Are Video Games Helping or Hurting Our Kids?

For as long as we've had computers in our house, my husband and I have struggled with decisions about how often (and for what purposes) our kids should be allowed to use them. Like most parents, we tried to shield our kids from inappropriate online content and potentially harmful contacts, and we regularly encouraged them to go outside and "play in the real world." 

At some point, though, it became obvious that the benefits of allowing kids to use computers outweighed any disadvantages. As someone who has used computers productively for many years, I couldn't see the point in telling my kids they couldn't use computers at all. So, my questions about computer usage soon changed from "whether" to "what" and "how much." While my kids were still young, I supervised their usage and tried to steer them to safe websites or games that seemed educational (such as Reader Rabbit, Treasure Mathstorm!, and The Oregon Trail). However, as they got older, and the video games got less "educational," I started to worry about how much time they were spending in front of a screen. Had I made a big mistake in allowing those games into our home?

I admit there were days when I was tempted to pull the plug and ban video games entirely, but then I was reminded (probably by my kids) of my interest-led approach to homeschooling. Did I really believe what I had been saying about allowing children to follow their passions? If my son was fascinated by video games, shouldn't I try to learn something about them? Did I really know enough to pronounce them "a waste of time"?

My reason for writing this blog post is to share what I learned about gaming. First, I recommend the following two articles, which debunk the most common myths about video games:

• "Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked" by Henry Jenkins. An essay on the impact of gaming. Accessed from the PBS companion site for The Video Game Revolution, KCTS Television, 2004.
• "Video Games Don't Cause Children to be Violent" by Michael D. Gallagher, U.S. News and World Report, May 10, 2010. 

Although video games don't seem to have had a negative impact on my son's behavior (if anything, he has learned to work more collaboratively) I was nonetheless reassured to discover that this common assertion—that violent video games lead to violent behavior—has no basis in fact. 

So video games aren't bad for us. That's good news. But are they actually beneficial—or just a benign waste of time? In her TED Talk, "Your Brain on Video Games," brain scientist Daphne Bavlier argues that games can make our brains "better, smarter, faster."


Steven Johnson makes a similar argument in his book, Everything Bad is Good for You. As games have grown increasingly complex, gamers have adapted by developing better cognitive thinking and creative problem solving skills. It seems the value of video games lies not in the content of the games but in the ways in which they are played.

In April 2006, Wired magazine published an interesting response to the question of whether games have any value beyond entertainment. In their article, "You Play World of Warcraft? You're Hired!" John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas argue that "multiplayer games may be the best kind of job training." Here's how they explain it: 

"Unlike education acquired through textbooks, lectures, and classroom instruction, what takes place in massively multiplayer online games is what we call accidental learning. It's learning to be—a natural byproduct of adjusting to a new culture—as opposed to learning about. Where traditional learning is based on the execution of carefully graded challenges, accidental learning relies on failure. Virtual environments are safe platforms for trial and error. The chance of failure is high, but the cost is low and the lessons learned are immediate."

Game designer Jane McGonigal sees games as so extraordinarily beneficial that she states emphatically (and quite seriously) that "games are essential to the future survival of the human species." Her 2010 TED Talk, "Gaming Can Make a  Better World," is fascinating:


Instead of banning games, educators and developers are now trying to leverage the best features of the most popular games to enhance learning. According to James Paul Gee, author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, "There is no shortage of people today who want to create 'serious games' for learning . . . . games have a role to play in learning from kindergarten through the workplace and on into retirement because they allow people to inhabit and learn through new worlds of experience" ("What Would a State of the Art Instructional Video Game Look Like?").

Some researchers have been exploring ways in which games might be used to revamp higher education. In his article "5 Teaching Tips for Professors—From Video Games" Jeffrey R. Young uses his understanding of what makes games effective to advise professors on how they could improve instruction in their classrooms and online courses.

The more I have looked into it, the more I have started to see the value of gaming. In spite of all I've learned, I'm not yet a gamer myself, and I may never get used to seeing my son in front of a computer for long periods of time. To be honest, I think that if my kids had gone to school instead of being homeschooled, I probably would not have given much thought to gaming. However, because we did choose to homeschool, my kids were home more often than schooled kids, our computers were readily accessible, and games beckoned enticingly—especially to my son. I was forced to rethink my attitude toward video games and take a closer look at them. My conclusion is that my son and I have both learned something worthwhile from gaming.