games to play instead of doing homework

The best games to play while doing homework

Idle games, clickers, and management games all make for perfect study buddies.

You say you're just going to take a break from the school or work day to play "just one level" or "just one hour" of a favorite game. But before you know it, you've lost way more than just an hour. 

Fortunately, not every game is designed to grab and hold your attention. These games won't keep you away from your homework—at least, not for long. These idle and management games are perfect to leave running in the background while you write a report or have up on your monitor while you hit the books. Even more handy, several of them are free!

Fallout Shelter

 Free | Management | Steam , Bethesda Launcher 

Fallout Shelter puts you in the Overseer's chair to construct a vault room by room, organize expeditions into the Wasteland, and oversee the growth of your population. Vault dwellers have all the standard Fallout S.P.E.C.I.A.L stats, some of which make them better at producing resources like food and water and others that help them defend against rad roach and raider attacks.

Fallout Shelter is great for playing on the side while you work because it only requires a bit of attention every few minutes. In the early stages, you'll need to manually click on rooms that have finished producing food, water, and power to collect them. After completing a few achievements, you'll likely be able to earn a Mr. Handy unit, which will collect those resources automatically. Vaults do occasionally face emergencies like fires and deathclaw attacks, but the sirens are hard to ignore. If you've got your sound on or headphones in, you'll know when to look up and help your dwellers defend themselves. 

When you really need a break, treat yourself to one of Fallout Shelter's quests, which are more hands-on than managing the vault. Most quests take a few hours for your dwellers to arrive at, but if you send them off early in the day, you'll be able to start one when you're ready and take a few minutes to guide them through several floors of enemies and loot.

Realm Grinder

 Free | Clicker | Steam , Browser  

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Realm Grinder has as much theorycrafting as some MMOs I've played. If you want to get into that side of it, check out our Realm Grinder guide to get started and learn the lingo. There's plenty of number crunching if you want it, but don't let it scare you off. Like any clicker game, it's easy to get started. In Realm Grinder you start as the ruler in one of six factions each aligned with good or evil. The evil factions (goblins, demons, and undead) are most oriented towards an idle play style where you earn coins based on upgrades that you've bought instead of increasing the coins you earn per click. 

Realm Grinder is a great studying game. Not only does it flex your arithmetic skills in calculating upgrades (if you want to get that deep) but it really doesn't require too much of your attention. The endgame for Realm Grinder can get pretty complex if you allow it, but if you just want to mess about and earn a few trophies, you don't need to read up on all the meta strats. The only danger is if you get too into it, you may end up doing speed runs instead of studying. 

Spaceplan 

 $2.99 USD | Clicker | Steam

Spaceplan has what few other clicker games do: an ending. A great ending, even. You're lost in space on a potato-powered ship and the only way to find your way back to Earth is to make lots and lots of potatoes. With the help of your onboard AI, a GladOS and HAL 9000 lovechild called the Word Outputter, you'll make starchy creations to power your potato ship as you hop planets and universes on your way back home.

Like most clicker games, you'll spend a bit of time getting set up but Spaceplan quickly becomes a self-propelled machine that generates joules of potato power. Oh, and make sure to turn on the "scientifically accurate mode" which displays your power in joules instead of watts. You were paying attention in physics, right?

Have your sound on while playing Spaceplan because the low-key space soundtrack by Logan Gabriel is absolutely stellar. It's still my go-to concentration music even years later. It will probably take you about a week of casual check-ins to complete and if you enjoy the soundtrack along the way you'll likely love the groovy, cinematic ending.

 A Dark Room 

Free | Management | Browser  

A Dark Room almost defies explanation and demands to be played firsthand. You start off by a dwindling fire and your only option is to stoke it so you won't freeze to death. Before long you run out of wood and need to gather more. Next you wind up building a hut, and then another, attracting more wanderers to your small, budding village. You don't know why you're tending this fire in what seems to be the apocalypse, but you keep taking care of your people, assigning them jobs, and building the village's resources. The story is sparse and vague, but I've been playing for weeks just to see what new vagabonds I can attract and technologies I can find. 

Eventually, A Dark Room opens up after you obtain a compass and can leave the small village you've constructed. Like Fallout Shelter, you can go on expeditions in a Dwarf Fortress-like ascii art environment. Venturing further from the village, killing monsters, and finding new resources like iron mines and abandoned suburbs leads to further progress. After finding the right spread of villagers per job to stabilize the resources of wood, meat, and other necessities, it's easy to leave A Dark Room running for hours and come back later to investigate what new mysteries await.

Cookie Clicker

Free | Clicker | Browser  

Cookie Clicker is THE classic clicker game. It's still a browser game to this day even though it has developed a lot of pizzazz since 2013. There are animations and screen effects and lots of display options. At its heart though, Cookie Clicker is just about making cookies with milk. You recruit sweet grandmas, build cookie farms, cookie mines, and temples of cookie production. 

The first upgrade you can spend cookies on is an automated clicker that does the cookie clicking for you, meaning you can go hands-off very quickly. Although Cookie Clicker has some of the same deep strategy elements as Realm Grinder by storing progress across multiple runs, it isn't nearly as intense. You can pull up Cookie Clicker in a browser while you write a paper and check in on it whenever you remember.

Lauren started writing for PC Gamer as a freelancer in 2017 while chasing the Dark Souls fashion police and accepted her role as Associate Editor in 2021, now serving as the self-appointed chief cozy games enjoyer. She originally started her career in game development and is still fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long books, longer RPGs, has strong feelings about farmlife sims, and can't stop playing co-op crafting games.

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These video games trick elementary and high school students into learning STEM

Published: August 16, 2017

By Geoffrey Vendeville

It’s every high school student’s dream: playing video games instead of doing homework.

Steve Engels , an associate professor of computer science, teaching stream, predicts that one day games will not only replace traditional tests and assignments, but will do a better job teaching a range of subjects.

Games offer a number of advantages over paper assignments and tests, including immediate feedback, he says.

“If you have a lesson in game form, it tells you how well you’ve done, it allows you to retry it, which you maybe can’t do with assignments or tests, and you can do it again until you master it,” he says.

This summer, he's testing the concept with University of Toronto students who have been asked to develop games that trick students into learning some of the hard-to-teach topics on elementary and high school curricula: subjects related to science, technology, engineering and math.

The games by computer science students cover the basics of immunology, coding, optics and mitosis. Engels invited video game industry experts, teachers and grade school students, including groups from U of T’s  Science Unlimited Summer Camp , to try out the games and provide feedback.

Here are four examples of the games that were developed: 

1. Central Immune System

3. Clean City, Green City 

It's “Clean-Up Day!” Players test their knowledge of what gets recycled, composted and sent to the landfill in this game. Each wrong answer floods the landfill until it’s game over.  Even adults sometimes put things in the wrong waste receptacle, says  Monica Iqbal , a fourth-year computer science student. “I feel like this game isn’t just for kids. It’s for anyone, really.”

4. Deadlock

Learning to code isn’t always fun – unless the point is to hack one’s way out of a prison cell. The players use a block interface, which tells them which lines of code they can or can’t write, to open doors and control jail-busting drones. “When you unlock a door with the code we provided, the door will light up green and open in front of you,” says  Raymond Gao , a third-year computer science student. “Watching your code have an effect in real time isn’t something you get in other learning environments in programming.”

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U-M study: Video game play among teens affects school work, not socializing

• Jared Wadley

ANN ARBOR—Kids who spend a lot of time playing video games are finding time to socialize with friends too—though that’s not the case when it comes to doing homework.

A new study by the University of Michigan shows game players and non-game players spent the same amount of time with parents and friends. The study sampled nearly 1,500 teens nationwide.

For boy and girl gamers, the more time they spent playing video games with their friends on the weekends, the more time they spent in other activities with them as well, said Hope Cummings, a graduate student in the U-M Department of Communication Studies.

Cummings and Elizabeth Vandewater, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote the study, which appears in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

But while video games did not negatively affect teens’ social interaction, the same could not be said for school-related activities. Compared to non-gamers, kids who played video games spent 30 percent less time reading and 34 percent less time doing homework.

The sample of 1,491 children ages 10 to 19 years kept diaries about how they used their time for 24 hours on one weekday and one weekend day, with each day randomly chosen. The diaries tracked adolescents’ time spent playing video games, with parents and friends, reading and doing homework, and in sports and active leisure.

In the study, 534 kids (or 36 percent) played video games. Eighty percent (425) were boys and 20 percent (109) were girls. Female gamers spent an average of 44 minutes playing on the weekdays and one hour and four minutes playing on the weekends. Male gamers spent an average of 58 minutes playing on the weekdays and one hour and 37 minutes playing on the weekends.

Among gamers, time spent playing video games without parents or friends was related to less time spent with parents and friends in other activities. For girl gamers only, the more time they spent playing video games with their parents, the more time they spent with their parents in other activities.

“Video game popularity continues its rapid growth,” Cummings said. “This creates concerns among parents, teachers and politicians who think video games will interfere with adolescences’ social interaction and academic success.”

Related Links:

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• Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine

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Are video games better than homework?

A new study from Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany reveals that playing video games may enhance learning.

While coming home from school and heading straight for the Xbox sounds like a dream, we all know that in reality, most of our years in education were spent at a desk revising or doing homework. However, recent studies have suggested that playing video games may actually benefit cognition, and that people who play video games regularly have more active learning (and memory)-related brain regions.

This study focused on a somewhat unexplored area in gaming research, referred to as ‘probabilistic category learning’. This involves acquiring and classifying knowledge, and using it to predict future events. A very common paradigm of this type of learning is the weather prediction task, which has been used in over half a dozen neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies to date. This task allows researchers to gain insight into forms of learning, cognitive flexibility, and the use of feedback signals in the brain.

The video gamers performed much better at predicting the weather than the non-gamers…

The team, led by first study author Sabrina Schenk, recruited 17 video gamers (those who spent at least 15 hours per week playing action-based video games), and 17 non-gamers. Both groups were asked to perform a simple task, look at three cue cards with different weather patterns, and then predict the weather. Each cue card was only a partially accurate predictor of the weather, and thus the correct prediction had to be determined by the probability from the combination of all three cue cards.

The task worked such that a combination of cue cards may have contained: a card whose pattern predicts a 20% chance of sunshine and 80% chance of rain; a second card with an 80% chance of sunshine and 20% chance of rain; and a final card which predicts a 60% chance of sun and 40% chance of rain. By combining the probabilities of all three cue cards, the correct answer to the question, “Will there be sun or rain?”, would be sun.

The scans of gamers showed greater activity in the hippocampus…

All participants of both groups were asked to predict the weather, and were immediately told whether their prediction was right or wrong. The subjects performed this task again and again, with different combinations of cue cards, and thanks to the feedback they received, they learned which card combinations were associated with which weather condition.

After the completion of the weather prediction task, each participant completed a questionnaire that tested the amount of knowledge retained about various cue card combinations. The results of this study not only highlighted that the video gamers performed much better at predicting the weather than the non-gamers, but also that gamers retained far more knowledge about the cue card combinations and the associated weather outcomes.

Who knows, maybe playing video games instead of doing homework is helping us become better learners…

The brain activity of each participant was also recorded using MRI scans, which revealed that both gamers and non-gamers showed the same level of activity in brain areas linked to attention, executive function, and memory-associated regions. However, a notable difference between the groups was that the scans of gamers showed greater activity in the hippocampus – which is a vital area of the brain involved in sematic memory, visual imagery, and cognitive control.

“Our study shows that gamers are better in analysing a situation quickly, to generate new knowledge, and to categorise facts – especially in situations with high uncertainties,” Schenk explains.

This research could not only help us feel less guilty about procrastinating work by playing video games, but also aid future research into memory loss, linked to decreased activity in the hippocampus. So, who knows, maybe playing video games instead of doing homework is helping us become better learners?

Comments (1)

I find this article very interesting. As a gamer, I may have a promising future as a meteorologist.

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9 better alternatives to homework

by Katrina | Aug 31, 2022 | Lesson Ideas

Traditionally homework has been school work that students complete outside of the classroom and outside of school hours. This usually consists of textbook questions, worksheets, or research tasks.

Studies have been inconsistent in providing concrete evidence for the benefits of homework, and the effectiveness of set homework tasks depends greatly on the task itself.

This list of 9 alternatives to homework will help you give students a break from the norm while still impacting their learning and character development. 

alternatives to homework in middle school

Disclaimer: This blog post, ‘9 better alternatives to homework’, may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a small commission on qualifying purchases. This is of no extra cost to you and it helps me to continue writing awesome content for you! Read full disclaimer here .

Alternatives to homework

It is worth noting that I don’t use the word ‘homework’. Why? Because it has such a deeply ingrained negative connotation for both students and parents.

Terms I prefer to use instead include:

• At home learning
• Daily / Weekly Practice
• Consolidation

These terms don’t have the same negative connotation as ‘homework’ and help the students think about the tasks in a more positive way. 

Before I get into my suggestions, here are some benefits of using alternatives to homework:

1. You don’t have to mark them. These activities are designed to be able to be marked simple as participated or not. Not all home learning tasks need to add to your workload!

2. They encourage the development of character traits and skills – not just academic ones.

3. They are simple and easy to assign to almost any topic – and in fact, they don’t need to be specifically linked to a topic at all.

4. The nature of the tasks remind students to maintain balance between school / study and home life. 

5. They can be easily differentiated to cater for the variation of student situations.

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1. Baking from a recipe

Following instructions is very important in life as well as most subjects. For example, in subjects, such as science, students need to be able to work safely in a laboratory.

Setting a home task where students need to bake something following a recipe is a great alternative that allows students to practice these skills in a fun way.

Have students either bring you a photo of them in action baking, or evidence of the product itself!

Be mindful: Check any food allergies of your students if you want students to bring in the treats they bake.

2. Photo challenge 

Having students take a photo of their learning as applied in real life. This is a great way to help students practice being observant and also see the relevance of their learning outside of the classroom.

Be mindful: Students may not have access to a camera or smartphone. They could just write a short description of what they saw and where they saw it.

3. Play a board/card game 

Playing board games or card games requires students to practice their social and problem-solving skills. These are skills that are essential in the classroom and also in the real world. 

I love alternatives to homework that help build student character in addition to academic skills. 

Be mindful: Depending on your context, students may not have access to board games or they may not have family members around each day to play a board game with. Often school libraries contain games that can be rented out.

4. Home learning / flipped learning

Flipped learning is different from homework in that rather than practicing a skill they have learned in class, they learn the skill so they come to class ready to practice the skill.

This is usually done with the teacher filming a short tutorial to be watched at home before the upcoming lesson.

Flipped learning helps to develop autonomy and allows students to take their learning at their own pace since they can pause, rewind and rewatch the video as many times as they need to. 

The videos are usually less than 10 minutes in length so it is also a nice quick learning opportunity. 

Be mindful: Ensure all students have access to the technology required to watch the video.

5. Activities that apply their learning 

Activities that focus on applying their learning in practical ways are effective alternatives to homework tasks of a traditional sense.

For example, have you taught students about the unit cost in maths? The home task could be going shopping with a parent and photographing different options and calculating the best buy option.

Or maybe you’ve been learning about density in science? Have students compare the density of various household items in water at home. 

6. Reflect on learning

Asking students to write a small paragraph to reflect on the things they learned in your class that day or week is a really valuable use of their time and a great alternative to homework.

Reflecting and writing it down helps their brain to recognize the information as important. 

Are you reading this thinking ‘yeah but its so annoying to mark’. 

Then don’t! Just mark it as a participation home task. Whether students submit their paragraph on Google Classroom or hold up their book in class for you to tick off ‘complete’, it doesn’t have to be an onerous task for you.

7. Interview someone

Interviewing someone can be as simple as giving the students 3 questions to ask someone at home. It could be about their own views on a topic, where they see the usefulness of your subject, or about their career. 

This activity builds student skills in communication and listening whilst also providing an opportunity to build or deepen connections with people.

Be mindful: Some students may not have access to someone to interview every day. Try to give a few days so students have the opportunity. If they don’t have anyone at home you could suggest they interview a teacher, another student or even the bus driver. 

8. Call someone you haven’t spoken to in a while

Promoting the continuation and building of connections during term time is important for students to maintain balance in their lives. Some students struggle to do this themselves and so may feel the need to have ‘permission’ from their teacher. 

Be mindful: Some students may not have access to a phone or enough credit to make long calls. Provide alternatives such as chatting with a neighbour in person. 

9. Spend time with family

If a student spends 60 minutes completing homework, then for a family whose parents don’t get home from work until after 5pm, and who go to bed around 9pm, that is one quarter of their family time taken away by homework every day. Add in an extracurricular activity or sport and students are missing out on significant family time.

The simple act of not setting any homework or task can make a significant difference in the home lives of our students. 

Encouraging them to spend quality time with their family instead is a valuable alternative to homework. 

Homework is not bad and it does have its benefits. However, having a range of alternatives to the typical homework tasks allows for students to enjoy a balanced life while also building skills other than just the academic ones. 

Have you tried any of these alternatives to homework?

Comment below!

Written by Katrina

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30+ activities your kids can do instead of homework

Too much homework for kids can be harmful. Here are other ways for your children to learn at home.

By Jessica Smock and Beau Brink Updated August 10, 2022

There are many aspects of my more than decade-long career as a teacher that I’m proud of. My reputation for  giving lots and lots of homework —sometimes over two hours’ worth—is not one of them. My intentions were good: I, like their parents, didn’t want my students to fall behind.

However, when I entered a doctoral program in education policy, I learned that some research suggests homework is not good for elementary school-aged kids. Not only does it fail to improve the academic performance of elementary students,  but it might actually be damaging to kids’ attitudes toward school , and to their physical health.

Related: Is school stressing out your child? 10 ways to tell—and help them feel better

After hours spent sitting and engaging in mostly adult directed activities , children’s minds and bodies need other kinds of experiences when they get home, not more academics. It’s not just that homework itself has few academic benefits for little kids (and may even be harmful), it’s also that homework is replacing other fun, developmentally appropriate and valuable after school activities—activities that help children grow into healthy, happy adults.

Who invented homework, anyway?

Modern homework was invented by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who created a compulsory school system that was meant to support the effort to unify Germany (it had originally been a set of city-states, and reached unification in 1871). For Fichte, homework was a way for students to be involved in patriotism: They attended state-sponsored schools and spent their free time doing assignments related to their state-sponsored education. It was brought to America by Horace Mann, a pioneer of  public education in the United States , in the 1840s.

However, in the interim, a lot has changed in education. With time and research, educators are learning more and more about how children learn best and what kinds of work are developmentally appropriate at different ages and stages.

What does the research say about homework for kids?

While researchers think that homework  is  beneficial for academic achievement, the amount and type of homework makes a difference. One study published in the  Journal of Experimental Education  found that excessive homework leaves kids stressed, sleep deprived, and lacking balance for social and family activities even when those students come from upper-middle class families and go to top-performing schools—and many students  don’t  have those advantages.

Then there’s the issue of whether homework is actually effective at changing academic outcomes. Education researchers generally agree that kids get more benefit from homework the older they get, but one 2020 Rutgers study found that homework has become less effective at reinforcing classroom learning as smartphone use has become widespread. Kids use their phones to complete their assignments and get good grades on homework, but then don’t perform well on exams.

Here are a few ideas for after school activities for kids

1. spend time with family.

Many parents have daily battles with their elementary-aged kids over homework, and for many it negatively affects their relationships. Instead of parents nagging their overtired kids to do homework,  families can spend much more time talking together  about their day. In fact, conversation is the best way for all of us—especially young children—to learn about our world and cultivate empathy.

Encouraging  multigenerational relationships  can also yield many lessons for kids. By spending time with Grandma and Grandpa, they can learn how other adult role models in their lives who love them handle conflict, create and negotiate rules and routines, and embrace family traditions.

Suggested activities:

• Talking to parents
• Helping out with dinner
• Hanging out at grandma’s
• Reading a book together

2. Self care

Just like adults, kids  need time to take care of themselves  so that they can perform well in school. And also like adults, a lot of kids don’t have self-care basics in their routine.

Take sleep, for instance.  The National Sleep Foundation  estimates that between 25 and 50 percent of children aren’t getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep can cause all sorts of problems in kids, including poor attention, behavior problems, academic difficulties, irritability and weight gain. But even small amounts of additional sleep can have big impacts. One study found that only 20 additional minutes of sleep can improve kids’ grades.

Other self care activities benefit children, too: Reading aloud to a child helps them  build their vocabulary , having a bedtime routine  improves children’s social and behavioral habits  and having some relaxing downtime recharges their  ability to pay attention and concentrate .

• Building a consistent bedtime routine
• Cleaning their room
• Listening to classical music

3. Independent activities

Solitary activities—those that children can do  on their own, without the help of adults —build kids’ confidence and help them to relax. Plus, if there’s an element of learning, like your child acquiring a new skill on their own, it can  improve their motivation and memory in the long run .

Kids benefit in different ways from different independent activities. According to the National Literacy Trust,  reading for pleasure has a greater impact on children’s achievement  in school than their family’s economic status and not only builds vocabulary and comprehension but builds confidence. Knitting and crochet build fine motor skills, and gardening helps kids apply what they’re learning in their science and math classes to the real world.

• Independent reading
• Working on a puzzle
• Learning to knit
• Conducting a science experiment
• Planting a garden

An important part of how young kids’ minds develop is  through free, self-directed play . According to David Elkind, Ph.D., author of  The Power of Play: How Spontaneous, Imaginative Activities Lead to Happier, Healthier Children , free play is more critical now than ever, as recesses are shortened or eliminated and kids’ calendars are busier than ever.

There are a lot of different kinds of play: Risky play, sensory play, parallel play, constructive play, cooperative play, and more. All types of play have benefits for children, like building social skills, increasing creativity, improving problem-solving skills, and providing opportunities to explore the world in new ways. It’s even good for parents: As the  American Academy of Pediatrics  says, “Play offers parents a wonderful opportunity to engage fully with their children.”

• Go up a slide backward
• Dig in the dirt
• Play with a friend in a sandbox
• Play dress-up
• Create a collage
• Play Simon Says
• Make a fort

5. Physical activity

Kids who are physically active —as well as adults— have stronger hearts, lungs, and bones . They are less likely to develop cancer or be overweight and more likely to feel good about themselves. Even rough-housing can be beneficial. Rough and tumble play is not the same as aggression. It’s vigorous, freeform, whole body, energetic, happy play. Kids learn decision making skills, relieve stress, improve their ability to read social cues, and enhance their cardiovascular health.

And walking the dog counts: Kids who  help take care of family pets  may be less anxious, less likely to develop allergies and asthma, and are more active.

• Jumping rope
• Riding a bike
• Walking the dog
• Setting up an obstacle course in your living room
• Have a dance party

6. Volunteering

Through volunteering , kids can become  more grateful, empathetic, and feel more connected  to the wider community. Volunteering at an animal shelter can be especially enriching for children. Even kids who don’t have pets at home can benefit from being around animals. The emotional and psychological benefits of being around animals can also be found when kids care for injured animals and take on care-taking responsibilities for other people’s pets.

• Playing with animals at a shelter
• Bringing flowers to seniors in nursing homes
• Organizing or contributing to a toy drive
• Donating clothes to a shelter
• Picking up litter in the neighborhood

7. Creative expression

According to the  American Psychological Association , creative expression has incredible benefits for children’s mental health. Various studies have found that  engaging in creative expression  while experiencing negative emotions like anger and sadness helps people, including children, to process those emotions healthily. It doesn’t matter what kind of creative expression it is: Drawing, acting, writing, playing music and more can all build resilience along with improving kids’ imaginations, fine motor skills, and communication.

• Practice an instrument
• Draw a picture
• Write a story
• Take pictures
• Create with slime, play dough or kinetic sand

No homework? No problem

Homework takes away from the time available to engage in endless other forms of learning, such as social, physical, and emotional, as well as rest. And in any case, the learning done in school is only one form of learning.

Our kids deserve a chance to spend all their other hours outside of school doing their most important job of all:  being a kid .

With additional reporting by Beau Brink and Diva Anwari. 

A version of this post was originally published on Parent.com . It has been updated.

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Are your kids choosing video games over homework? Smart home tech can help

Working from home for close to a year now has brought this question to my mind: Are kids playing video games now more than ever because of the pandemic? I’m brining up this idea because of my neighbor’s son, who is constantly playing video games whenever I’m working in my home office. In fact, I can hear him chatting with his friends on a daily basis — as well as yelling whenever he dies in a battle.

Point security cameras at the TV

Door/motions sensors in rooms, smart plugs that can tell if a console is turned on, hardware firewalls that block gaming services, reward good behavior.

Schools around my area plan to offer a hybrid strategy , where students have in-school sessions paired with virtual learning. At the moment, however, it seems like he’s home more than at school. Even though I don’t have children, it made me wonder how working parents, especially who that don’t have the option to work from home, can ensure that their children are doing their homework and not playing video games.

Since I’ve spent a great deal of time covering the smart home, I know a few ways that smart home tech can help tackle and remedy the issue. At the same time, I asked some friends for solutions they employ to make sure their kids are getting their schoolwork done and not playing video games when they’re not there.

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When it comes to keeping homes safe, security cameras are useful deterrents that can prevent crime and keep those inside the home protected. However, there’s a level of precaution that needs to be kept in mind if you plan on using one to keep tabs on your kids at home . Some parents, quite frankly, don’t feel comfortable at all with a camera recording a wide area where children are present.

Privacy is always a constant concern , so it’s a better idea to have a security camera pointed in the direction of the television, or the area where video game consoles are kept. This not only helps to maintain a level of privacy because its view is isolated to a certain spot, but still enables you to determine if someone is playing video games when they’re supposed to be doing homework. You’ll want to decrease the sensitivity of its motion detection to ensure the slightest movement isn’t detected and recorded.

Do you prefer something that’s not as obtrusive? Another idea worth looking into is using door and motion sensors in rooms where consoles are stored. For open rooms such as the living room and family room, motion sensors can be anchored above entertainment centers and cabinets where those video game consoles are stored — so whenever someone comes close, you can get a notification about it.

But what if the console is inside your kids’ room? Well, that’s when a door sensor would be more ideal. If the video game console is stored on a shelf or in a cabinet, you can place a door sensor on it, so it can detect whenever it’s opened. This solution maintains your kids’ privacy, while still giving parents a clue if consoles are being accessed during school hours.

Smart plugs are handy for many reasons, but in situations where parents are keeping an eye on their kids’ gaming usage, some can show you when they’ve been turned on. For example, the Eve Energy Strip can not only be remotely turned on and off, but it also tracks power consumption with each of its outlets, allowing parents to tell what time of the day a video game console is drawing power.

There are also scheduling options that enable users to set a time and date when a particular outlet can be active, so this is a wonderful tool that can be automated.

While the other solutions are more obvious, this next one is actually something that doesn’t receive as much attention. Parents have more control than ever before in regard to the internet, which is why using your router’s firewall controls is a good way to curb video game play during school/homework hours.

Modern routers such as the Eero 6 and Google Nest Wi-Fi have the ability to block gaming services, rendering those consoles useless when it comes to online play. Yes, they’re still able to play locally by themselves, but it’s a solution worth adding to your arsenal. And if you rent a modem gateway or router from your internet service provider, chances are that it offers some firewall options as well to block gaming services.

I’m not saying that kids should be prevented from playing video games during school days. I actually feel the opposite. Just like anything in life, video gaming should be done in moderation, which is why I feel that dishing out some playing time should be treated as a reward. If they’re doing well and properly focusing on homework, then what’s the hurt in rewarding them with some video game time? It’s a wonderful way to build trust, too.

Then again, there are kids who want to stay one step ahead of their parents — I was one of them! That’s why parents need to ensure that parental controls are at the very least activated on their gaming consoles (and their smartphones, too ). I can’t stress this enough, it’s crucial. It’s the first barrier that will prevent them from playing. Combine that with any of the solutions I’ve detailed above, or perhaps use a combination of them, to stay one step ahead of your kids.

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The spooky season is almost here, and if you’re worried about throwing the perfect Halloween party, consider using your smart home to do the heavy lifting. Common smart home gadgets such as motion sensors, light bulbs, and smart plugs make it easy to pull off a horrifying Halloween party for your guests. From assisting with your playlist and movie selections to creating a chilling ambiance, here’s a look at all the ways your smart home can help you throw a killer Halloween party. Use motion sensors to trigger spooky sounds Have a smart home security system? Then you can probably rig up your motion sensors to play a spooky noise. It doesn't necessarily have to be a motion sensor, either -- your smart camera can trigger other devices in your smart home when it detects motion.

Just place a speaker on your porch, perhaps tucked away behind a pumpkin or a bit of straw. When a group of unsuspecting kids shows up to ask for candy, they set off the motion sensor on the camera, which triggers the speaker to play the sound of a zombie's moan or the cackle of a witch. Bonus points if you set up an animatronic hand to rise up out of the straw.

Dedicated gamers have two specific, and often competing, goals whenever October comes around. On one hand, the fall season is a sign that the year is winding down. Anyone who wants to finish off their backlog of games released in 2023 before the 2024 flood begins needs to start finding ways to cut down their backlog. Though there are even more pressing matters in October: it's spooky season! With a month-long Halloween celebration in full swing, October is also the perfect time to marathon some creepy games. Usually, that might mean going back to play some classics like Silent Hill 2, leaving little room to catch up on new games.

But what if you could kill two vampires with one stake? Well, you can this year because 2023 has been a wild year for horror video games. From two high-profile remakes to a slew of indie greats, your backlog this year might already be full of great, creepy games. To help organize your October, we've put together a list of seven eerie 2023 releases that double as great Halloween games. You can fly your freak flag and cut down your list of game to play in one go -- that's efficiency! Resident Evil 4

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Video games interfere with homework but not family

By New Scientist and Reuters

3 July 2007

Boys who play video games on school days spend 30% less time reading, while girls spend 34% less time doing homework if they play video games, according to a US study.

But the authors add that video games do not appear to interfere significantly with time spent with family and friends.

“Gamers did spend less time reading and doing homework. But they didn’t spend less time interacting with their parents or their friends, nor did they spend less time in sports or active leisure activities,” says Hope Cummings of the University of Michigan, one of two researchers who carried out the study.

The announcement comes as many doctors voice growing concern about the long-term effects of video games.

Prior studies have linked prolonged video game play with attention difficulties and poor academic performance. And some doctors have suggested that the games interfere with social development and might be addictive (see Mind-altering media ).

Gender differences

Cummings and Elizabeth Vandewater at the University of Texas at Austin, US, wanted to see how these games might affect academic pursuits and social relationships.

They gathered data from a sample of children aged 10 to 19 who tracked their activities on a random weekday and a random weekend day. Of the 1,491 who participated, 534 or about 36% played video games. About 80% of those were boys.

They found boys spent an average of 58 minutes playing on weekdays, and one hour and 37 minutes playing on a weekend day. Of those sampled, girls spent on average 44 minutes playing on a weekday, and an hour and four minutes on a weekend day.

Cummings and colleagues found video game use resulted in less time spent reading and doing homework, and these trade-offs fell along gender lines. “The reading was just for the boys. For the homework, it was just the girls,” she says.

Efficient or just slackers?

However, gaming did not seem to significantly affect time spent doing homework among boys, or reading among girls. Also, gamers did not spend less time with friends and parents. “These findings do not support the notion that adolescents who play video games are socially isolated,” the researchers say.

They add that the findings indicate that video game play can be a distraction from school-related activities, but that may not hurt grades (see Video game addiction ‘not mental illness’ ).

“Although gamers spend less time reading and doing homework, there have been some studies that show that high academic achievers spend less time doing homework,” Cummings says.

“Gamers may actually be more effective in completing homework assignments, and as a result, they spend less time doing homework. We need to look deeper into what is going on,” she says.

Journal reference: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine

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Videogame Playing In Childhood And Adolescence

What should parents know.

Posted June 27, 2019

Last month (May 25, 2019), the World Health Organisation ( WHO ) officially announced that ‘ Gaming Disorder ’ (GD) was to be included in the latest edition of the International Classification of Diseases . This followed the American Psychiatric Association’s decision to include ‘ Internet Gaming Disorder ’ in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 2013. According to the WHO , an individual with GD is a person who lets playing video games “take precedence over other life interests and daily activities,” resulting in “negative consequences” such as “significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.”

I have been researching videogame addiction for 30 years, and during that time I have received many letters, emails, and telephone calls from parents wanting advice concerning videogames. Typical examples include ‘Is my child playing too much?’, ‘Will playing videogames spoil my pupils’ education ?’, ‘Are videogames bad for children’s health? and ‘How do I know if a child is spending too long playing videogames?’ To answer these and other questions in a simple and helpful way, I have written this article as a way of disseminating this information quickly and easily.

To begin with, parents should begin by finding out what videogames their children are actually playing. Parents might find that some of them contain material that they would prefer them not to be having exposure to. If they have objections to the content of the games they should facilitate discussion with children about this, and if appropriate, have a few rules. A few aims with children should be:

* To help them choose suitable games which are still fun

* To talk with them about the content of the games so that they understand the difference between make-believe and reality

* To discourage solitary game playing

* To guard against obsessive playing

* To follow recommendations on the possible risks outlined by videogame manufacturers

* To ensure that they have plenty of other activities to pursue in their free time besides the playing of videogames

Parents need to remember that in the right context videogames can be educational (helping children to think and learn more quickly), can help raise a child’s self-esteem , and can increase the speed of their reaction times. Parents can also use videogames as a starting point for other activities like painting, drawing, acting or storytelling. All of these things will help a child at school. It needs to be remembered that videogame playing is just one of many activities that a child can do alongside sporting activities, school clubs, reading and watching the television. These can all contribute to a balanced recreational diet .

The most asked question a parent wants answering is ‘How much videogame playing is too much? To help answer this question I devised the following checklist. It is designed to check if a child’s videogame playing is getting out of hand. Ask these simple questions. Does your child:

* Play videogames every day?

* Often play videogames for long periods (e.g., 3 to 6 hours at a time)?

* Play videogames for excitement or ‘buzz’ or as a way of forgetting about other things in their life?

* Get restless, irritable, and moody if they can’t play videogames?

* Sacrifice social and sporting activities to play videogames?

* Play videogames instead of doing their homework?

* Try to cut down the amount of videogame playing but can’t?

If the answer is ‘yes’ to more than four of these questions, then your child may be playing too much. But what can you do if your child is playing videogames too much?

First of all, check the content of the games. Try and give children games that are educational rather than the violent ones. Parents usually have control over what their child watches on television – videogames should not be any different.

Secondly, try to encourage video game playing in groups rather than as a solitary activity. This will lead to children talking and working together.

Thirdly, set time limits on children’s playing time. Tell them that they can play for a couple of hours after they have done their homework or their chores – not before.

Fourthly, parents should always get their children to follow the recommendations by the videogame manufacturers (e.g., sit at least two feet from the screen, play in a well-lit room, never have the screen at maximum brightness, and never play videogames when feeling tired).

I have spent many years examining both the possible dangers and the potential benefits of videogame playing . Evidence suggests that in the right context videogames can have positive health and educational benefits to a large range of different sub-groups. What is also clear from the case studies displaying the more negative consequences of playing is that they all involved children who were excessive users of videogames. From prevalence studies in this area, there is little evidence of serious acute adverse effects on health from moderate play. In fact, in some of my studies, I found that moderate videogame players were more likely to have friends, do homework, and engage in sporting activities than those who played no videogames at all.

For excessive videogame players , adverse effects are likely to be relatively minor, and temporary, resolving spontaneously with decreased frequency of play, or to affect only a small subgroup of players. Excessive players are the most at-risk from developing health problems although more research is needed. If care is taken in the design, and if they are put into the right context, videogames have the potential to be used as training aids in classrooms and therapeutic settings, and to provide skills in psychomotor coordination, and in simulations of real-life events (e.g., training recruits for the armed forces).

Every week I receive emails from parents claiming that their sons are addicted to playing online games or that their daughters are addicted to social media . When I ask them why they think this is the case, they almost all reply “because they spend most of their leisure time in front of a screen.” This is simply a case of parents pathologizing their children’s behavior because they think what they are doing is “a waste of time.” I always ask parents the same three things in relation to their child’s screen use. Does it affect their schoolwork? Does it affect their physical education? Does it affect their peer development and interaction? Usually, parents say that none of these things are affected so if that is the case, there is little to worry about when it comes to screen time . Parents also have to bear in mind that this is how today’s children live their lives. Parents need to realize that excessive screen time doesn’t always have negative consequences and that the content and context of their child’s screen use is more important than the amount of screen time.

Griffiths, M.D. (2003). Videogames: Advice for teachers and parents. Education and Health, 21, 48-49.

Griffiths, M.D. (2009). Online computer gaming: Advice for parents and teachers. Education and Health, 27, 3-6.

Griffiths, M.D., Kuss, D.J. & King, D.L. (2012). Video game addiction: Past, present and future. Current Psychiatry Reviews, 8 , 308-318.

Griffiths, M.D., Kuss, D.J. & Pontes, H. (2016). A brief overview of Internet Gaming Disorder and its treatment. Australian Clinical Psychologist, 2( 1), 20108.

Griffiths, M.D. & Meredith, A. (2009). Videogame addiction and treatment. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 39 (4), 47-53.

King, D.L., Delfabbro, P.H. & Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Clinical interventions for technology-based problems: Excessive Internet and video game use. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy: An International Quarterly, 26, 43-56.

King, D.L., Delfabbro, P.H., Griffiths, M.D. & Gradisar, M. (2012). Cognitive-behavioural approaches to outpatient treatment of Internet addiction in children and adolescents. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 68, 1185-1195.

Király, O., Nagygyörgy, K., Griffiths, M.D. & Demetrovics, Z. (2014). Problematic online gaming. In K. Rosenberg & L. Feder (Eds.), Behavioral Addictions: Criteria, Evidence and Treatment (pp.61-95). New York: Elsevier.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Online gaming addiction in adolescence: A literature review of empirical research. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 1, 3-22.

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Internet gaming addiction: A systematic review. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 10, 278-296.

Mark Griffiths, Ph.D., is a chartered psychologist and Director of the International Gaming Research Unit in the Psychology Division at Nottingham Trent University.

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These Games Like NYT Games Will Keep You Entertained For Hours

I work in a cafe, and every day, one of our regulars comes in, buys his cappuccino, and sits at a corner table, tapping away on his phone. This past week, I heard him in a back and forth discussion with someone else across from him. Curious, and always in everyone’s business, I looked over in hopes of overhearing their conversation. A woman in her mid-20s was doing the Wordle at the same time he was. I couldn’t even be upset that they were about to spoil the day’s word for me, because I was too focused on watching the tennis match of who would get it first. Like most of us, I am absolutely obsessed with playing the New York Times Games on my phone. What started as a Wordle obsession has grown into a daily ritual. (Now, I’m partial to Connections.) 

If you’re like me and can’t get enough of doing these games, only to be bummed out when there aren’t any more to play for the day, I’ve compiled a few other games like NYT Games Games that fit the same vibe. Hopefully, these options will keep you entertained when you run out of the usual puzzles, or if you just feel like switching things up. 

The Daily Beast Crossword

I had a (likely not original) thought recently that I would be so much better at the NYT crossword if it was about pop culture, and then I found The Daily Beast crossword . This crossword is admittedly not always as hard as the daily NYT crossword , but I guess that’s because the questions are almost entirely related to pop culture, one of my areas of expertise. There is, of course, some variety, with questions about politics, power, and so on — but for the most part, it feels a lot more accessible than the NYT version. If you are someone who feels the loss of confidence that comes with not being able to complete a NYT crossword, I seriously recommend this crossword for an ego boost. If you think it sounds too easy, try getting your parents to do it; you’ll probably discover you are just a pop culture genius. A fun fact to note: The puzzles get harder as the days of the week progress, with Monday being the easiest and Sunday being the hardest.

Washington Post Games 

My sister and I discovered The Washington Post games in the comedown of a NYT crossword high (the first time we’d completed it in under an hour.) The WaPo website hosts lots of online games, including but not limited to ones that are similar to the NYT games, like the crossword and “ the mini .” But it also has solitaire (and so many variations of it), mahjong, blackjack, pool ball, and more. The opportunities for fun here are endless, since you could play for hours and not run out of games. There are 114 options currently to choose from — yes, I counted. 

Squaredle 

The aptly named Squardle sucked me in instantly, and before I knew it, I had played for half an hour instead of writing this article. Much like the NYT’s beta game, Strands , or Spelling Bee , this is a daily word search. If you’ve never done a word search before, it gives you a block of letters, and asks you to find all the hidden words and connect them together. It’s both frustrating and immensely satisfying when you find words with more than four letters. (Three-letter words don’t count for points). I’ve never liked games that feel impossible, and while this game tests my limits, it is not impossible. The perfect medium!

Wikitrivia 

Even if you aren’t much of a history buff, Wikitrivia will still be fun. This game uses random Wikipedia pages that can vary from actors to historical events; the object is to put them all on a timeline, and to guess the correct year of occurrence for each. For example, you may have to guess which came first: the creation of Mona Lisa, or the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, and correspondingly put Mona Lisa either before or after on the timeline. So far, my record is eight correct dates in a row. Wikitrivia is unexpectedly fun, and while sometimes the answers are super obvious, the more you play, the more tricky it becomes. But don’t worry, you get three incorrect guesses per game. 

Online Solitaire

Solitaire is a timeless classic, and arguably there should be a NYT version. I already mentioned that the Washington Post has its own online solitaire , but I think solitaire deserves its own slot on this list. It is exactly like the real thing, and the best part is that you can only lose to yourself. (No embarrassment or public defeat!) There are different versions of the game online, and many websites have made their own platform for solitaire, including WaPo. The Solitairen is the most standard website for solitaire, and it also has a bunch of different versions of the game, for when you want to challenge yourself even more. If you’ve never played before, you will definitely know someone in your life who can explain the rules, or there are online tutorials that explain it really well. Once you get it, it’s easy to play, and is methodical enough that you don’t have to think too hard while you do it. 

Codewords is an interesting take on a crossword, since you fill in letters, not words. It’s like a cross between a crossword and sudoku. Basically, each letter slot is numbered, and every place that has the same number has a corresponding letter. So, every square that is the letter A would be one number, like 21 for example, and so on and so forth. Usually you get at least two letters already filled out, and you have to start with that. It can be difficult to get started, but once you get going, it’s really satisfying. I love playing Sudoku on the NYT, and this game gives the same satisfying feel.

The post These Games Like NYT Games Will Keep You Entertained For Hours first appeared on Her Campus .

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

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Study: Kids Who Game Spend Less Time on Homework

Researchers sampled nearly 1,500 kids aged 10 to 19 and had them keep diaries of how they spent their time. The gamers spent 30% less time reading and 34% less time doing homework, but did have plenty of time to socialize with their friends, so perhaps that "loner in the dark basement" stereotype might finally fade away.

Far more boys played games than girls (80% versus 20%), but both genders played for about the same amount of time: an hour a night on weekdays and an hour and a half on weekends. The researchers conclude that gaming won't make your social outcast, but it might end up affecting their report card:

Although gamers and nongamers did not differ in the amount of time they spent interacting with family and friends, concerns regarding gamers' neglect of school responsibilities (reading and homework) are warranted.

An hour a night doesn't sound so bad to me. Parents? Does that seem reasonable or excessive?

Video games take away from homework time, U-M study says [Detroit Free Press]

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