Category Archives: Gaming

Throughout the past year, everyone has experienced pandemic stress. But parents have been particularly vulnerable because of the additional work associated with managing children, especially for those parents trying to continue to work at their jobs. There have been many new studies about the ways that pandemic stress has impacted parents’ mental health. While people turn to a variety of tools to cope with pandemic stress, our study focuses on using entertainment media, specifically video games, as a coping tool. Using…

“We used to love playing Xbox all day. That used to be great. But now that it’s all we really do or have to do, they’re always like, ‘Oh, I’m so bored of Xbox. I just wanna do something else.’” (Boy, Age 17 / Pasco County, Florida) Last year the Joan Ganz Cooney Center launched the By/With/For Youth: Inspiring Next Gen Public Media Audiences initiative. Next Gen Public Media aims to “understand the media habits of tweens and teens and…

Billions of people around the world play video games, making gaming one of the most popular forms of entertainment today. Yet while we know there are many positive aspects to video games for learning and play, many still worry that they could also be bad for us. Video games have been accused of making players violent, isolated, dumb, or addicted. But what does academic research actually say? This is what I discuss in my most recent book, The Psychology of…

This partial transcript of the App Fairy podcast has been edited for length and clarity. Visit appfairy.org for more information about Originator. Carissa Christner: Hello and welcome to the App Fairy podcast. My name is Carissa Christner and today I’m very excited to bring to you an interview with Rex Ishibashi of the Originator apps. Originator is most well known for the Endless apps, like Endless Alphabet and Endless Reader. They are great apps for teaching reading, vocabulary, and math skills. When…

Children today have access to more devices and platforms than ever before. And that means they have access to more entertainment software too. Over the past few years there have been a number of studies looking at video games and children, from how games affect the brain and motivation to learn. With the Digital Games and Family Life series, the Cooney Center has been digging into what parents of children ages 4-13 really think about their children’s game play. A majority…

When I was a kid, one of my favorite parts of the week was the recurring Friday night game session at my house. It usually consisted of my dad stoking the fire, my sister watching TV, and my mom and me embroiled in a fierce competition of Chinese Checkers or Othello. There may have been times I fumed while resetting the board pieces (I was not a good loser), but I always enjoyed those game nights and still hold onto those…

The newest Digital Games and Family Life infographic from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center puts “Mario” in big navy blue letters. It seems Nintendo’s classic is the video game franchise that parents are most likely to enjoy playing just as much as their kids do. I’m not surprised. My children (two boys, 9- and 11-years-old) and I have been enjoying the new NES Classic ever since Nintendo sent us a review unit in early November. The retro all-in-one mini-console delivers an…

As part of our Families and Media Project, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center conducted a survey of nearly 700 parents whose 4-13-year old children play video games. We are pleased to present this data as a series of infographics, each featuring a particular facet of video games and family life. Here, we explore the games that parents and children enjoy as well as whether and how parents participate in their children’s gameplay based on their own interest in playing digital games. Stay…

On November 14, 2016, the National STEM Video Game Challenge celebrated its fifth year with an awards ceremony and reception in Washington, DC at National Geographic for all 24 student winners and their families, as well as leading educators, game designers, and policy makers from across the country. I’ve been involved with the STEM Challenge for the past three years, and was humbled by the winning games’ quality, the caliber of the speakers the students met, and the excitement that…

Brooklyn Humphrey won the Best Middle School Unity game in the STEM Challenge last year. Here she shares her memories of what it was like to develop her first game, and what she is working on now. I never would’ve thought that I would win the STEM Challenge. I didn’t even think that I would make a video game in the first place, but now I’ve learned that anything is possible. Here’s a glimpse of my experience making my first video game.…