Family and Media

Do video games stunt kids’ growth?

Last month we interviewed Michael Gurian, author of A Fine Young Man (Bantam books, 1998), about the emotional nurturing young boys need to grow into men. We also asked him, "What makes adolescence harder for teens these days?" Gurian cites the pervasiveness of electronic media in youngsters’ lives. Though he focuses on boys, surely much of this applies to the process of girls becoming young women.

Says Gurian, "Our adolescent boys are simply too involved in video games and watching TV. They’re not relating enough to grandfathers and grandmothers and aunts and uncles and cousins and moms and dads. Their adolescence is actually being made more difficult because they are not forming the kinds of bonds they need in order to develop emotionally. And they’re losing themselves in stuff that, in the end, betrays them.

"Ultimately, they can’t learn how to be a man from a video game," says Gurian.

Huge leaps in mental and social development unfold in early adolescence, a growth period second only to the first three years of life. "Two to three hours a day of video games is not good for the developing brain. They’re getting absorbed in just this one sort of tunnel-vision activity that doesn’t help develop the brain," says Gurian. At this age, their young brains are building the capacity to do higher-level learning such as reading for meaning, planning, and problem solving. Time spent at the video terminal (whether watching cartoons or frantically working the joystick on a video game), is time taken away from such human development. "Without the mental effort needed to develop these connections a person grows up handicapped."

What should families do? Gurian suggests: Learn more about brain development during early adolescence (chapter eight of his book is a gold mine of solid information), and explain it to your child. Armed with that knowledge, establish guidelines for the amount of screen time. Make it policy that children "never engage in more virtual activity than real activity in a two-day period." He suggests "a 10-year-old may watch perhaps an hour a day, a13-year-old two a day." He advises taking all TVs out of children’s rooms and turning the TV off during meals or family times. "Take back the job of storyteller. Give our kids lots of our own stories and lots of time with Uncle Pete and Aunt Alice and Grandma and Grandpa."

Rather than prohibit use of the TV, Internet, or video games altogether, Gurian says family life should be made an attractive alternative. "Every kid really wants to be stimulated by relating with Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, and media is a secondary stimulant. If they don’t get the other, they’re going to turn to media, because it amplifies feelings.

"What I really want as a kid is just to be admired by you, and if you give me that, I’m not going to care about watching TV, because in a week I’ll think Melrose Place is kind of boring compared to what I’ve got here."

Finally, what constitutes a fine young man? Gurian offers a useful acronym (SCORE) to convey the hallmarks of manhood: Service, Compassion, (H)onor, Responsibility, and Enterprise.

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