Kids playing video games on school days spend up to a third less time doing homework than those who do play games.
Figures from a study in America revealed thath video gamers spending far less time reading and doing homework, with fragging boys found to spend 30 percent less time reading, with the girls registering a 34 per cent reduction in homework.
Happily, the report found that gamers still managed to put down the joystick long enough to talk to their fellow human beings and enjoy normal social interactions (well, as normal as a teenager can be).
“Gamers did spend less time reading and doing homework. But they didn’t spend less time interacting with their parents or their friends, nor did they spend less time in sports or active leisure activities,” said Hope Cummings of the University of Michigan.
Along with Elizabeth Vandewater from the University of Texas at Austin, Cummings wanted to explore how video gaming affected academic pursuits and social relationships.
Drawing from a nationally representative sample of 1,491 kids aged 10 to 19, they discovered that 36 percent of their sample played video games, with the vast majority (80 percent) being boys.
The boys were found to spend just under an hour playing games on weekdays, rising to one hour and 37 minutes on weekends, while the girls spent 44 minutes playing on weekdays and just over an hour on weekends.
Cummings found that video game users spent less time reading and doing homework, with the boys reading less and the girls doing less homework. Curiously, the report says that gaming did not seem to affect time spent doing homework among boys or reading among girls.
Offering a veritable bounty of excuses for gamers to their parents, the study found no evidence that gaming affected academic performance.
“Although gamers spend less time reading and doing homework, there have been some studies that show that high academic achievers spend less time doing homework,” Cummings said.
“Gamers may actually be more effective in completing homework assignments, and as a result, they spend less time doing homework. We need to look deeper into what is going on,” she added.
We’re hoping that their next study will prove conclusively that drinking in the pub all day improves virility and makes you hilariously funny and unbelievably sexy. Well, that’s what we believe, anyway.