Brad McDiarmid's List: Video Games

The positive and negative influences of violent/action games, henceforth called “action games”, remains controversial in the scholarly literature. Although debate continues whether action games influence aggressive behavior, little research has examined the influence of action games on civic engagement. The current study addresses this gap by examining the correlation between exposure to action games on civic engagement and on-line prosocial behavior in a sample of 873 teenagers. Results indicated that girls as well as teens who had parents who were more technologically savvy tended to engage in more civic behaviors. Exposure to action games predicted more prosocial behavior on-line, but did not predict civic engagement either positively or negatively. However, exposure to action games and parental involvement interacted to promote youth civic engagement. Action-game-playing-youth whose parents were involved in game play and supervision were most civically involved, compared to youth who did not play action games, or whose parents were less involved. These results indicated little support for the belief that exposure to violence in video games decreases prosocial behavior and/or civic engagement. Conversely some support was found for the possibility that playing action games is associated with small increased prosocial behavior and civic engagement in the real world, possibly due to the team-oriented multiplayer options in many of these games.

If you've ever tried to pry a child away from some video game that seems to exert more influence over him than you could ever hope to, you might have asked yourself: Why can't we get a force this captivating in schools?

Video game controllers for PC like this Peregrine Glove Shaped Video Game Controller will give you great video game control with 18 Touch Points and 3 Activator Pads that allow for over 30 user-programmable actions. These video game controllers for PC allow you to simply touch your fingertips with your thumb to control your game faster than ever before. The Peregrine Glove Shaped Video Game Controller also features easy-to-use software so you can create almost any custom configuration imaginable! The gloves are hand washable, have ventilated cooling spots, a Magnetic Break-Away Pod which allows you to easily connect and disconnect the glove without having to remove it, and Gold-Plated Connectors which provide the highest quality of speed and reliability.

A new statewide health organization, the Wee Can Fight Obesity Partnership, announced Wednesday that it has begun an innovative new program targeted at stopping the childhood obesity epidemic in Alabama.

With a little help from the internet, young people getting high off of "digital drugs," NewsOK reports.

Games are invading the real world -- and the runaway popularity of Farmville and Guitar Hero is just the beginning, says Jesse Schell. At the DICE Summit, he makes a startling prediction: a future where 1-ups and experience points break "out of the box" and into every part of our daily lives.

Can a videogame teach you to be a better person? Given that many centre around shooting people in the face, that might seem ridiculous. But games have been used for centuries to teach skills: it is theorised that chess was developed as a training tool for Persian army officers.

Violent video games like "Call of Duty" can help trigger-happy players make decisions faster in real life, according to a study released on Wednesday.

When I was a young boy, America's elite schools and universities were almost entirely reserved for males. That seems incredible now, in an era when headlines suggest that boys are largely unfit for the classroom. In particular, they can't read.

More and more children are playing video games online, but parents don't seem to be taking much notice, according to new research from the Entertainment Software Association of Canada.

When it comes to boys and literacy, says educator Barry MacDonald, it's time to "shake things up a bit."

Statistics show that boys tend to take longer to learn how to read than girls, are more likely to be nonreaders than girls and are more likely to drop out of school than girls. But it's what these statistics don't show, says MacDonald, that's even more important.

Here's even more fodder in support of the game-as-tool methodology. Schools have used digital games to get students interested and connected to learning very successfully, and this article suggests that there may be even more cognitive benefit as the mind is geared up for larger challenges and critical thinking response to those situations, much like the rapid-fire decision making needed to keep oneself from getting virtually incapacitated on a difficult level in a game.

More than two hours a day spent watching television or playing computer games could put a child at greater risk for psychological problems, suggests a new study.

t's interesting to note that even before the launch of the Wii system, physical activity in video games wasn't a new concept. Even as far back as before games like Dance Dance Revolution became popular, the benefits of an interactivity that got you moving was clearly on the minds of several game developers. 

The impact of television, both positive and negative, on children has been a subject of both heated opinion and scientific research for the last several decades. Professional organizations such as the American Psychological Association have weighed in on this topic and have confirmed the link between television and violence and aggression. The typical American child watches 28 hours of television a week and by the age of 18 will have seen 16,000 simulated murders and 200,000 acts of violence.

The most widely used "positive" impact video games are said to have on children is that they may improve a player's manual dexterity and computer literacy. Ever-improving technology also provides players with better graphics that give a more "realistic" virtual playing experience.

Video games have been available to consumers for the last 30 years. Video games are unique, as compared to other games children and adolescents play, because they encourage players to become a part of the game's script. Players are encouraged to actively participate as a character by choosing how they will interact with other characters including which weapons will be used while fighting or attacking other characters. Weapons often include guns, knives, pipes, bombs, etc.

Over the past 20 years, video games have become increasingly popular in American culture. During this time video games have experienced leaps in technology, such as improved graphics and the ability to play with others either in person or worldwide via the internet (1). As video game popularity has grown and the technology has become more advanced, concern has also grown regarding the effects of violent video game play on children.