Home Media and Children’s Achievement and Behavior
Open accessAbstract
This study provides a national picture of the time American 6- to 12-year-olds spent playing video games, using the computer, and watching TV at home in 1997 and 2003, and the association of early use with their achievement and behavior as adolescents. Girls benefited from computer use more than boys, and Black children benefited more than White children. Greater computer use in middle childhood was associated with increased achievement for White and Black girls, and for Black but not White boys. Increased video game play was associated with an improved ability to solve applied problems for Black girls but lower verbal achievement for all girls. For boys, increased video game play was linked to increased aggressive behavior problems.
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Other studies found little or no correlation between video games and academic achievement below the age of 11 years.
“Other studies found little or no correlation between video games and academic achievement below the age of 11 years (Fabris et al., 2019;Hofferth, 2008;Hofferth, 2010;Mundy et al., 2020).”
From Extracurricular Video Game Use and Academic Achievement: A Systematic Literature Review (2026) · cites this paper as Hofferth, 2010
The Discussion’s “Media Use and Achievement” section reports no association between video-game play and boys’ academic achievement, but both positive and negative associations for girls. The study covers children aged 6–12; it does not establish the claimed finding specifically for children below 11. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredHaving access to computers at home significantly boosts academic achievement of young children when parents actively mediate their use.
“In addition, having access to computers at home significantly boost academic achievement of young children when parents actively mediate their use [18, 35].”
From SET-PAiREd: Designing for Parental Involvement in Learning with an AI-Assisted Educational Robot (2025) · cites this paper as [35]
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- Authors
- Hofferth, S. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- Corresponding author
- Hofferth, Sandra L
- ORCID
- Hofferth, Sandra L
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2010-09-01
- Volume
- 81
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1598-1619
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8624
- PMC
- PMC2941215
- OpenAlex
- W1794339694
- Cited by
- 148
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2025: 7 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 30.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- Locations
- Child Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R24HD041041, R21HD050125)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Child Development and Digital Technology
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender and Technology in Education
- Keywords
- home media use, video gaming, computer use, television viewing, children's academic achievement, aggression, gender differences, racial differences, middle childhood, adolescents, problem solving, verbal achievement
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adolescent Behavior, Aggression, Child, Educational Status, Female, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Problem Solving, Sex Factors, Television, Time Factors, User-Computer Interface, Video Games, Black People, White People
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