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Video Game Use and The Development of Sociocognitive Abilities in Children: Three Surveys of Elementary School Students 1
Author(s) -
Sakamoto Akira
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1994.tb00551.x
Subject(s) - psychology , popularity , empathy , video game , relation (database) , cognition , cognitive development , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , social psychology , multimedia , database , neuroscience , computer science
The purpose of the present study was to examine the validity of the popular hypothesis that video game use will prevent children from socially adjusting. Three surveys of elementary school children were reported. The primary results were as follows: (a) The frequency of video game use had no correlation with children's popularity among classmates. (b) The frequency of video game use had slightly negative correlations with boys' sociocognitive abilities such as empathy, cognitive complexity, and cognitive abstractness. (c) However, it was likely that the negative correlations were not due to the causal relation that video game use affected boys' sociocognitive abilities, which supported the hypothesis, but rather the causal relation that video game use was affected by their abilities; and (d) In the case of computer use, such as word processing or programming, the frequency of use had few correlations with sociocognitive abilities.