Yet, Jupiter Communications, a New York-based research firm specializing in interactive technology, speculates that with more than 40 percent of U.S. households now owning a personal computer, today's youngsters are growing up with computers much the same way their parents grew up with television. In a 1996 study of the computer gaming habits of about 1,000 4th through 8th graders, Dr. Jeanne Funk, a child psychologist at the University of Toledo in Ohio, found that both girls and boys like to play computer games and prefer games to educational or other types of software. When it comes to actual playing time, however, Funk's study echoes previous research on children's time commitment to electronic game playing. Boys were also significantly more likely than girls to report having acquired experience or completed coursework in computer programming and literacy. For example, for every 10 males who reported that in their leisure time they played on PCs, seven females reported the same.
Guys design most games, so they're geared toward guys.
When it comes to what adolescent girls want in computer games, Jeri hits the nail on the head, says Dr. Kathy El-Messidi, associate director of the Rice University Center for Research on Parallel Computation. Storytelling is a good nexus for change in the relationship between gender and technology. Three years ago, Laura Groppe, an established film producer and former consultant to Sega of America, a subsidiary of Sega Enterprises of Japan, became frustrated by the electronic gaming industry's lack of initiative in developing girl-oriented games and decided to do something about it. She founded Girl Games Inc., an Austin, Texas-based interactive entertainment company that develops software products for adolescent girls. Although Groppe didn't even own a computer until five years ago, an Academy Award and four MTV video awards have earned her standing among Hollywood's elite.