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Game Boy's long-term effects still uncertain
©Washington Post
© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 11, 2001
WASHINGTON -- Rawley Loken is one of those lucky kids who own a closet full of toys. But most of the time, the 8-year-old from Vienna, Va., reaches for the same one: his Nintendo Game Boy.
"He plays with it as much as I would possibly let him," his mother, Donna Loken, said.
High-tech gadgets have invaded children's toy chests. But nothing has caught on like the Nintendo Game Boy, the portable, book-size video game console on which consumers can play more than 600 games. Since its debut in 1989, the Game Boy has become a cultural phenomenon that has spread from cliques of geeky boys in Japan to the rest of the world -- young and old, male and female. More than 110-million units have been sold worldwide, enough for every household in the United States.
For many children, the Game Boy has become a constant companion, filling voids of time, often several hours a day. That has worried parents, child psychologists and teachers. Some schools, including George Mason Elementary in Alexandria, Va., have banned the device from their campuses.
"They frustrate me," principal Lois Berlin said. "They're distracting, and sometimes the kids get so consumed with them that they do so at the expense of reading and doing things outdoors."
Donna Loken, too, has had that worry. Her solution: two new household rules. Only two hours of Game Boy time a week. And only 30 minutes of Game Boy when friends are over.
"We saw the Game Boy beginning to affect him in the way TV did. If you asked him to stop, he would be generally disagreeable," she said. Still, she said she was amazed by how the games improved Rawley's math and strategy skills.
Rawley said he loves the Game Boy so much that he's planning to spend his savings on the new Game Boy Advance, a significantly faster model arriving in stores today.
Like the Lokens, many parents are torn about whether toys such as the Game Boy are a good, bad or neutral influence on their child's development.
So far, formal research on the social implications of Game Boys has been of little help. One study that focused on computers in general found that spending time plugged in can lead to loneliness and depression, according to Stanford University professor Norman Nie. Two months later, a team from the University of California at Los Angeles reported just the opposite. Its survey of 2,096 households found that surfing the Net was a shared household activity and increased bonding with family and friends.
"The biggest concern is whether the electronic toys isolate kids socially by providing virtual companions over real ones," said Mary Beth Klotz, a project director at the National Association of School Psychologists.
When it comes to technology's effect on other aspects of life, however, academics have been remarkably consistent. Spending too much time parked in front of a computer or game console can lead to obesity or even severe thumb pain, nicknamed "Nintendinitis," caused by the repeated pressing of buttons. Playing computer games can help build hand-eye coordination and appears to be linked to slightly better performance in school.
There have been numerous worries about the violence in some games and whether they might cause a child to confuse the virtual world with reality.
Patricia Greenfield, a UCLA psychology professor, said Game Boys are a more active pastime than television but not as stimulating for children as surfing the Net.
"My overall view is that each medium has its strengths and weaknesses," said Greenfield, the author of Interacting with Video, a book about the effects of video games.
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