If these weekday screen limits seem like too much to ask of your family, an alternative is to provide a “screen-free space” (e.g., no entertainment technologies or TV) after school, perhaps until after dinner or a set time like 8 p.m. This minimizes children’s incentives to rush through homework or falsely claim that it’s done just to get to digital playtime sooner.
Children with learning difficulties, ADHD, or some other challenge that makes school tasks more difficult can struggle to gain intrinsic motivation for academic learning. Limited use of extrinsic rewards may be necessary to get these kids started on tasks. If this is the case, as soon as possible make efforts to fade or minimize extrinsic rewards.
Create a home environment that inspires intrinsic motivation. The research of Adele and Allen Gottfried36 shows how we can create a home environment that encourages children’s intrinsic desire to learn:
•Promote curiosity: Pay close attention to your children’s interests, whether these are how the human body works or how things are put together. Help an interested child learn more about these subjects by taking trips together to the bookstore or library or by assisting in an Internet search for age-appropriate information. Many research institutions and museums now offer real-world sites for exploration and experimentation; some even allow children to participate in real research. If museums or natural environments that promote these interests (a quarry, a nature center, an observatory) are available, consider a visit.
•Help your child experience success: Get to know your children’s strengths—whether these are in putting things together or writing stories—so that you can help them achieve success. When kids master a learning activity, it helps them say to themselves, “I’ve done this before, and so I can do it again.” When your kids struggle in certain tasks, as we all do, be there to support them and demonstrate that your love isn’t contingent on a particular outcome. Help them to figure out what might work better and improve the end result. This can give our kids the strength to try again and again, even when they fall short of their original expectations.
•Expose kids to learning-focused environments: When your family takes a daytrip or vacation, include visits to historic points of interest, science centers, or other sites that broaden your kids’ experience. Support these visits by reading up on them with your child before and after the experience.
Help kids find the value of academics. The relevance of acquiring skills learned in school is frequently lost on digitally-transfixed kids. “I won’t need math (or science or English) when I’m older,” kids tell me. College and career are often a distant abstraction, something assumed, or to be considered later, much later. What’s very real now are the social networks or entertainment devices that kids log onto the second the afternoon school bell rings. Unable to make the connection between academic effort and later life success, kids lose the intrinsic motivation they need to succeed.
We need to help our children recognize that school-based learning is useful to them.37 For younger ones, this may involve showing them how reading can help for baking a cake or navigating a zoo. As our children progress through elementary school, we can play board games like Monopoly that use and develop math skills or Scrabble for language skills. For preteens and teens who plan to attend college, it’s important to help them appreciate why they need to put in all that effort in middle and high school. Kids I work with have commented that visiting college campuses with their parents or an academic club has helped make tangible what they were shooting for and increased their sense of purpose.
Used correctly, some rewards help. While material extrinsic rewards (e.g., time online, phones, or TV) diminish kids’ intrinsic motivation, verbal praise encourages that motivation if it is:
•focused on strong effort and persistence rather than performance, e.g., a compliment for working hard, not only for an “A”38
•used sparingly, not every time a child completes a task39
•specific to the task rather than general, saying, for instance, “You studied really hard for that math test and that helped you a lot,” 40 instead of a generic, “Good job”
•genuine, focused on something the child realistically sees him or herself as doing well, as kids see through insincere compliments41
3
Promote Kids’ Academic Success
The image of kids sitting at school with pencil and paper can seem old-fashioned compared to the high-tech, gadget-filled world they embrace the moment the school day ends. It’s not surprising that some pundits suggest video games, social networks, and other entertainment technologies are invaluable to children’s learning and success in the 21st century. Some go so far as to say video games promote kids’ learning better than school. One of the first proponents of this philosophy is author James Paul Gee, who declared: “The fact is, when kids play videogames they can experience a much more powerful form of learning than when they’re in the classroom.”1
The video-gaming’s-better-than-school mantle has more recently been assumed by video game developer Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken. She proclaims: “There’s this big misconception about games that they are a waste of time, but 10 years of scientific research show that playing games is actually the most productive thing we can do, more productive than most of what we spend doing in work or at school.”2
Others make claims about the learning value of social networks. In an effort to justify why kids younger than 13 should be allowed to use Facebook, the company’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg declared it vital to young kids’ learning: “My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age.”3
Such cheerleading for video games and social networks is frequently picked up by the popular press and reported as being based in fact. The message to parents is quite clear: Encourage your children to use fun-based digital applications and the devices that access them—phones, tablets, computers, gaming consoles, etc.—and be less concerned about focusing kids on school-based learning tasks. That sure would make parenting a lot easier, yet are such claims true?
HOW IMPORTANT IS SCHOOL TODAY?
To determine how entertainment technologies affect children’s learning and chances of success, let’s begin by judging the value of traditional schooling, then look at how screen technologies impact school performance. It’s relatively straightforward to determine the value of college, so let’s start there, then consider the value of earlier schooling that prepares kids for college.
There are valid concerns about the fast-rising costs of college education, but no doubt about its benefits. In 2010, the US Census Bureau estimated that college graduates made $19,550 more per year than high school grads, and this gulf has increased in the interim.4 Moreover, according to a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts, while it’s challenging for college grads to find a job today, this pales in comparison to the struggles of those without a college degree.5
Clearly, going to college remains a critical element of our children’s success. What can we do to ensure that they have the best chances of getting there? We can help them master the academic fundamentals high schools teach, as colleges select students based on their proficiency in 9th to 12th grade subjects, including math, English, and science. Colleges also evaluate students based on their performance on standardized college admissions tests like the SAT and ACT (the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the American College Testing Program), both of which test reading and math abilities.
The path to high school and college achievement actually starts early in kids’ lives. A report from ACT states: “College and career readiness is not something that suddenly ‘happens’ when a student graduates from high school but instead is the result of a process extending through all the years of a student’s education. College and career readiness is not a high school issue—it’s a K–12 issue.”6 Because young brains are so sensitive, I would add that learning experiences from birth to kindergarten also play a crucial role in preparing kids for college and late
r life success.
The bottom line: The learning skills children gain in school are remarkably important to their success. Nevertheless, to gauge the value of traditional schooling, we also need to consider the effects of kids’ school involvement on their health and well-being. According to Johns Hopkins Professor of Medicine Robert Blum: “Research has shown that students who feel connected to school do better academically and also are less likely to be involved in risky health behaviors: drug use, cigarette smoking, early sex, violence and suicidal thoughts and attempts.”7 So add emotional well-being to the benefits kids’ school involvement offers.
TECHNOLOGY’S IMPACT ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE
How does our children’s use of technology affect their academic performance? To answer that question, it’s important to recognize that various types of technology affect kids’ learning quite differently. There’s no doubt that we need to provide our kids the skills to use technology productively. However, our kids only spend 16 minutes a day using a computer at home for school-related learning.8 So the far more pressing question is how do the gaming, social networking, TV, and other entertainment technologies that occupy the equivalent of a full-time job in our kids’ lives affect their ability to be successful in school and life?
Video Games, Social Networks, and TV—The Same Story
Numerous studies show that the more high school or college kids use video games or social networks, the less well they perform academically, as evidenced by lower GPA and other performance markers.9 Family physician and psychologist Leonard Sax notes the effects of gaming on academics in Boys Adrift: “A series of studies over the past seven years has demonstrated clearly and unambiguously that the more time your child spends playing video games, the less likely he is to do well in school—whether he is in elementary school, middle school, high school, or college [emphasis in original].”10 Similarly, as noted in a study of kids’ (ages 9 to 17) use of social networks, heavier users receive lower grades (a mix of Bs and Cs or lower) than students who use them less frequently.11
The effects of video gaming and social networking on academic success echo the effects of earlier TV technology—negative. Why? Because kids use these newer technologies much like television. American kids watch very few educational TV programs. Instead they indulge in entertainment programming that displaces reading and homework and therefore hurts school performance.12 Likewise, a study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine finds that children aged 10–19 who play video games spend 34% less time on homework and 30% less time reading than nongamers.13 And kids’ top three social networking activities are posting messages, downloading music, and downloading videos14—activities that often supersede schoolwork.
The displacement of school-based learning by video games can start early. A study by researchers from Denison University that explored the impact of giving 1st-to 3rd-grade boys a video game player reads like an obituary for kids’ school effort. Four months after receiving the player, the boys were gaming more, had lower reading and writing scores, and had more teacher-reported academic problems. What were the reasons for the decline? The researchers described something quite similar to what I see in my practice almost every day: increased gaming displaced time spent in afterschool learning activities like homework, reading, listening to stories, and writing.15
The amount of entertainment screen time that puts kids’ academic performance in jeopardy is actually quite small. A Pediatrics study of 5th to 8th graders found that kids who used more than 1 hour of video games or 3 hours of TV per weekday were more likely to have below average academic performance than those who used less.16 Another study found that boys ages 6 to 9 who played video games an average of about 40 minutes per weekday scored lower academically than boys who played for about 10 minutes per weekday.17
Texting
The more college students text, the less well they perform academically as measured by GPA.18 Research has yet to look into the effects of texting on academics for middle-and high-school students. There are reasons for concern, however: In a recent study looking at how texting affected the study habits of middle-school, high-school, and college students, these students reported that texting was the number one reason they were drawn off task from studying.19
Computers and the Internet
Determining the effects of computers and the Internet on children’s academic performance is challenging because these technologies can be used for entertainment or education. Evidence suggests that effects hinge on how these technologies are used. A study of Taiwanese middle-school students shows that the use of the Internet to search for information was associated with higher scores on a high-school entrance exam, but using the Internet to game or socialize was associated with lower scores on the exam.20
Unfortunately, as we have seen, our kids’ use of technology, including computers and the Internet, is dominated by entertainment applications. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the top three computer activities for children ages 8 to 18 are social networking, gaming, and watching online videos.21 In spite of all the promise computers offer our kids, it’s disappointing that two out of the three greatest components of their computer use (social networking and gaming) are associated with lower academic performance. While there hasn’t been study of how kids’ watching online videos affects school performance, it’s a very similar activity to watching TV, an activity we know hurts kids’ school success.
It’s therefore not surprising that Duke University researchers found the introduction of computers or high-speed, broadband Internet access into homes led to lower academic scores for 5th-through 8th-grade kids.22 As researcher Jacob Vigdor observed, when adults aren’t supervising computer use, kids “are left to their own devices, and the impetus isn’t to do homework but play around.”23
THE HIGH COSTS OF A MYTH
We’ve seen that traditional schooling is immensely important to children’s success and that overusing entertainment technologies undermines academic performance. If claims that video gaming or social networking boost children’s learning were true, these technologies would need to provide tremendous benefits to kids in domains other than school. Unfortunately, while the time kids spend playing around on their gadgets may teach them certain skills, no convincing research shows that these skills translate into real-world success, especially when weighed against the costs amusement-based technologies pose to academic achievement.
In his book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, gaming advocate James Paul Gee says that video games teach problem-solving skills.24 There is no doubt that children and teens who play video games are learning something, and they may become adept at solving the problems created by video games. However, there is no evidence that such skills are preferable to the problem-solving skills kids gain from non-tech-based classroom exercises, science projects, or enrichment programs. Meanwhile, we have abundant research that our kids’ overuse of gaming hinders their academic performance and, as we will see in Chapter 4, puts them at risk of addiction. In other words, video games and other entertainment technologies provide questionable benefits yet known risks to kids’ learning success.
The risks posed by video gaming are generally ignored by their advocates, some of whom claim the superiority of the technology over real life. For example, in Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal says, “Compared with games, reality is pointless and unrewarding. Games help us feel more rewarded for making our best effort,” and “Compared with games, reality is disorganized and divided. Games help us make a more concerted effort—and over time, they give us collaboration superpowers.”25 Yet in reviewing McGonigal’s book, New York Times William Saletan says her assertions about the benefits of gaming lack “reliable evidence.” Similarly, Andrew Klavan’s Wall Street Journal review of the same book says McGonigal “seems to confuse states of feeling with facts.”26
Some of the most recent claims about the learning benefits of entertainment technologies are descri
bed by Clive Thompson in his book Smarter Than You Think. He says, “[Video] Games evoke modes of thinking that can be enormously valuable in education.” Nonetheless, Thompson relies upon hypotheticals and anecdotes for corroborative support, while neglecting the mounds of evidence in peer-reviewed journals that show the negative impact of video games on kids’ academic performance.
Thompson’s failing is that his captivating narratives disregard a basic reality of American kids’ technology consumption: profound overuse of entertainment technologies which displace school-based activities such as homework and therefore lead to kids’ academic struggles. Nonetheless, contentions about the benefits of gaming and other entertainment technologies are often reported as fact in the popular media.
The myth that entertainment technologies advance our kids’ learning has unfortunately encouraged a nation of parents to feel good about loading their kids with tech gadgets, while paying less attention to indicators of school success. I see the consequences in my work. I meet with many families whose children or teens are struggling academically because they overuse digital self-amusements. The parents often don’t bat an eye as their kids describe typical afterschool schedules: “First I come home and watch funny YouTube videos, then check Facebook, and then hop on Call of Duty, but I’m always texting.… Oh … when do I do homework? Sometimes late at night if I have time.…” When I ask these kids’ parents if they’ll consider making school a bigger priority, many see no such need. “He’ll be fine,” they tell me.
FALLING DOWN ON THE WORLD’S STAGE
Wired Child Page 6