Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Parenting & Video Games

WHYY's radio show Voices In The Family produced a wonderful episode on kid's use of video games. It's a call-in show, which can make it hit or miss, but this episode spent most of its time speaking with the two guest experts: Douglas Gentile and Lawrence Kutner. Both are established researchers who now focus on the effects of violent video games on children, but the episode spoke about many more issues surrounding video game use. I used research from both authors (Gentile's book, Kutner's book) on my recent developmental psychology paper on early-adolescent play + video game use.

Similar to their Teens & The Internet show from November 2007, the show addressed the risks, but did so in a positive way -- with no fear-mongering or simplistic platitudes. I appreciated one of the speaker's use of developmental milestones to address screen-time limits, rather than just using guidelines from the APA, etc. Both found evidence that playing video games with your children and discussing them has significant positive outcomes. Worth listening to from a research/professional or parenting/advice perspective.