Cooperatively Playing Games with Parents. How did it affect you? A new study may have the answers.

Call me a nerd, but there is nothing I enjoy more than researching what I love on the internet. It's pretty rare when I stumble across an accredited peer-reviewed article about gaming, but when I do, I always find it a fantastic read. I guess there has been a method to these years of college under my belt after all. This is a little something out of the ordinary for a blog, or even a gaming news site, but I will try my best to make it as interesting as possible for all audiences.



A study has come out of Brigham Young showing a positive relationship between families that game together. Particularly (and @Assassionista you will love this) between the parent and daughter. Their research asked approximately 300 families simple questions about how they interact with video games as a family, the age-appropriateness of the games they play together, and how much time is spent playing these games.

It was found that about half of the children played games alongside their parents, and these levels were associated with larger amounts of parent-child connectedness when it game to girls playing age-appropriate games. However, when it came to playing age-inappropriate game (eg. Grand Theft Auto, Duke Nukem, etc.) the sense of reality between parents and offspring faded since it was almost as if games (and the actions therein) were looked upon as being positive.

When playing appropriate games with their children parents show that they are willing to enjoy and engage in an activity that their daughter also enjoys, tightening the bond and quality parent-time between them. Girls that were studied also exhibited a lower level of stress, anxiety, and aggression when co-playing games with their parents.

What do you guys think? Did you ever play games with your parents or siblings when you were younger? And how did you turn out? Was it always a positive experience for you?

This article really got me thinking about how our parents (and video games) really have an effect on how we grow and learn about the world as an adolescent. Most of my childhood I grew up playing games locked away in my bedroom. I can remember weeks of playing Super Mario RPG on the SNES and having a total lack of social interactiveness during that time, but whenever I would play games such as Mario Kart or Goldeneye with my mother, we would have one heck of a bonding experience.

If you want to read the aforementioned article you can do so here. Until Later.

~~Disc07