Poking around the MacArthur Foundation site I found an interesting recent study on Teens, Video Games and Civics by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The full report has too much to summarize in a blog entry. Here is their list of “Summary Findings at a Glance”:
- Almost all teens play games.
- Gender and age are key factors in describing teens’ video gaming.
- Youth play many different kinds of video games.
- The most popular games played by teens today span a variety of genres and ratings.
- Gaming is often a social experience for teens.
- Close to half of teens who play online games do so with people they know in their offline lives.
- Teens encounter both pro-social and anti-social behavior while gaming.
- The most popular game genres include games with violent and nonviolent content.
- Parental monitoring of game play varies.
- There are civic dimensions to video game play.
- The quantity of game play is not strongly related to teens’ interest or engagement in civic and political activity.
- The characteristics of game play and the contexts in which teens play games are strongly related to teens’
interest and engagement in civic and political activities. - Playing games with others in person was related to civic and political outcomes, but playing with others online
was not. - Teens who take part in social interaction related to the game, such as commenting on websites or contributing
to discussion boards), re more engaged civically and politically. - Civic gaming experiences are more equally distributed than many other civic learning opportunities. (p. viii)
This study brought in the Mills College Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) who have released a White Paper on The Civic Potential of Video Games (PDF) which discusses the social and civic aspects of gaming. One interesting result (also found in the Pew summary) is that it seems that teens who play games socially in person “are more likely to be civically and politically engaged than teens who play games primarily alone.” (p. 18) Online gaming seems to be “a weak form of social interaction” (p. 20) compared to in person social gaming. Another finding that contradicts the accepted (parental) wisdom that gaming is bad for youth is that,
The stereotype of the antisocial gamer is not reflected in our data. Youth who play games frequently are just as civically and politically active as those who play games infrequently. (p. 24)