Two independent studies in Australia have thrown doubt on the suggestion that children are harmed by computer games. Instead, the studies say, games actually seem to improve family relations to a level not witnessed since the advent of television. The studies, conducted separately at the Universities of Western Australia and Western Sydney, declare that people worry unnecessarily about the harm computer games may cause their children while at home although one study noted the arcade as a possible disruptive influence. Kevin Durkin, associate professor of psychology at Western Australia University produced the report, Computer Games: Their Effect on Young People, for the Australian Office of Film & Literature Classification to help classify computer games now entering the market. Toni Downes, of the Western Sydney University faculty of education, studied children’s use of technology in the home for her report, Children’s use of Electronic Technologies in the Home. Durkin’s research questions computer games being the pervasively evil influence that some parents believe them to be. Genuine addiction to computer games is rather rare, he said, and computers may actually improve family relations because they promote joint activities on a scale that’s not been witnessed in developed countries since the advent of television.
Games play in arcades
Given that more boys than girls play computer games, he said, it is popular to assume that violent games can be linked to aggressive behaviour. Durkin said this has still not been conclusively proven, although some correlational studies have provided evidence of a modest relationship between video games play in arcades and aggressiveness ratings, these same studies finding no link between home play and aggressiveness ratings. This raises the question of whether the behaviour is linked to the environment, namely the arcade. In the University of Western Sydney study, Ms Downes collected information on regular computer users aged four to 12. One fifth of the 190 homes surveyed had more than one computer and very few used external networks, such as the Internet. Her findings agreed with those of Durkin in that she found that computers can have quite a strong effect on bringing families together. Not surprisingly, playing games represented the most common use, the report says, although Very few children appeared to be addicted to game playing in the sense that they spent too many hours playing. Listing each child’s favourite gave a total of 60 titles, none of which was overwhelmingly popular. Most children used computers at school where the most common uses were for playing games, writing stories, publishing, and using CD-ROMs to obtain information. Other uses were printing, painting, word processing, typing and for projects. The report notes: An important fact to emerge was that with the younger children, many had had computers at home for as long as they could remember. This… is significant for schools who need to face the challenge of coming generations of children who have been… born into a world of computing.
