Tempest in a Wii-cup: Britain’s Abysmal Reading Scores Blamed on Videogames

Expanding a bit on one of Elgan’s media bits, England has indeed dropped from third in the world in primary reading to 15th over the last half decade in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study, which comes out every year. The Sun lists the rankings:

1 – Russia

2 – Hong Kong

3 – Singapore

4 – Luxembourg

5 – Italy

6 – Hungary

7 – Sweden

8 – Germany

9 – Netherlands

10 – Belgium

11 – Bulgaria

12 – Denmark

13 – Latvia

14 – USA

15 – England

16 – Austria

17 – Lithuania

18 – Chinese Taipei

19 – New Zealand

20 – Slovak Republic

Said Sun Editor David Wooding: “We finished behind former Iron Curtain states such as Russia, Latvia and Bulgaria …”

Britain also finished behind the United States, by one point (no gloating, y’all). Here in the states such rankings are met with a collective yawn. That is, if folks even hear about it. If not for the web, most of us Yanks wouldn’t read as much of the British press. But in Britain, the news was met with horror by politicians and punditry. School Secretary Ed Balls announced a £5 million program to give books to nurseries and libraries, along with government-sponsored encouragement toward parental involvement in reading time.

It was Balls’ and other politicians’ statements concerning videogames as culprits that caused the most chuckles. But plenty of blame and embarrassment have been spread around. A Cambridge study showed little sign of improvement in the nation’s schools despite millions in extra spending, lending doubt that the £5 million on book distribution would do much good. The Torries fussed at Labour for blaming parents. The National Union of Teachers said there is too much teaching to the test, and not enough emphasis on reading for pleasure.

So there it is. If videogames indeed are the culprit in falling scores for British tots (despite copious reading often so necessary in advanced games), perhaps the government should spend that £5 million in purchasing Wii, Playstation, and Xbox consoles. Then they could send them to other countries where gaming is not as prevalent, in hopes of causing their scores to decline next year. So, even the playing field British pols. Instead of buying more books for British kids, buy more videogames for kids in countries ahead of yours. That should work.

References:
Wooding, D. (2007, November 29). Video games ruining reading. The Sun. [Online.] Retrieved Dec. 1 from: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article521951.ece

Update:
Kotaku notes a nice piece in The Guardian, “Is Our Children Reading,” by Steven Poole, who makes the case that many advanced games like The Legend of Zelda, Phantom Hourglass, require the equivalent of reading a paperback novel.

News headlines don’t tell you, for example, about the wonderfully batty series of games for the Nintendo DS starring Phoenix Wright. These games, in which you play the part of a defence lawyer in a series of increasingly surreal criminal trials, take place almost entirely through conversations that you have to remember and then sift for contradictions, before triumphantly shouting “objection!” in a crowded courtroom. At a rough estimate, one Phoenix Wright game contains at least as much text as your average children’s novel.

Meanwhile, another game for the DS, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, not only has innumerable scripted conversations and written signs to read, but makes you write as well – scribbling notes on your maps (via a touchscreen and stylus) so you can solve the puzzles and navigate through increasingly tortuous temples. A child playing this game is probably more passionate about reading its prose for clues and taking detailed notes, than he is about doing his homework. But that’s not the game’s fault.

Got Troubles? Blame Videogames

I noticed the apparent up tick in media attention to videogame violence recently. Then I ran across Mike Elgan’s piece in Computerworld, where he breaks down recent news items from around the world. Some I’d heard of, and there were a few he mentioned that I hadn’t. The big research item I was aware of, and hope to blog on soon after I’m finished reading it. Here is Elgan’s list:

- The December supplemental issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health devoted to youth violence and electronic media (more on this from me later).

- New Zealand’s National Manager of Police Youth Services stating he felt rising youth violence is tied to videogame consoles (Elgan notes the statement was made after brief exposure to his son’s Xbox, not a formal study).

- The German Society for Scientific Person-Centered Psychotherapy recommended a ban on violent videogames.

- Reading skills in England have dropped, with videogames receiving the lion’s share of blame (this one is stretching it, BTW, based on the copious literacy moments inherent in most all advanced MMORPGs and VIEs).

- Videogames were also blamed for England’s poor showing in soccer this year. It seems British kiddoes are too busy playing with joysticks instead of going outdoors and playing with balls. Videogames = bad. Soccer games = good.

- Elgan then notes a couple news reports blaming games for obesity, broken bones & rickets in children.

- He also points out the study in Pediatrics from German researchers showing sleep disruption in boys playing a videogame before bedtime.

Elgan brings up several counterpoints to the “blame videogames first” crowd. With recent immigration trends of young families moving to England, some 40% of primary kids “over there” don’t speak English at home. This might have a higher effect on reading scores than the Playstation, Wii, or Xbox. The media highlighted the Finnish teen shooter’s love of videogames while ignoring his many other interests which may have certainly contributed to a killer mindset. Focusing on the effects videogames have on teen boys misses the point anyway since videogames continue to grow in popularity across both genders and all age groups.

Here are some additional arguments Elgan adds:

One “solution” you don’t hear very often is: Maybe we should do nothing. Maybe it’s a problem that doesn’t need to be solved … Every generation of adults blames some cultural influence or another on ruining young people. Those darned horseless carriages cause youthful indiscretions! …

Second, games may have an overall positive effect on the lives of some kids. In bad neighborhoods, they may provide an alternative to gangs and real violence, or access to cultural information not otherwise available. …

And finally … There is plenty of evidence — ignored by critics — that games are becoming more intellectually stimulating. Many kids who used to play Grand Theft Auto are now enjoying Assassin’s Creed or, say, BioShock. These newer games still have violence, but also literary, historical and cultural value, at least in comparison with GTA.

Elgan sums up with a call for more research:

One thing is certain: We need more and better research. So many questions remain unanswered. Do games really cause violence? If so, do some games cause more violence than others? Is the unrealistic or nongraphic violence in, say, Halo 3 less harmful than the blood-splattering violence in Call of Duty 4? Is the “honorable” violence in Call of Duty 4 less harmful than the “criminal” violence in Grand Theft Auto? Are games damaging to some personality types, but harmless to others? Are the effects of gaming long term?

Good questions. Be sure and check out Elgan’s excellent blog, The Raw Feed which focuses on videogames and other technologies.

References:
Elgan, M. (2007, November 30). Do video games make kids violent, stupid and sick? Computerworld. [Online.] Available: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?
command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9050278&pageNumber=1

Games In Education: An Interview with Eva Zadeh

Earlier in the semester, I was contacted by grad student and freelance writer Eva Zadeh and interviewed by e-mail for a paper on which she is working. I thought Zadeh’s questions were good ones on the topic of educational videogames, and she agreed to let me put my answers in this blog. Here, then, is the interview. (I’ve since brushed up my responses, but the content is substantially the same.)

Q: Why is it important to put video games in classrooms?
A: The question is still out as to whether or not video games are important for classroom use. Certain media hold advantages over other media, depending on the situation. For instance, books are good for preserving dense information. Lectures are good for transmitting brief information quickly. Videogames are good for simulated experiences that can be pedagogical in some way.

The best place for videogames may well be in after school or extracurricular programs where time is not as limited and there is less concern about traditional testing. This is backed up in Squire’s dissertation, and elsewhere.

Q: For how long have you been working on educational video games? Is it something new?
A: I’ve centered my doctoral work around educational videogames. In that regard, I’ve been in the field personally only a few years. I think Marc Prensky helped popularize the idea of instructional videogames with his book in 2001. I think James Paul Gee helped popularize the idea in the educational research establishment with his book in 2003.

Some might say that instruction through videogames has been occurring since videogames first appeared. They were introduced (although via tube technology and not true vector graphics that some folks define as video) at the Brookhaven Nuclear Laboratory in the 1950s.

Personally, I think the notion of instruction through gaming received its biggest boost when Microsoft introduced Windows Solitaire. This game “trained” computer users on a mouse. Up to that time, PC users mostly navigated without a mouse. Windows required a mouse for some activities. Folks who had never used a mouse before became quite proficient after a few rounds with Windows Solitaire.

Q: I read in one of your papers that it was “widely believed that much more learning can take place within active environments.” How widely? Numbers? Since when?
A: This is a key question for which we are awaiting more empirical data. As frustrating as that might be, one of the even more fundamental questions yet to be resolved is, What should we measure? If we are going to measure test scores, I suspect that videogames won’t show any more improvement than any other program or product. My personal theory on improved test scores is, it doesn’t matter what product is used. What matters are the teachers, and what they do to get students to learn. The product matters little, in my opinion, other than to help promote an initial burst of enthusiasm.

Now, the idea that active environments promote learning more than static ones falls back on constructivism, and that opens up another can of worms altogether. Constructivists will always come down on the side of active environments, with or without empirical data to back them up. There may well be some research on what students learn through active environments as opposed to static ones. I recall a survey of students who went through an interactive museum exhibit versus those going through static exhibits. If memory serves, the interactive group enjoyed their experiences more, although they came away with knowledge of fewer facts.

I believe the quote in question was a synthesis of arguments by Squire and Jenkins, from the Insight journal, around 2003. Since then, much more attention has been paid to the field, with multiple journal articles and research in both education and the medical field. One of the better summaries of papers detailing benefits of educational videogames down through the years can be found in Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen’s article, “Third Generation Educational Uses of Computer Games,” in the latest issue of Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia. See Table 1 for his list.

Q: Video games are said to be more engaging. Where does that theory come from? Situated learning? Or something else? Role of the teachers and books?
A: I would argue videogame interaction is self evidently more interactive than sitting through a lecture. I have proposed a means of estimating the higher thinking potential of any game, in a paper published in January this year in the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education. This involves a melding of Bloom’s Taxonomy to videogame interaction. The article is entitled, “Assessing Higher Order Thinking in Video Games.”

As for the roles of teachers and books, some of the largest ongoing experiments have used both extensively with videogame environments. Indiana’s Quest Atlantis makes heavy use of hybrid learning, and the virtual world itself is quite text intense. In fact, I have discussed this with one of the lead developers, Dr. Scott Warren, now at UNT. My premise: Quest Atlantis is really a highly digitized, interactive text environment. If memory serves, Dr. Warren agreed, although he noted that much more than reading is involved with Quest Atlantis.

Nonetheless, text plays a key role in many of these games, which require reading and typing in order to engage in the environment. Books and teachers will never relinquish their key roles in the classroom. Videogames will increasingly offer supplemental educational vehicles, giving teachers additional resources to use in and out of the classroom.

Q: How do you measure the efficiency of video games in classrooms?
A: Again, efficiency of what? Efficiency of increasing knowledge? Higher test scores? Do videogames fall under the same media umbrella that other media do in Clark’s “delivery truck” argument, where he asserted media is immaterial in delivering the content? Or, do the interactions within games result in higher engagement and additional intrinsic motivation to discover new knowledge inside and outside the game, and school?

Q: Have scientists worked on the impact of learning through video games on the kids’ brains?
A: The major work in the hard sciences have centered around visual plasticity (Green & Bavelier) and glucose levels (Haier). Prensky is best known for postulating the digital natives / digital immigrants divide, but showed little in the way of experiments to back up the claim. Rosser showed that hand-eye coordination from videogame play has real world applications in modern surgery. Farrace-Di Zinno demonstrated that boys diagnosed with ADHD were more still and focused while engaged in videogames.

So, something is going on in the brain. Measuring the impact is somewhat difficult. Haier’s work with PET scans dates back to 1992, so at some point somebody will probably build on that work and give us a more detailed look at what is going on inside the brain during game play.

Here are the citations to the works above:
Farrace-Di Zinno, A.M., Douglas, G., Houghton, S. Lawrence, V., West, J. & Whiting, K. (2001, November). Body movements of boys with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) during computer video game play. British Journal of Educational Technology 32(5). 607-618.

Green, C.S., Bavelier. D. (2007). Action-video-game experience alters the spatial resolution of vision. Psychological Science 18(1), 88-94.

Haier, R. J. (2003). Positron emission tomography studies of intelligence: From psychometrics to neurobiology. In Nyborg, H. [Ed.]. The scientific study of general intelligence — Tribute to Arthur R. Jensen. 41-52. New York: Pergamon.

Prensky, M. (2001a, September/October). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.

Prensky, M. (2001b, November/December). Digital natives, digital immigrants, part 2: Do they really think differently? On the Horizon, 9(6), 1-6.

Rosser, J.C., Lynch, P.J, Cuddihy, L., Gentile, D.A., Klonsky, J., Merrell, R. (2007, February). The impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st Century. Archives of Surgery, 142(2). 181-186.

Q: What perspectives do you see for the future? Do you see any evolution in the field?
A: A defining groundwork, where everybody agrees to the same set of definitions, will help. I think we’ll see much more empirical data come out of the medical literature, with applications for education. Finally, we need a really killer app for education that meets the needs I spelled out at AECT 2005: a product with an appropriate cognitive load for students, aligned to standards, with problem solving germane to the subject; probably built on a rich 3D environment, and easily customizable by the teacher. I think we see a lot of this already in teachers tweaking the Neverwinter Nights engine for their own classroom use, but it takes an inordinate amount of time programming that game. If something out there could be offered that was easier for teachers to use in the classroom, I think considerable interest among educators and researchers would follow.

-*-

Zadeh’s questions were good ones, and I enjoyed having to think about the topics she brought up, and justify some of my positions in the field. All told, it was a very thoughtful exercise, and I appreciated the opportunity to respond.

Violence Debate Boils Over with Manhunt 2

In the commercial realm, which gets tons more exposure to the general public than the educational realm, the release of the overly violent game Manhunt 2, and its initial ban from sale in countries like Great Britain, has renewed debate about violence in videogames and its effect on youth. As usual, arguments are made on both sides without the benefit of research backing up assertions.

Christopher Gonzalez, a senior over at Long Island City High School, wrote a Nov. 2 column for Newsday defending the medium. “You Can’t Blame Video Games for Society’s Ills” seems indicative of the attitude many young people have toward the brouhaha. The parents responding to his article in the online comments disagree with him, though, stating that videogames are responsible for the childhood obesity epidemic, among other things.

On the other side of the debate, Dr. Domenick Maglio wrote a Nov. 2 piece for the Tampa Hernando Today: “Prevent Your Child From Losing His Life to Video Games.” Dr. Maglio is a psychotherapist and owner/founder of Wider Horizons School, who describes himself as a neotraditionalist on his website. He argues that screen time of any sort should be limited to two hours a day for children.

Finally, Joystiq notes the mainstream media (CBS Nightly News in particular) is distorting the game mechanics of Manhunt 2 in order to paint a more salacious picture of the game’s violent content.

Unfortunately, whenever alarmists warn against violent videogames, classroom and instructional games often seem to find themselves lumped in with the recreational killing games. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, and the pedagogical side of educational gaming won’t be unfairly tarnished.

Force Feedback Vest Makes an Impact

I wrote last week about brain computer interfaces (BCIs), that allow players to control the game without using hands. This week, news hit about affordable feedback vests that should liven up many an action game and see applications in the medical and educational fields.

The idea is simple, really. When your avatar receives a “hit” in the game, you feel a corresponding thwack from the vest. Dr. Mark Ombrellaro (the surgeon kind of doctor, not the teacher kind) has designed the “3rd Space impact vest” and is introducing it to the consumer market through TN Games for less than $200 retail.

Since Dr. Ombrellaro is in the medical field, his original vest was designed to provide haptic feedback to surgeons performing telemedicine. Stevie Smith reports on MonstersandCritics.com that the medical version is awaiting FDA approval, and is considerably more complex than the consumer videogame version. Future versions for the gaming market will reportedly offer g-force feedback from simulated air travel and racing games.

Images from the movie Lawnmower Man were my first thoughts when hearing about the impact vest. “Old style” virtual reality always involved wearing a suit in science fiction tales, while “newer” technologies took place purely in the mind, like in The Matrix.

A few years back, someone came out with the PainStation, which offered players an opportunity to hurt their opponents electronically upon winning a videogame (or be hurt themselves if they lost). Sony put the kibosh on the PainStation toot sweet. I can imagine some enterprising hacker tweaking impact vests so they delivers a stunning impact, then having true knock down fights over the Internet.

As we see the price point drop for advanced haptic devices and things like brain interfaces, expect more beneficial applications for educational and assistive technologies. The impact vest may certainly offer a training benefit during various simulations, or at least add an element of realism.

Engaged to Learn? Study Shows MMORPGs Rule

I corresponded recently with Dr. Joshua Smyth over at Syracuse’s Dept. of Psychology, who graciously sent me a copy of his most recent paper concerning research regarding MMORPGs and their influence on college students.

Dr. Smyth set up an experiment with 100 college students, and divided them equally into four groups. Each group he asked to play a different genre of videogames for a month. One group was given a batch of tokens and asked to play the games of their choice in a traditional video arcade. Another group was given access to PlayStation 2 consoles to play Gauntlet: Dark Legacy. The third group was given Diablo II for the PC. The fourth group played the MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot. To guard against self-selection bias, group assignments were randomized. All participants were given free access to games and equipment (arcade players got tokens). A month later, Dr. Smyth checked back on the participants.

Dr. Smyth was interested in tracking changes among the participants in the following areas: the number of hours participants played their games the last week of the study; overall health; quality of sleep; perceived academic performance; perceived social life; overall well being; how much they enjoyed playing the games; the likelihood participants would continue playing the games; how much they felt the games interfered in their social lives; how much they felt the games interfered with their academic performance; and if they were able to make new friends over the month of game play.

The findings are fascinating. The last week of the study, arcade players played the least, on average, number of hours: 2.1. Console players were next at 3.4. Computer game players were second highest at 6.2 while the MMORPG players were highest at 14.4.

Other factors were self rated from 0 to 6, with 0 being not at all and 6 being very good. The findings were most interesting surrounding reporting by subjects in the MMORPG group. These players had the highest average game enjoyment score at 4.4. They showed the highest likelihood to continue playing the game after the study. They also indicated they had made more friends than participants in the other groups, although these were online friendships rather than face to face.

Conversely, the MMORPG players rated themselves least in overall health. They also rated themselves lowest in quality of sleep, social life, and perceived academic performance. Incongruently, they averaged highest in feeling that their gaming did not interfere with academics. Dr. Smyth speculated this might have something to do with the short one month time span the study covered and college students’ propensity toward time-shifting priorities and recreational pursuits.

The quantitative finding that the MMORPG group spent more time playing is most intriguing. Dr. Smyth does a good job of covering the research indicating potential benefits for MMORPGs, and the potential negative aspects. Those players with a predilection toward excessive online use may find a mare’s nest in MMORPGs. Conversely, game play in general, and MMORPG play in particular, may have a variety of attributes from which players can benefit including overall improvement in their well-being and various medical and social interactions that are helpful.

My take: with the increased complexity of each game came the corresponding remarkable self scoring. Speaking in broad generalizations, arcades comprise the traditional land of “low thought needed” videogames. Home consoles, with notable exceptions, are often just a step above traditional quarter arcade games. Large budget PC games are often considerably more complex, with MMORPGs and other virtual worlds ranking as the most complex, the most time spent creating and maintaining, and (obviously) the most time played. Online social interactions, so often noted and of such interest to many researchers, add to the complexity of MMORPGs because the human element is the most complex and mysterious of all gaming components.

Thus, increased complexity leads to higher engagement, and higher satisfaction with the game. This is certainly an important piece of knowledge educational game makers should take from the research.

References
Smyth, J. M. (2007). Beyond self-selection in video game play: An experimental examination of the consequences of massively multiplayer online role-playing game play. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(5), 717-721.

Mind Control to Replace Joysticks?

Here’s an intriguing article about new gaming technology that will use brainwave power to control onscreen action. Gene Koprowski at Fox News writes of helmets with scalp nodes that users can wear while playing the Xbox or PlayStation. Alpha, Theta, and Beta brainwaves are detected by the nodes, and used to control action onscreen. A key quote:

“The technology is similar to the electroencephalogram that neurologists and other doctors use to measure brain activity,” said Domenic Greco, a doctor of clinical psychology and the founder of SmartBrain Games, a developer in San Marcos, Calif. “It’s a neuro-feedback system which sends a signal of brain activity to a specially designed game controller.”

Several other companies are involved, as well. The technology has been around since the 1990s, but recent developments have been able to reduce production costs to consumer levels. First appropriated by the medical field, the technology now seems poised to find its way to the consumer gaming market.

One promising application for educational gaming and other computerized interventions: the sensors can purportedly detect boredom, excitement, and stress levels. Conceivably, games can be written that will speed things up when the sensors detect the user is bored, or slow things down if it detects the user is stressed. This may be a boon to educational software that can adjust itself automatically to the pace and level of difficulty required by individual users at any given moment.

If this technology reaches its promises, we’ll have to redefine “mental prowess.” Perhaps “mind control” will need to be rethought as well. Certainly, those with motor control difficulties or other impairments may find this assistive technology highly useful.

References
Koprowski, G. J. (2007, October 5). ‘Brain interfaces’ let players control video games with thoughts, not thumbs. Fox News. [Online]. Available: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299456,00.html

Doyle of Metacritic Wields Mighty Influence

When researchers combine the results of several related studies, they call it a meta-analysis. Marc Doyle, co-founder of Metacritic.com, was profiled in The Wall Street Journal this week. The site operates under similar principles as research meta-analyses. Scores of individual videogames by over 100 critics in varied publications are combined into a single score falling between 0 and 100.

Much as Dick Clark was not as interested in popular music back in the day so much as he was in putting on a show about music, Doyle is reported to not being very interested in playing video games. However, the system that Metacritic and companion site Game Rankings (both CNET properties; Gamerankings.com focuses on videogames exclusively) use to aggregate the scores of games has proven consistently prescient. Wall Street pays close attention to the scores, and the stock prices of gaming companies hinge on Metacritic’s formula when new games debut.

Activision’s shares slid after Spider-Man 3 for the PlayStation was awarded a score of only 50 by Metacritic. Conversely, game company Take Two’s shares soared 20% after their game Bioshock was awarded a score of 97.

Besides stock price, companies have discovered a correlation with a high Metacritic score and sales of a title. Activision conducted market research on 789 games for the PlayStation 2:

Activision Chief Executive Robert Kotick says the link was especially notable for games that score above 80% on Game Rankings, which grades games on a 1-to-100 percentage basis, with 100% being a perfect score. For every five percentage points above 80%, Activision found sales of a game roughly doubled. Activision believes game scores, among other factors, can actually influence sales, not just reflect their quality.

All of this information and analysis, with its subsequent effect on videogame sales and company stock prices, has lent Mr. Doyle considerable influence in the industry.

All of this makes Metacritic’s Mr. Doyle an unlikely kingmaker in the $7.4 billion U.S. games industry. He controls Metacritic’s scoring system, deciding which publications to compile reviews from — a varied list that includes trade magazines like GameInformer, the New York Times, a gamer Web site called Fourfatchicks.com and other outlets.

Many games are tied into other media properties, such as movies. Article author Nick Wingfield notes Time Warner is demanding higher royalty payments from games derived from their films that score low on Metacritic. Presumably, this will encourage game makers with a monetary incentive for producing higher quality games.

My take: Metacritic.com offers another excellent resource for videogame researchers, providing a fairly balanced reference point for the popularity of particular titles. Finding the Metacritic score for a title in order to include it in a paper is quick and easy. Best of all, unlike some of the other corporate research I’ve covered lately, the info Metacritic provides is free to all.

References:
Wingfield, N. (2007, September 20). High scores matter to game makers, too. The Wall Street Journal, B1. [Online]. Available: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119024844874433247.html

DFC Intelligence Briefing on the Videogame Marketplace

DFC Intelligence, a California company offering market research, has released a nice set of reports detailing information regarding the video game industry. The reports are aimed at corporate consumers, and consequently are not cheap with subscription prices hovering around $3,000/year.

The site eMarketer.com sums things up nicely in an article here. According to DFC, video games and interactive entertainment are expected to grow from worldwide revenues of $33 billion last year to $47 billion in ’09, then $54 billion in ’11.

References:
eMarketer.com (2007, September 20). Video game market to set new high score. [Online.] Available: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1005393

Parents Rejoice: Video Games Don’t Hurt GPAs Much

Todd Stinebrickner over at Western Ontario, and Ralph Stinebrickner over at Berea College (a son & father team), wrote a paper based on the effects studying (or lack thereof) had on grade point averages. The study was based on time-use diaries that volunteer college students kept for the researchers. Data was collected in 2000 and 2001. A total of 210 subjects participated.

The media has trumpeted the most salacious findings in the study: video game use (mainly consoles, it appears from media coverage) that interfered with study time led to slightly lower grades. USA Today/Yahoo News reported the story here; Wired reported the story here. But, parents of college students need not fret. The effect was not too bad. GPAs of freshmen who were gamers showed a decrease by .241 points.

Alas, the full paper is a $5 download, unless you are a working journalist or in a developing country, in which case it’s free. All others can read the abstract here.

References:
Arendt, S. (2007, September 19). Study: Roomies with videogames lower college students’ GPAs. [Online.] Available: http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/09/study-roomies-w.html

Naseef, K. (2007, September 19). Video games can shoot holes in GPA. USA Today. [Online.] Available: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20070919/
tc_usatoday/videogamescanshootholesingpa

Stinebrickner, T. R., & Stinebricker, R. (2007, August). The causal effect of studying on academic performance. [NBER working paper no. 13341.] Cambridge, Massachusetts: National Bureau of Economic Research.