Games and gaming have always been an influential part of society and culture. Within the last 35 years, due to numerous technology innovations, electronic games in many formats have become ubiquitous in everyday life. This ubiquity has meant that games and gaming have permeated into many fields and disciplines for multiple purposes including…

This case study closely examines how John (a former student of mine, age eight, second grade) composed during an informal writing group at school. Using qualitative research methods, I found that John selectively took up conventions, characters, story grammars, themes, and motifs from video games, television, Web pages, and comics. Likening his…

Karen Orr Vered demonstrates how children's media play contributes to their acquisition of media literacy. Theorizing after-school care as intermediary space, a large-scale ethnographic study informs this theory-rich and practical discussion of children's media use beyond home and classroom.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of engaging students in Kolb's experiential learning cycle on facilitating students' simulation game performance and knowledge application skills in learning with a business simulation game. A sample was drawn from a population of business-major undergraduate students at the School of…

This article presents conceptual and empirical analyses of several of the "best practices" of learning and instruction, and demonstrates how violent video games use them effectively to motivate learners to persevere in acquiring and mastering a number of skills, to navigate through complex problems and changing environments, and to experiment with…

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) youth are disproportionally burdened by high rates of sexually transmitted infections and teen pregnancy, heightening their need for sexual health interventions that are aligned to their unique culture and social context. Media technologies, including the Internet, cell phones, and video games, offer new…

The relationship between videogame usage, active exercise, television viewing, and measures of blood pressure is explored. Videogame participation, especially playing sports or action games, simulates involvement in aggressive situations. This may activate the fight or flight response in players. This response has been associated with blood…

Surveyed 357 seventh and eighth graders about video game play and preference. Found that approximately 64% of boys and 56% of girls played one to two hours of video games per week at home; and that, among five categories of video games, those most preferred by the students were games that involved fantasy violence and sports games. (BC)

The motor control of 49 unmedicated boys clinically diagnosed with ADHD, case-matched with 49 non-ADHD boys, was assessed while playing Crash Bandicoot I, a SonyTM Playstation platform computer video game. In Crash Bandicoot participants control the movements of a small-animated figure through a hazardous jungle environment. Operationally defined…

It is the universal cry of parents the world over, driven mad by the persistent sight of their children investing hours and hours in mastering the many layers of a video game. To the parent, video games are the enemy, the nemesis of homework and learning. But the child sees something of value, something engaging enough to fill a weekend, to the…

This study investigates how game playing experience changes when a story is added to a first-person shooter game. Dependent variables include identification, presence, emotional experiences and motivations. When story was present, game players felt greater identification, sense of presence, and physiological arousal. The presence of story did not…

It is believed that repeated exposure to real-life and to entertainment violence may alter cognitive, affective, and behavioral processes, possibly leading to desensitization. The goal of the present study was to determine if there are relationships between real-life and media violence exposure and desensitization as reflected in related…

This study assessed the speed of recognition of facial emotional expressions (happy and angry) as a function of violent media consumption. Color photos of calm facial expressions morphed to either an angry or a happy facial expression. Participants were asked to make a speeded identification of the emotion (happiness or anger) during the morph.…

The aims of this research were to describe Finnish adolescents' different motives for digital game playing, and to examine relations between digital game playing and parent-child communication, school performance, sleeping habits, and perceived health. A questionnaire was used to assess a nationwide postal sample of 12-18-year-old Finns (6761…

This study investigated the roles of sex, age, and parent-child communication in moderating the association between digital game violence and direct aggression in a two-year longitudinal study. Finnish 12- and 15-year-old adolescents (N = 316) participated in the follow-up survey. As hypothesized, digital game violence was linked to direct…