East Lansing, Mich. — Children who spend time on-line appear to perform better in school, according to a $1.5-million (U.S.) Michigan State University study.
The three-year project — involving 90 families recruited through Dwight Rich Middle School and the Black Child and Family Institute in Lansing — researched the effects of home computer use on low-income families.
More analysis of the data collected is needed before specifics of student improvement are known, said study leader Linda Jackson, a Michigan State psychologist.
Early findings show that children introduced to the Internet at home improved their grades and performed better on standardized reading tests, she told the Lansing State Journal for a story Monday.
"You have to read for everything you want to do on the Web, even if you want to download music," she said. "They were playing and happened to be learning, which is the way we learn most basic things in our first years."
Preliminary findings also show that using the Internet didn't reduce social contacts or communication with family or friends, she said.
"We need more good research on what this technology is doing to children and adults," she said. "We hear a lot of hype and anecdotes. We really don't know how much time kids are spending and the impact on their lives."
The study recorded computer use of all family members for 16 months.
Ernie Boone, executive director of the Black Child and Family Institute, said the study reinforces the importance of bridging society's technology gap, as the institute tries to do through computer labs.
"Families that don't have computers and access to the Internet are left behind," he said. "A lot of jobs are only advertised on the Web, so you can't even apply.... We need 100 per cent of our homes in this country to have at-home or easy access to the Internet."
Under a National Science Foundation grant, each of the study's families were given a computer to keep, with basic instructions but no limitations on how to use it.
The average age of the 140 children participating was 13, and nearly half the families reported household incomes of less than $15,000 a year. The children were on-line an average of 30 minutes a day.
