Digital Gaming: What’s the State of Play? – International Grammar College Sydney

At the second lecture on this yr’s Ultimo Series, mother and father and workers have been invited to rethink one of the crucial persistent considerations of contemporary childhood: video video games.

Professor Marcus Carter from The University of Sydney, a number one researcher in human–pc interplay and digital play, used his session What’s the State of Play? Digital gaming and kids and younger individuals to problem widespread assumptions about “problem gaming” and current a research-informed view of what gaming really appears like in younger individuals’s lives at present.

His central argument was each easy and thought-provoking: the best way adults take into consideration gaming is commonly misguided. When the prognosis is incorrect, the response can unintentionally push kids’s digital lives additional out of grownup sight, whereas overlooking the very actual advantages video games can present.

 

 

Games because the Modern Playground

Rather than framing video games by the acquainted considerations of display time, sleep, consideration and aggression, Professor Carter invited the viewers to ask a unique query: what does play imply to a baby?

Drawing on psychological frameworks comparable to self-determination concept, he defined that kids’s wellbeing relies on three key wants – autonomy, competence and belonging – and that well-designed video games meet these wants remarkably properly.

For many kids, platforms like Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft will not be replacements for actual life. They are the locations the place friendships are maintained, id is explored and expertise are developed and recognised by friends.

He described how kids typically discuss these video games not as actions, however as locations – the digital equal of the park, an area for unstructured, peer-governed play that has largely disappeared from neighbourhood streets over the previous two generations.

Games, Professor Carter defined, additionally present highly effective environments for studying and id formation. Whether mastering orbital physics in Kerbal Space Program or rigorously selecting an avatar outfit in Roblox, kids are engaged in downside fixing, studying at larger ranges of comprehension, and enterprise what he described as “identity work” – experimenting with who they’re in low-stakes environments.

He additionally launched the idea of “mood management theory”: the concept individuals use media to manage how they really feel. In instances of stress, kids (and adults) are drawn to video games not out of habit, however as a result of video games reliably present consolation, competence and social connection.

 

 

 

The Real Issue Is Not Addiction

A good portion of the lecture challenged the favored notion that kids are “addicted” to gaming. Professor Carter described this as an unhelpful body, noting that enthusiasm for video games is commonly pathologised in ways in which earlier generations skilled with comedian books, radio dramas and widespread music.

However, he was clear that this doesn’t imply video games are with out danger.

The most pressing concern, he argued, lies in how video games – notably platforms like Roblox – at the moment are designed and monetised.

Unlike conventional video games that had a transparent value and endpoint, Roblox is an enormous ecosystem of user-generated video games the place spending is deeply embedded into play. The platform’s algorithms promote experiences that encourage kids to stay engaged and to spend cash, typically by mechanisms much like playing design, comparable to loot bins, spinning wheels and “near miss” rewards.

Professor Carter shared examples from his analysis the place kids have been offered with deceptive odds and sophisticated reward programs that even adults battle to interpret. With greater than half of Roblox customers below 17, he described this as a structural downside requiring a lot nearer grownup consideration.

He additionally acknowledged different real dangers in on-line gaming areas, together with publicity to inappropriate content material, contact with strangers and parts of poisonous on-line tradition.

 

 

A More Helpful Conversation at Home

The key message for households was to not ban video games, however to raised perceive them.

When a baby seems overly invested in a recreation, Professor Carter inspired mother and father to ask not “how is the game hooking them?” however “what is the game providing that they may not be getting elsewhere?” – whether or not that’s belonging, competence, aid from stress or a way of management.

By reframing the dialog, adults can stay current in kids’s digital worlds moderately than pushing these worlds out of sight.

As Professor Carter concluded, for a lot of younger individuals at present, telling them they can’t play Roblox can really feel socially equal to telling them they can’t go to the park to see their associates.

Understanding that distinction, he urged, is the place significant steering begins.

 

 

The session left friends with sensible methods for supporting kids and adolescents to navigate digital video games thoughtfully, recognising each the alternatives these areas supply and the very actual dangers they will current. 

Thank you to Marcus Carter for an insightful lecture that outfitted friends with a clearer understanding of the advanced digital gaming environments younger individuals navigate at present. Thank you additionally to Thom Marchbank Acting Principal and Year 12 STEM Portfolio Leader Kaya V for internet hosting this enriching occasion, and to everybody who joined us for such an enticing night. Your presence, questions and reflections made the occasion successful.

We stay up for persevering with these vital conversations in our upcoming lectures: Understanding oppositional behaviour and emotional dysregulation with David Hawes from The University of Sydney on 3 September 2026, and Digital psychological well being for youngsters: What works, what’s hype, and the way mother and father may also help with Alexis Whitton on 12 November.