Children and Young People's Video Game Playing and Literacy in 2021. A National Literacy Trust Research Report

National Literacy Trust. Swire House, 59 Buckingham Gate, London, SW1E 6AJ, UK. Tel: +44-2078-282435; Fax: +44-2079-319986; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk

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Children; Adolescents; Video Games; Literacy; Computer Mediated Communication; Reading Skills; Gender Differences; Age Differences; Social Differences; Attendance Patterns; COVID-19; Pandemics; Peer Relationship

This report outlines findings from questions included in the National Literacy Trust's Annual Literacy Survey in early 2021 to explore children and young people's literacy-related interactions in relation to video game playing. The survey reached 42,502 children and young people aged 8 to 18 between January and mid-March 2021, during the third national lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The report builds on earlier research exploring young people's literacy-related interactions within and around video games. The Trust's first survey in this area (see ED607911) in 2019, found that video games could provide a route into reading and support creativity and communication. A subsequent survey (see ED607960), covering late spring 2020 (the first national lockdown), found that communication through video game playing supported young people's wellbeing during the first national lockdown. The current survey found that in-game communication (reading text or messages from friends or family while playing video games) is the second most popular form of on-screen reading for this age group, after personal/direct messages (e.g. via text, WhatsApp or Instagram).

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2021

ED614811