Research memo #2

Article 1 is an experiment on teens that deprived subjects of technology. The results showed that the teens had withdrawals from technology; many of the subjects dropped out of the experiment early due to their strong addiction. The remaining subjects struggled greatly with the time away from technology, and were limited to about a half hour per day. They were told to write in a journal about their experiences of how they were feeling, and all of them were showing much stress and anxiety. Most of them wrote things like “I don’t know how much longer I can do this”. This helps to show how badly teens are affected by video games and technology; a few months away from it causes them to want to quit from the experiment just to talk faster with friends.

These articles gave a lot of information about teen’s reliance and addiction to technology, specifically video games. It showed that with a restrictive limit on video games, it could help teens improve their grades and spend more time studying or doing homework. It would keep them more focused by eliminating such a large distraction from the equation. The teens in the first article had shown improvement with grades within the first month, including more effort towards school. Much of the time not using their electronic devices was filled up with time working on homework. This shows that with a lack of video games, kids will become more focused; this also shows that teens are being badly distracted and mentally shrinking the importance of doing schoolwork if they play video games too often.

The second article mentions a study that showed that kids 10-19 that frequently played video games spent about one third less time studying and doing homework than kids who play them at a regular basis. It is obvious that with this statistic that something must be done about the video game epidemic. The article mentioned strict limits that needed to be set; this could theoretically help, but knowing how good kids are at following rules and limits (sarcasm), I doubt any limits would help. Convincing them that the games are doing them no good and wasting their time, however, could have a much better impact.

            Overall, I have found that kids and teens are immensely hooked into video games and technology in general. Don’t get me wrong, I think technology is a great thing; however, with the affect it’s having on today’s youth, I think there has to be something done to use it in moderation. Teens today are becoming enveloped and dependent on games.

Article 1

2006.  Micki M. Caskey, Ph.D. “Why kids need to be bored: a case study of self-reflection and academic performance”. November 15, 2011. http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ804100

Article 2

M. Monzingo. “From kids to money, what to know now”. November 15, 2011. http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=67e0eb95-015b-4904-8d46-4d18c19522f2%40sessionmgr12&vid=1&hid=19&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=ulh&AN=31276143