WHAT VIDEO GAMES CAN TEACH US

1. Part 2 of 2: Video Games—Good or Bad? Last week: The Violent Side of Video Games Here’s some news for you to share with your parents and teachers: Video games might actually be good for you. Whenever a wave of teenage violence strikes, movies, TV, or video games often take the heat. Some adults assume that movies, TV, and video games are a bad influence on kids, and they blame these media for causing various problems. A variety of studies appear to support the link between media violence and bad behavior among kids (See The Violent Side of Video Games). But media don’t necessarily cause violence, says James Gee. Gee is an education professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “You get a group of teenage boys who shoot up a school—of course they’ve played video games,” Gee says. “Everyone does. It’s like blaming food because we have obese people.” Video games are innocent of most of the charges against them, Gee says. The games might actually do a lot of good. Gee has written a book titled What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. A growing number of researchers agree with Gee. If used in the right way, video and computer games have the potential to inspire learning. And they can help players improve coordination and visual skills. Attention-getting games A good video game is challenging, entertaining, and complicated, Gee says. It usually takes 50 to 60 hours of intense concentration to finish one. Even kids who can’t sit still in school can spend hours trying to solve a video or computer game. “Kids diagnosed with ADHD because they can’t pay attention will play games for 9 straight hours on the computer,” Gee says. “The game focuses attention in a way that school doesn’t.” The captivating power of video games might lie in their interactive nature. Players don’t just sit and watch. They get to participate in the action and solve problems. Some games even allow players to make changes in the game, allowing new possibilities. And kids who play computer games often end up knowing more about computers than their parents do. “Kids today are natives in a culture in which their parents are immigrants,” Gee says. In his 2 to 3 years of studying the social influences of video games, Gee has seen a number of young gamers become computer science majors in college. One kid even ended up as a teaching assistant during his freshman year because the school’s computer courses were too easy for him. Screen reading Video games can enhance reading skills, too. In the game Animal Crossing, for instance, players become characters who live in a town full of animals. Over the course of the game, you can buy a house, travel from town to town, go to museums, and do other ordinary things. All the while, you’re writing notes to other players and talking to the animals. Because kids are interested in the game, they often end up reading at a level well above their grade, even if they say they don’t like to read.