Encouraging Positive Youth Video Game Activities

In todays world youth are increasingly using electronic media. School assignments include web-based research for homework, e-mail has replaced letter writing, and the convenience of instant messaging is starting to replace the telephone. Youth today are more media literate than their parents, yet the outcomes of this transition are not always positive. Youth recreation has merged with media to include video games, music downloading, and interactive websites, in many cases replacing traditional youth activities, such as basketball, swimming, or other outdoor recreation.

Video game violence and levels of developmental appropriateness

Leisure activities in the form of electronic video games for youth have gradually become more popular since they were first introduced during the 1970s. Recent studies on children's activities have found gender differences in time commitment to electronic games as early as age 3 (Huston, Wright, Marquis & Green, 1999). In a study where parents were interviewed to describe their child's activities in the previous 24-hour period, it was found that girls rarely played electronic games, however, boys played 10 minutes on weekends. By age 6, girls played 15 minutes and boys typically played 40 minutes. A Kaiser Foundation study of 3,000 children ages 2-18 similarly found that 55% of boys and 23% of girls reported playing console-based electronic games daily (Roberts, Foehr, et al., 1999), indicating the popularity of this activity in this national sample. Further, a time study found peaks in playing time from middle childhood to adolescence (Buchman & Funk, 1996) with 4^th grade girls playing 4.5 hours in a typical week as compared to 4^th grade boys playing 7 hours weekly on average; 8^th grade girls playing two hours as compared to 8^th grade boys playing less than 4 hours.

These and other studies have provided research that indicates that most children under high school age are devoting time to playing electronic games and across all ages, boys play for more time than girls. In about 5% of the players, there is evidence that their time commitment to playing is so excessive that it may be interfering with other activities. Girls have been found to prefer cartoon or fantasy violence and this preference increases from late elementary to middle school while their general entertainment preference increases from Grade 4-7 and their educational preference decreases from Grade 5-8. Boys have been found to prefer more realistic, human violent games and their preference for fantasy violence decreases from late elementary to middle school while their educational game preference decreases from Grades 5-7. Research has found that in general among most youth, there is no significant impairment in psychological functioning caused by game playing, however, some children have a special vulnerability. These "high risk players" are defined as those vulnerable children in whom, even a small increase in exposure to aggressive behavior, may trigger aggression (Funk, Buchman & Germann, 2000).