Reading-deficit study finds nothing bad to say about video games

In case you weren't aware, there's yet another study, within the multitude of studies, which has tried to unearth the truths about the relationships between children, reading and video games. A Reuters report insidiously points at the proposition that video games are depriving children of much-needed reading and homework time, but as the story winds its lazy little circle, you'll find that the headline assertion is as hollow as the study findings it addresses.

Yes, they did determine that the boys in the study invested about an hour into gaming each weekday and about an hour and a half on weekend days, while the girls in the study spent just under an hour gaming on weekdays and a little over an hour on weekend days, and they did determine that gamers seemed to spend less time reading (just the boys), and less time doing homework (just the girls).

The University of Michigan study seems to be otherwise inconclusive in as much as it appears that the study could not determine a correlation between video gaming and a decline in academic performance. Add to those findings the significance of the fact that the study apparently arbitrarily deemed gaming time to be a complete intellectual loss rather than an alternate means of stimulating cerebral activity. Video gaming can involve all the major functionality of the brain and most of the games that I play do in fact require a certain amount of reading. No, it's not reading about the Franco-Prussian War, but it is reading just the same.

The one bright spot in the meager findings of this study was that it determined the children were not sacrificing valuable time with family and friends to partake in video games. Apparently, no dungeon dwelling, video addicted, antisocial monsters were identified. So it comes down to the same old story that we've been forced to hash over since the dawning of television in the fifties: If they're good kids and if the parents are overseeing the entertainment and activities, for crying out loud, let them be kids and let them safely blow off some steam.

After all, as a kid I watched enough television that I can still sing you the entire theme songs for Gilligan's Island and The Flintstones. Just look where that got me.