Youth and New Media
The Appeal and Educational Ramifications of Digital Game Play for Children and Adolescents
Abstract
The prevalence of digital media use among children and adolescents is indisputable. One medium to which children and adolescents dedicate a sizeable portion of their time is that of the digital game. Accordingly, digital game play continues to grow as a context for cognitive development. We showcase new research and practice addressing the impact of this very popular activity on children’s and adolescents’ learning. Our goal is to stimulate new research and interest in examining the positive ramifications of digital play for development among today’s youth.
References
2010). Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 151–173.
(2010). The “I’s” have it: A framework for serious educational game design. Review of General Psychology, 14, 105–112.
(2012). Brain plasticity through the lifespan: Learning to learn and action video games. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 35, 391–416.
(2013). Exergaming in youth: Effects on physical and cognitive health. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 221, 72–78. doi: 10.1027/2151-2604/a000137
(2011). Infinite reality: Avatars, eternal life, new worlds, and the dawn of the virtual revolution. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
(2011). Introduction to special section: Ramifications of video game play for academic learning and cognitive skill acquisition. Child Development Perspectives, 2, 73–74.
(2013). Introduction: Digital games as a context for cognitive development, learning, and developmental research. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 139, 1–9. doi: 10.1002/cad.20026
(2008). The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control. Acta Psychologica, 129, 387–398.
(2009). Psychological and communicological theories of learning and emotion underlying serious games. In , Serious games: Mechanisms and effects (pp. 103–116). New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
(2010). From edutainment to serious games: A change in the use of game characteristics. Games and Culture, 5, 177–198.
(1988). Optimal experience: Psychological studies of flow in consciousness. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
(2006). Using games and simulations for supporting learning. Learning, Media and Technology, 31, 343–358.
(2002). Improving children’s mental rotation accuracy with computer game playing. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 163, 272–282.
(2011). World of Warcraft and the impact of game culture and play in an undergraduate game design course. Computers & Education, 56, 200–209.
(2007). Towards a framework for understanding educational gaming. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 16, 225–248.
(2013). Video games for children and adolescents with special educational needs. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 221, 79–89. doi: 10.1027/2151-2604/a000138
(2009). Increasing speed of processing with action video games. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 321–326.
(2012). 2012 Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry. Retrieved from www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2012.pdf
. (2013). Youth and video games: Exploring effects on learning and engagement. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 221, 98–106. doi: 10.1027/2151-2604/a000135
(2008). Was Kinder sehen. Eine Analyse der Fernsehnutzung 3- bis 13-Jähriger
([What children are watching? An analysis of television usage among 3- to 13-year-olds] . Media Perspektiven, 4, 190–204.2010). Blazing angels or resident evil? Can violent video games be a force for good? Review of General Psychology, 14, 68–81.
(2011). Call of (civic) duty: Action games and civic behavior in a large sample of youth. Computers in Human Behavior, 27, 770–775.
(2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
(2009). Pathological video-game use among youth ages 8 to 18: A national study. Psychological Science, 20, 594–602.
(2004). The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance. Journal of Adolescence, 27, 5–22.
(2003). Action video game modifies visual selective attention. Nature, 423, 534–538.
(2006a). Effect of action video games on spatial distribution of visuospatial attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, 1465–1478.
(2006b). Enumeration versus multiple object tracking: the case of action video game players. Cognition, 101, 217–245.
(2007). Action video game experience alters the spatial resolution of attention. Psychological Science, 18, 88–94.
(2010). Improved probabilistic inference, as a general learning mechanism with action video games. Current Biology, 20, 1573–1579.
(1994). Video games as cultural artifacts. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 15, 3–12.
(1994). Cognitive socialization by computer games in two cultures: Inductive discovery or mastery of an iconic code? Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 15, 59–85.
(2013). Understanding children’s choices and cognition in video game play: A synthesis of three studies. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 221, 107–114. doi: 10.1027/2151-2604/a000136
(2005). The effectiveness of instructional games: A literature review and discussion. Orlando, FL: Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division
(2010). Home media and children’s achievement and behavior. Child Development, 81, 1598–1619. [Technical Report 2005-004]
(2010). Task switching in video game players: Benefits of selective attention but not resistance to proactive interference. Acta Psychologica, 134, 70–78.
(2010). Micro-adaptivity: Protecting immersion in didactically adaptive digital educational games. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 95–105.
(2009). Serious games and social change. Why they (should) work. Serious games. Mechanisms and effects. In , Serious games: Mechanisms and effects (pp. 248–270). New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
(2012, March). Video game nation: Why so many play? Christian Science Monitor. 18 Retrieved from www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/0318/Video-game-nation-Why-so-many-play
(2006). What can we learn from playing interactive games? In , Playing video games. Motives, responses, and consequences (pp. 379–397). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2011). My-Mini-Pet: A handheld pet-nurturing game to engage students in arithmetic practices. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27, 76–89.
(2005). UK Children Go Online. Swindon, UK ESRC www.lse.ac.uk/collections/children-go-online/UKCGO_Final_report.pdf
(2012). Digital media and learning. Retrieved from www.macfound.org/media/article_pdfs/Digital_Media_Learning_Info_Sheet.pdf.
. (1981). Toward a theory of intrinsically motivating instruction. Cognitive Science, 4, 333–369.
(2011). Video-game training and naïve reasoning about object motion. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25, 166–173.
(2008). Educational game design for online education. Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 2530–2540.
(2013). Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 221, 115–118. doi: 10.1027/2151-2604/a000139
. (2012, September 16). Young adults and teens lead growth among smartphone owners. Neilsenwire. Retrieved from blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/young-adults-and-teens-lead-growth-among-smartphone-owners/
. (1994). Effects of video game playing on measures of spatial performance: Gender effects in late adolescence. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 15, 33–58.
(2009). Use of television, videogames, and computer among children and adolescents in Italy. BMC Public Health, 9, 139.
(2002). An investigation of the cognitive processes engaged in by recreational computer game players: Implications for skills of the future. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 34, 336–350.
(2012). The ideal self at play: The appeal of video games that let you be all you can be. Psychological Science, 23, 69–76.
(2009). Measuring player immersion in the computer game narrative. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 25, 107–133.
(2010). Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8-18 year-olds.
([Kaiser Family Foundation] www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf2009). Multimodality and interactivity: Connecting properties of serious games with educational outcomes. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 12, 691–697. Retrieved from
(2005). The next level of research on electronic play: Potential benefits and contextual influences for children and adolescents. Human Technology: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Humans in ICT Environments, 1, 5–22.
(2004). Rules of play game design fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
(2004). Flow and media enjoyment. Communication Theory, 14, 328–347.
(2013). Formative research for STEM educational games: Lessons from the Children’s Television Workshop. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 221, 90–97. doi: 10.1027/2151-2604/a000134
(2002). Domain specificity of spatial expertise: The case of video game players. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16, 97–115.
(2006). From content to context: Videogames as designed experience. Educational Researcher, 35, 19–29.
(2011). Exergames for physical education courses: Physical, social, and cognitive benefits. Child Development Perspectives, 5, 93–98.
(2012). Competitive versus cooperative exergame play for African-American adolescents’ executive function skills: Short-term effects in a long-term training intervention. Developmental Psychology, 48, 337–342.
(1994). Effect of video game practice on spatial skills in girls and boys. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 15, 13–32.
(2006). The role of presence in the experience of electronic games. In , Playing video games. Motives, responses, and consequences (pp. 225–240). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2008). Serious video games for health: How behavioral science guided the development of a serious video game. Simulation & Gaming, 41, 587–605.
(2002). Expert behavior in children’s video game play. Simulation & Gaming, 33, 28–48.
(2009). Theorizing flow and media enjoyment as cognitive synchronization of attentional and reward networks. Communication Theory, 19, 397–422.
(2004). The structural characteristics of video games: A psycho-structural analysis. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7, 1–10.
(