MAIN > SPOTLIGHT ARCHIVE > Amanda_Lenhart (Sep 16)

Tuesday 16th September 2008 10:00 am

Amanda Lenhart: Gaming is an Integral Part of Teens’ Social Lives

Pew Senior Research Specialist and primary author of the Teens, Video Gaming and Civics report reflects on the prevalence and sociability of gaming.

I was sitting in my friend’s living room a few weeks back, watching his three daughters play with the family’s Wii. Bart Simpson was trying, repeatedly, to leap over a vat of what looked like boiling liquid. The three sisters, elementary and junior high aged, were all engaged with the game and each other, talking, sharing strategies for clearing the river and advancing to the next part of the game.

In many way these girls are living examples of some of the main findings of a new research report issued today by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and Mills College, supported by the MacArthur Foundation that takes a first look at teenagers, their video gaming habits and how their gaming experiences, both in the game and around the game are yielding opportunities for social interactions and engagement with their community.

The report, titled Teens, Video Gaming and Civics is based on a national, random digit dial telephone survey of 1102 parent-teen pairs. The teens we interviewed were ages 12 to 17.

Among the many findings of this study, we learned that gaming is nearly universal among teens, with 97% of American youth 12 to 17 playing computer, console, portable or cell phone games, and half of teens play on any given day, usually for about an hour. And as the three girls illustrate, gaming isn’t just the domain of boys - 94% of teen girls play games, as do 99% of teen boys. Teens who play games span the racial, ethnic and socio-economic spectrum, in ways that young users of many other technologies do not.

Gaming is also a social experience for most teens - 76% of adolescents say they play with friends, either in person or online. As with the girls I watched, gaming is an integral part of the fabric of teens’ social lives. Rather than keeping teens from interacting with peers (indeed, teens who game daily communicate and spend face to face time with friends just as frequently as teens who game less frequently), games often serve as a topic around which interaction is organized. Nearly a third of teens say they visit websites and online discussions about games they play.

Games also hold promise for teaching and learning, particularly in the realm of civics and civic engagement. My colleague and co-author, Dr. Joe Kahne, elaborated on those elements in his own blog post.

Editor’s Note: Also see Connie Yowell’s post on the gaming and civics findings.

Category: Civic-Engagement, Ecology-of-Games, Identity

Tags:

Like this post?

  • Email this page using tell-a-friend, or
  • Save it with one of these social bookmarking tools: , or
  • View author profile for Amanda_Lenhart.

Comments

Submit Thoughts

We would love to have you add in the discussion. Please submit your content to our editorial review board:

Name (public):

Email (required but private, only used if our editors need to contact you):

Upload your photo (recommended: this helps bridge online/offline worlds)

Affiliation (public):

URL of your website or institution (public):

Comments:
(We will automatically remove html codes.)

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

Please enter the word you see in the image:

(Warning: You will NOT be warned if our spam filters delete your comment. Cutting and pasting tends to confuse our spam filters, so always keep a copy. If your comment passes the spam test, you will be shown a brief "Thank You" message after hitting the Submit button, otherwise you will be returned to this page with your comment gone and no warning. Only comments that pass the spam test will be emailed to our editors for approval and posting. Contact our editors using the link in the footer if you have a problem.)

Produced by Games for Change. | TOP