Roommate with a Video-Game System?

Halo Gamers
Originally uploaded by Bilbeny

When your parents deposited you in your residence hall room (sob!), they were looking (surreptitiously or not) for the tell-tale signs of your inevitable (they fear) moral dissolution. But did they check your new roommate's gaming gear?

Today's Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a study which links a roommate's gaming gear with less study time:

According to a paper scheduled for release this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, first-year college students who happen to be assigned roommates with video-game consoles study 40 minutes less per day, on average, than first-year students whose roommates did not bring consoles.

And that reduction in study time has a sizable effect on grades: First-year students whose roommates brought video-game consoles earned grades that were 0.241 lower, on a 4-point scale, than did otherwise-equivalent students whose roommates did not have consoles.

What to do? The Chronicle reports that the researchers conclude "The important lesson of their research . . . is that colleges should encourage effort, frequently reminding their students that study time pays off."

The research article--"The Causal Effect of Studying on Academic Performance"-- is available online for a fee from the National Bureau for Economic Research.