal of Adolescent Health.

Parents may show that they are willing to engage in an activity that is important to daughters. Second, playing video games can represent quality time between a daughter and a parent, especially when such play involves conversation between parent– child.

The most popular games for girls were “Mario Kart,” “Mario Brothers,” “Wii Sports,” “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero.”

Researchers speculated that it was mostly dads who were co-playing, because mothers did not often report playing video games with their kids. This co-playing may be an indicator of more involved parenting at large, the researchers said.

“Video games are kind of an adolescent thing,” Coyne told the Wall Street Journal. “When a parent says I’m going to sit down and do what you’re going to do, that sends a different message entirely.”

“There is a myth that kids are isolated when they play games, and that’s not necessarily true,” games researcher Seann Dikkers said in a recent interview.

Dikkers, a former teacher and administrator who is now a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has written about playing games at home with his 12-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter. Dikkers says parents can use the gaming experience to teach kids important skills, such as self-control, critical thinking and how to be part of a community. For more, read “Lessons Learned from Gaming with Dad” at Spotlight.

In the BYU study, researchers noted that while boys play games more overall, and play video games with their parents as much as girls, they did not benefit as girls did. One possible explanation, researchers said, is that because boys play more games, playing with parents may not have stood out as much for them.

More research is needed in order to confirm that these findings hold over time, but the authors note that this is the first study to show positive association for girls who play video games with their parents. The authors also caution that this study cannot determine that it is the act of playing with parents that causes these improved outcomes.

Recent data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that game play is nearly universal among teenagers in the United States, with 94 percent of teen girls playing games and 99 percent of teenage boys. That same study also found that gaming is a very social experience for most teenagers – 76 percent of adolescents say they play with friends, either in person or online.