Games and GPA don't get along

Newsflash: Bringing your A-game in a round of Halo doesn't translate to an A on your Econ midterm.

In a recent year-long study, researchers surveyed incoming freshmen at Berea College in Kentucky and found that students who brought video-game systems to school earned a lower GPA than their non-gaming classmates.

Their roommates' GPAs were also affected.

The study was designed not as a means to put down video games but as a way to quantitatively analyze the tangible effect that extra time - or less time - spent studying has on grades earned.

In this case, researchers found that an extra hour of studying a day was equivalent to an extra one-third of a point on a four-point GPA scale.

"Effort really does matter," researcher Todd Stinebrickner of the University of Western Ontario said.

But Penn students aren't necessarily convinced that a video-game hobby is detrimental to their studies.

"I do know a lot of people who casually game, and I know none of them would game over studying when it's necessary," Engineering sophomore Zachary Goldberg said.

Fellow Engineering sophomore Eric Mills sees the findings as an issue of correlation, not causation.

"Having a video-game system means you'll probably spend more time using it," Mills said. "You're going to find ways to waste your time, whether it's sitting in the hall doing nothing or playing video games."

For Mills, his video-game hobby is generally reserved for "the awkward hours" after dinner and before starting his homework.

And while Engineering sophomore Ross Kessler admitted that having a PlayStation 2 and a GameCube in his room sometimes leads him away from his studies, he doesn't think the occasional distraction is all bad.

"I think it's good to have a release from studying," Kessler said. "It's no fun to be in college and study all the time."

Learning experts at Penn are even willing to speak up for the potential benefits of video games - as long as students game in moderation.

"I think that balance is important," Myrna Cohen, executive director of the Weingarten Learning Resources Center, said. "There should be time to relax, and if playing video games is a way of relaxing and taking a break, as long as there's some control built in, that's fine."

Studying smarter is just as or more important than studying longer, Cohen said. In fact, studying for too long without taking a mental break can actually be ineffective.

Stinebrickner is also unwilling to condemn video games in college and would never suggest banning them, citing the importance of pursuing leisure in addition to one's studies.

He added that there are a number of things that students do that take away from studying that aren't banned.

"We don't get rid of weekends," he explained.

Overall, the general consensus seems to be that Penn students aren't gaming themselves into academic oblivion.

"For the most part, video-game playing at Penn is pretty casual," Kessler said. "I don't really know many people that skip class to play video games. If anything, they skip class to sleep."

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