Study in my country: boys+games=zero will to read books

[KissofKetchup]

I must admit that this is particularly true of me. I rarely ever read anything that hasn't been assigned to me in school. However, in my defence, I do read articles on Wikipedia almost religiously and that my reading skill is on par with the rest of my peers

 

[zombays]

6

We got a similar report like this in Canada recently. My dad sent it to me to try and get me off of gaming...

T.T

of course the report didn't say anything about what kind of games they were, just that they were games and the age group was 6-9 years old.

How the heck can they make a judgment out of that? the 6-9 age group doesn't speak for the real gaming community... it just... ugh... makes me mad...

It's pretty natural for the 6-9 group to NOT read, if they play video-games, than their vocabulary increases. That's what happened to me. And when I was younger I was really good at spelling. Oh, the irony.

and in many ways I'm inclined to believe that since the text scrollings in most games provide a good basis for practicing reading.

The argument of the study was that kids playing video games "don't read books" which is kinda true, but still.

Overall most games aren't really geared towards 6-9 year olds anyways. Before anyone takes a study on like this, they need to do a bit more research into the medium or else they're going to get muddled results.

in terms of the study, they don't say what genre the kids were given, nor whether or not the game was appropriate for the kid. For all we know they could have given the kids red faction guerrilla! All the study says is that the kids were given a PS2 and 3 games...

Also, I know they're not popular over here, but visual novels (not X rated ones) but I'd like to throw that out there... they're considered legit reading material as well as a game

Ahh RF:G, good times, good times.

 

[Jroo wuz heer]

Hell, I play video games regularly, and I can make literary references that make classmates go, 'What are you talking about?'

you realize that could also mean you were stupid, right?

OT: bullshits. They are bulls on laxatives that are not to be listened to.
I am 13 years old and love books. especially the ones that most of my age group don't understand, so when I talk about them I get warm fuzzies and realize how frickin awesome I am


"thems gameseses be taking good american children and they turnin em into commy zombie stoopid satan lovers" /ignorant rednecks suck on my satire

 

[Hashime]

I can read, I just choose not to. Also I have not found a series that hold my interest. My last novel was "Heart of Darkness" which surprisingly my roommate's great great uncle (possibly missing a great) wrote.
I am also working on Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, but I have been busy so I forgot that beginning and have to start again.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Funny, I read all of the time. Look at me right now, reading and writing.
The link between games and lack of intrest in reading is only correlational at best, meaning it's exceptionally weak.

I like how the researchers still make pronouncement with these sorts of results, though.

 

[tombman888]

I like games and reading, huzzah!

Reading through the Rangers apprentice right now. Read books 1,2,3,4,5,7 and halfway through 6 in about 3 months.

 

[Sorafrosty]

Why do they think that giving books to the guys instead of games will make them want to read at all? If anything, it'd make them just hate their parents and not want to read those books out of spite.

I think you are quite right. Seems these 'experts' are very into the idea, though. Here is the article I read (it is in Norwegian, but google translate works wonders

http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/article3939169.ece

Of course, it is only an encouragement, but still...

 

[Matthew24601]

As has been said by others here already, I think it comes down to conclusions about causality being drawn from statistics that do not really lend itself to such conclusions. I have no trouble believing that reading is declining and computer-activity is on the increase, but I would be hard pressed to believe that they are firmly connected. If one looks back to before computers became matter-of-fact household furniture, did young teenage boys make a habit of habitually sitting inside and reading?

 

[Syntax Error]

Give 'em a traditional RPG. Preferably something from the PS1 era, where FMVs are your rewards for battling monsters and reading through a sea of dialogue. In Xenogears alone, you can spend up to 30 minutes at a time reading up.

 

[arbiter592]

cant speak for Norway, but most of the stuff I read all last year was utter, complete shite, other than the Odyssey, we read no interesting books, hell, after the Odyssey, the best book we read was Jane fucking Eyre. A book where most of the plot twists are, OMG NO HE DIDNT. I will say that this year, the reading has picked up. We have read Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird so far, and we are working on our research papers right now.