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It is something we have said all along on Absolute Gadget, gaming can
be good for you. According to a new study by those very clever people
at Brunel University, children that spend hours playing computer games
can learn vital lessons about other people's race, gender and
disability.The three year study looked at kids from 13 to 16-years old who played an online game (which by the way is Runescape if you read the press release). The researchers found that the game enhanced rather than dampened their imagination. They found that these games led to kids meeting people of different nationalities and colour they would not normally meet in real life.
According to Nic Crowe and Dr Simon Bradford of Brunel's School of Sport and Education, kids have a greater freedom to explore online worlds as most parents nowadays buy into the hype that there is a nonce around every street corner, conveniently forgetting that you are no more likely to meet a perv today than you would thirty odd years ago (I remember my parents telling me to never talk to strangers - something I still try to do today).
Anyway we disgress. Crowe said that these "Virtual environments, like Runescape, form important new leisure spaces for the many young people who occupy them."
Runescape is one of the most accessed and popular of the virtual worlds, particularly amongst young people aged 11 -18. It takes the form of a Tolkeinesque quasi-medieval environment incorporating towns, buildings, dungeons, forests, landscapes and seascapes within which gamers live their virtual lives. Sounds a lot like life outside the Absolute Gadget office.
"In the real world, where streets or town centres have become inaccessible to many young people or are considered unsafe by them or their parents, it is not surprising virtual public space has become increasingly attractive as a leisure setting," said Crowe. "It is a space in which young people can establish their presence, identity and meaning in ways that might not be accessible or permissible in their everyday."
"At a time when emerging technologies such as the internet, and computer games in particular, continue to be subject to suspicion and concern it is important that we also recognise the benefits of what is an increasingly popular and important activity for our young people," he said.
We will stick with the office Wii for now. Hang on where's it gone! blog comments powered by Disqus
