According to a new study sure to be invoked by every Minecraft-addicted underachiever on the planet, students who regularly play video games do better at school.
Finally, real academic proof that every parent/teacher/authority figure was wrong about the harmful effects of Pokémon. It’s also a sign that the whole “video gamer/slacker” stereotype is, scientifically, a lie. Much more accurate is the ol’ “video gamer/nerd” stereotype.
The investigation, which came out of Straya’s own RMIT, uses the academic results and online activities of 12,000 Australian 15-year-olds. According to RMIT’s Alberto Posso: “Students who play online games almost every day score 15 points above the average in maths and 17 points above the average in science.”
Facebook and other social media websites, however, make students more likely to struggle at school. “Students who are regularly on social media are, of course, losing time that could be spent on study,” said Posso, “but it may also indicate that they are struggling with maths, reading and science and are going online to socialise instead.”
Students who go on social media are 20 points worse off in those areas than their non-social media-using fellows. They are, though, probably more likely to have a working understanding of Dat Boi.
o shit waddup with my crappy grades?
Still, the study shows that social media use isn’t as much of a disadvantage as actual disadvantage. Students from ethnic minority groups are at much greater risk of falling behind at school than the Instagram addicted. Before we start banning teens from the twittersphere, maybe we should look at closing some other gaps first.
