iGame Radio

I read this with a mixture of elation and validation. A study from Brigham Young University’s School of Family Life studied the relationship between parents and their kids in regards to behavior and video game co-playing. And the results suggest that, at least for girls, co-playing is important.

The Brigham Young study, authored by Sarah M. Coyne, Ph.D., distributed questionnaires to 287 adolescents between the ages of 11 and 16 and their parents, polling them on a number of video game, behavioral, and family-related issues, with the aim to study the relationship between child behavior and parental co-play of video games. They wanted to see what effect playing video games with parents had on children.

The results were fascinating. For girls, the benefits of playing games with parents were big. These girls were better behaved, felt more connected to their families and less aggressive, and demonstrated decreased levels of internalizing of emotions.

Why? One theory promoted by Coyne is the following:

When parents play video games with their daughters, they may be sending a myriad of messages. First, 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.

Interestingly enough, these same advantages were not found from co-playing with boys. The study concluded that because boys play more often than girls by a significant amount but co-play with parents the same amount as with girls, any advantages that co-playing with a parent might confer would be undermined by the amount of time spent playing with non-parental figures. Also, boys play more age-inappropriate games as well, and the study found that this negatively impacted behavior, even when co-playing was involved.

Another interesting factor is the data found connected to co-playing with mothers. Far fewer mothers co-played with their children, and the study found that the older a mother was, the less likely she was to play with her children. Anyone who is a seasoned veteran of video games can tell you why that would be. Until recently, girls were never encouraged to play video games, many games were not “girl-friendly”, and the video-game culture was not friendly to woman. So, growing up, one will find fewer adult woman who are interested in video games, and that number will get smaller as the age gets higher.

So I was very surprised to find Laura M. Padilla-Walker, a co-author for the study, actually say “We’re guessing it’s a daddy-daughter thing, because not a lot of moms said yes when we asked them if they played video games. Co-playing is probably an indicator of larger levels of involvement.”

No, Ms. Padilla-Walker, not a lot of moms said yes because they’d never been encouraged to play games when they were girls. Now their daughters are being encouraged, and hopefully, in ten to twenty years, when this study is repeated, the data will be different…at least as far as parents co-playing with their daughters. Now moms will be as important and involved, too.

via Kotaku