TODAY'S boys are escaping more and more into a fantasy world of violent computer games and 18 rated films and becoming increasingly reluctant to leave it, according to recent research.
On the contrary girls perform well at school, have a realistic approach to the world of employment, are positive about their ability to succeed and use their computers for word processing and school work.
In contrast boys spend their childhood and youth watching violent films on video and television, use their computers mainly for playing games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, appear less interested in their lessons and perform less well in exams. The findings are published in The Lost Boys, a supplement to the 1996/7 ChildWise Monitor (which analyses television viewing and the incidence of televisions and video recorders in bedrooms etc).
ChildWise says that boys' career planning seems to rely heavily on their fantasy world with 44 per cent of boys aged 11-14 wanting to be footballers, fighter pilots or policemen. The researchers felt that boys had "comparatively little grasp of the realities of employment and had largely impracticable notions about jobs".
The report found that as many as one in 10 boys aged five or six had watched the 18 rated film Alien 3. By the age of 13 or 14, some 64 per cent had seen it (compared to 45 per cent of girls) while Judge Dredd, which contains graphic violence, had been watched by 43 per cent of 13 to 14 year old boys (compared with only 19 per cent of girls of that age).
Nine out of 10 British children now have a computer or games machine at home. As many as 44 per cent of nine to 10 year old boys have a computer in their own room (compared to only 31 per cent of girls of that age). A glance at most computer game magazines shows that most games are pitched at boys and young men and that girls don't play them as much. The cover of last month's PC Gamer shows a first World War Fokker engaged in an aerial dogfight with a Spad. It's visually similar to the covers of many boys' comics.
Inside, the predominantly male feel is confirmed with words and phrases like: "Apache longbow", "destroy your enemy", "driving like a maniac", "footie games", "wages of war", "mercenaries", "shooting everyone with your phaser", "space battles", "krush, kill n destroy" and "don't just hurt `em, eradicate `em".
Studies dating as far back as 1983 have shown that males play electronic games significantly more often than females. Why this is so is open to debate.
Clearly the games themselves often contain exclusively male images. One study suggested that males played for mastery and to compete while females preferred less aggressive games, supporting research which suggests that women can feel less comfortable expressing aggression and are less likely to enjoy combat games.
In a seminal article in the Psychologist in 1993, Mark Griffiths suggested that "males on average perform better in visual and spatial skills". Effective hand eye co ordination and speedy judgment of spatial relationships are a sine qua non for good computer game playing factors explaining why some real life pilots and professional sports personalities practise their skills with simulated computer games.
SO do boys play more than girls because they tend to have a greater facility at them or is it that manufacturers have settled for the games' overwhelmingly male gender identification? Just as computer magazines are written by males for males, so too are the games themselves. A gender change in a male concept will not translate to a feminine market as Nintendo discovered to its cost with the unsuccessful introduction of Game Girl (to complement Game Boy).
Mark Griffiths notes the anecdotal evidence that video arcades remain predominantly male places: "where girls go along in a cheerleader role to admire their boyfriend's playing ability" and adds: "It could also be that male domination of arcade video games is due more to the arcade atmosphere, its social rules and socialisation factors than the games themselves."
Griffiths believes that there is only a speculative link between computer game playing and aggressive behaviour. Unlike the recent research he doubts that computer games contribute to an "educational deficit" and believes that so called keyboard junkies are "highly intelligent, motivated and achieving individuals" who often go on to do well educationally and achieve high ranking jobs.
Dr Aidan Moran, senior lecturer in psychology and director of the research laboratory at UCD, dismisses as purely speculative the recent British research that claims boys are living in a fantasy world and failing to develop normally. He believes that violent computer games aren't good for anyone but that he "wouldn't put a wedge between the sexes" on the basis of it. While some games are undoubtedly mindless, more promote intelligent problem solving, creativity and relaxation.
He applauds games like Sim City where the player sets out to design, maintain and manage a city. Dr Moran cautions against alleged causal relationships between computer games and social ills and says that games that demand the player's imagination are a "useful workout mentally".
Sister Maighread Ni Ghallchobhair, a psychologist and psychotherapist workings with adolescents with behavioural difficulties in Dublin, believes that for some boys computer games can give them a sense of omnipotence. She says that a sense of omnipotence is important in early infancy. It helps the child to become confident that it can control and overcome its fears. But, she says, it's a developmental task to shed this sense of omnipotence. Omnipotence in adolescence, she claims, can be directed at people.
"If you can control your fears you can allow yourself to become part of something greater than yourself. You won't be threatened by others because you have an existence in your own right - that allows us to tolerate others. We don't have to beat others if we know we have an existence. We don't have to overcome people, don't have to be aggressive."
Sister Ni Ghallchobhair is not sure whether some boys can discriminate between reality and fantasy. She says that boys with poor control of their impulses can be stymied in their capacity to relate and become caught up in their fantasies while girls grow beyond that stage much more quickly.