Videogames and Learning

The videogames industry has been flourishing. In 2010 in America alone, total consumer spending on the games industry totaled $25.1 billion (Siwek, 2010), surpassing both the music industry ($15.0 billion) and box office movies ($10.5 billion). It is also one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S. economy. From 2005 to 2010, for example, the videogames industry more than doubled while the entire U.S. GDP grew by about 16 percent. The amount of time young people spend with entertainment media in general is staggering. Youth aged 8 to 18 years old consume about 10.45 hours per day of media (compressed into 7.38 hours per day thanks to multitasking; Rideout, Foehr, & Roberts, 2010). Console and handheld videogames alone account for roughly one hour and 13 minutes of that screen time, not including computer games. And the majority of unit sales come from games targeted at children, with ESRB ratings of E for everyone (56% of unit sales), E10+ for ages 10 and up (18%), or T for ages 13 and up (21%) (Entertainment Software Association, 2011). These statistics show that videogames capture a great deal of time and interest from school-aged youth. But the sheer popularity of videogames with young people is not the primary reason that learning scientists have taken an interest; rather, it is because they have great potential to facilitate learning. Empirical findings on the impact of games come from a broad range of academic disciplines, including neuroscience, social studies education, literacy studies, health, and psychology. Action games have been found to improve visual acuity and attention (Green, Pouget, & Bavelier, 2010). Historical simulations aid systems understanding in world history and geography (Squire & Barab, 2004). Exergames like Dance Dance Revolution or Nintendo’s Wii Sports are shown to increase calorie expenditure and decrease sedentary lifestyles for children (Graf, Pratt, Hester, & Short, 2009). Casual games like Bejeweled II have been shown to increase mood and decrease stress (Russoniello, O’Brien, & Parks, 2009). Videogame-related texts for titles like World of Warcraft enable struggling readers to perform on par with their more successful counterparts despite the fact that game-related texts typically are written at a high school level (11.8 grade level text) (Steinkuehler, 2012). Online game community discussion boards evidence scientific reasoning (Steinkuehler & Duncan, 2008).