Instant Messaging, Video Games Probed for Effects on Academics

Boston

Students who send and receive instant messages while completing a reading assignment take longer to get through their texts but apparently still manage to understand what they’re reading, according to one of several new studies that look at the academic effects of students’ computer and video-game-playing habits.

The results were presented during this month’s annual meeting of the Washington-based American Psychological Association , a national group that represents 148,000 psychologists. Held here Aug. 14-17, the meeting drew 14,000 conference-goers.

“Students who are managing busy lives may think they are accomplishing more by multitasking, but they will actually need more time to achieve the same level of performance on an academic task,” said Laura L. Bowman, the lead researcher on the instant-messaging study and a psychology professor at Central Connecticut State University ...