Owning a video-game system may interfere with the academic achievement in some children, experts have pointed out.

Psychological scientists Robert Weis and Brittany C. Cerankosky of Denison University sought to determine short-term effects of video-game ownership on learning development in young boys.

The researchers found that the boys who received the video-game system immediately spent more time playing video games and less time engaged in after-school academic activities than boys who received the video-game system at the end of the experiment.

The boys who received the video-game system at the beginning of the study also had significantly lower reading and writing scores four months later compared with the boys receiving the video-game system later on, the study observed.

The authors concluded: "Altogether, our findings suggest that video-game ownership may impair academic achievement for some boys in a manner that has real-world significance."

The findings have been published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. (ANI)