Effect of Video Games on Children

The advancement in technologies has brought adjustments in entertainment sources. Changes in technologies bring the possible for modifications in users’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Kipnis, 1997). The games played by modern day kids are really diverse from the games played couple of decades ago. The games, which involve physical activities, are practically diminished and have been replaced by video games. Video games are becoming an extremely well-known and pervasive form of entertainment for young generation. These games influence the kids in each positive and adverse techniques. The technologies based games assist the children to enhance their physical, mental neurological health, and educational expertise. Even so, it has often been debatable whether or not the parents ought to allow their young children to play video games or they require to quit them. The video games are effectively known for its addictive and violent properties. Even though, these games were originally created as recreational programs for enjoyment but now these have become the most addictive activities amongst young youngsters and adolescents, which straight or indirectly affect their development and development.

Growth Statistics of Video Games

Considering that the release of the first video game in the1970s, the video game business has grown at a quick pace. The forecast research have shown that around $75 billion U.S. dollars were spent on video games all more than the world in 2015 which is expected to increase by $15 billion much more by 2020. Video games have swiftly grow to be a universal aspect of youngster improvement (Lenhart et al. 2008). An empirical study investigated prevalence rates and predictors of video game addiction in a sample of gamers, randomly selected from the National Population Registry of Norway (N = 3389). Outcomes showed there were 1.4% addicted gamers, 7.3% dilemma gamers, 3.9% engaged gamers, and 87.four% typical gamers. Wittek et al., (2016) stated that “Gender (being male) and age group (becoming young) have been positively related with addicted-, problem-, and engaged gamers”. All in all, 25% of the global population played the video games which had been nearly 1.eight billion individuals in 2014.

Grubb (2014) reported “People of all ages play video games,” Gains by way of Gaming Lab co-director Jason Allaire stated in regard to the report. “There is no longer a ‘stereotypical game player,’ but rather a game player could be your grandparent, your boss, or even your professor.” Nevertheless, 27% of gamers had been of age 18-35 years and 26% of those had been 50 years old surveyed in America, who were addicted to games. The figures show that the younger kids count has increased in the recent years. Male gamers outnumber the female gamers.

Rewards of Video Games

1. Physical and Mental Overall health Improvement

The video games have been established as very good for some overall health related problems. The researchers at Utah University had studied that video games are therapeutic for chronic illnesses such as Autism, Depression, and Parkinson’s disease. A number of studies have proved that these video games have helped such children to enlighten them emotionally, improving their high quality of life, and gave them a ‘fighting spirit’. The parents normally inform their kids to minimize sitting in front of television or computer screens to avert eyesight loss, but this is not often correct. Video games are beneficial in improving vision. Dr. Daphne Maurer from Ontario’s McMaster University produced a surprising discovery “suggesting that men and women born with cataracts could increase their eyesight by playing Medal of Honor, the “first-individual shooter” video game (Dreifus, 2012).

2. Neurological Health Benefits

Video games support to increase motor capabilities, cognitive functions, multitasking activities, quick considering and spatial judgment capabilities. In addition, the young children find out to coordinate their body movement along with mental exercise while playing. Video games improve hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and spatial reasoning (Tumbokon, 2014). For example, in shooter games, the player keeps track of their position, path, speed, aim, results and more. The brain processes all this info and then coordinates with the hands considering that all actions are accomplished by way of the controller or keyboard. These capabilities can be applied to genuine world conditions. A basic surgeon at Florida Hospital, Dr. Rosser (2012) talked about in his analysis studies that surgeons can increase their surgical techniques by “warming up” carrying out handful of minutes of video games play prior to scrubbing and performing surgeries. (pp. 3-9)

3. Educational Benefits

Children nowadays invest most of their cost-free time in front of pc screens, tv and remote handle devices, and it is obvious for parents to be concerned that their kids are just scrambling their brains with gameplay. But it turns out that time spent playing video games can be educational. This sort of growing field of activities is recognized as “edutainment” or education whilst entertaining. There are a lot of word games, difficulty solving tasks and creating blocks games for kids, which require their consideration to full tasks and attain the next level. This aids them to find out valuable expertise like math, language, science, vital pondering, accuracy, difficulty solving, and capability to stick to instructions. In addition to it, some games aid the youngsters to be inventive, socially active and collaborative skills while they interact with other players. Cognitive neuroscientists at the University of Rochester, New York, found that games that need to have some sort of decision creating, act as a sort of simulator for actual life to make crucial choices quickly and successfully. By means of games, they can excellently practice the alternatives of choice-generating and can be capable to apply same in real life.

Unfavorable Effects of Video Games

1. Physical Symptoms

There are a variety of negative effects of video game addiction on children’s life. These contain well being issues like obesity, carpal tunnel, migraines, sleep disturbances, backaches, eating irregularities, poor personal hygiene and epilepsy. Prolonged sitting in front of computers or video game screens may lead to weight achieve or obesity and back aches in children, which further leads to overall health troubles in young young children. Furthermore, the excessive use of video games can lead to ‘photosensitive’ epileptic seizures in youngsters as it requires flashes and pulsing lights. Video games also affect the sleeping and consuming patterns, which has resulted to fatal consequences in Korea and China. In 2005, a South Korean gamer died following playing the on the web game Starcraft for 50 hours with couple of breaks. The 28-year old collapsed in an net cafe following not sleeping and consuming appropriately in the course of the session. Police stated that the man would only pause to go the bathroom. A equivalent death occurred in China when a man spent 3 days straight at an web cafe with no proper sleep and meals.

2. Violent Behavior of Gamers

Gentile and Anderson (2003), state that playing video games may possibly improve aggressive behavior due to the fact violent acts are continually repeated throughout the video game. Educational games have been more popular for some of the girls becoming asked, but all through all the age groups, violent video games in no way lost their superior power in the gaming market. An 18-year-old gunman who killed nine men and women in July 2016 in Munich, Germany, was a fan of first-person shooter video games, according to reports. This news made the parents worry about their children and if they discover something violent from video games. Another equivalent incident occurred in February, 2018 when Nikolas Jacob Cruz, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas Higher School in Parkland, Florida, was accused of murdering 17 individuals in a shooting rampage. Donald Trump, the president of USA stated on this incident, “”the level of violence on video games is actually shaping young people’s thoughts.” The games like “Manhunt,” “Thrill Kill,” “Gears of War”, “Grand Theft Auto”, and “Mortal Kombat” are some of the examples of violent games which contain shooting, stabbing, breaking site visitors rules and acquiring weapons. These games are responsible for escalating criminal activities by teenagers and some of the adults.

3. Accidents and Deaths

The video games can also lead to unexpected deaths. The players are pre-occupied with their game content and lead to self-destruction and may harm other men and women in their surroundings. A very current instance of such a video game is ‘Pokémon Go’ which resulted in so many deaths and car accidents. Mcconnel and Faccio (February, 2018) from Purdue University’s Krannert College of Management documented that the game caused “a disproportionate improve in vehicular crashes and related vehicular damage, individual injuries, and fatalities in the vicinity of locations, known as PokéStops, where users can play the game although driving.” According to American Academy of Pediatrics (July, 2016), violent media set a poor example for youngsters. Video games, the academy noted, “should not use human or other living targets or award points for killing simply because this teaches youngsters to associate pleasure and accomplishment with their ability to trigger pain and suffering to other individuals.”

4. Effect on Social Life of Children

A kid’s social life can fully dissolve if the video games take more than his/her life. The young children normally isolate themselves from the social environment and their life is normally restrained from sports, homework, and social interaction with their buddies and household members. Even though, the youngsters interact with their pals even though playing on the internet, it does not meet their social requirements. The gamers who invest most of their time on playing games usually neglect their relationships with family and friends. Some of them adore to talk about games too a lot and other individuals occasionally get irritated and offended that they do not want to be around them. Such gamers typically fail to engage themselves in actual life conversations. This lack of social interaction further leads to social problems in their future. The failure to develop wholesome connection results in social awkwardness in college and universities although creating buddies, enjoying other’s business and talk to teachers.

Conclusion

All in all, the unfavorable effects of video games outweigh the good effects. The consequences of addiction to video games are far more significant and unsafe for the gamers, as properly as, the society. Video games are confirmed to be a supply of entertainment, education and helpful for some health aspects, but the aggressive, violent and antisocial behavior of most of the children also prove them poor for them. The unfavorable effects of video games can be reduced with the standard supervision of parents. Instead of purchasing their kids violent video games, they can purchase them understanding games. This might assist to maintain their youngsters away from inappropriate games that lead to antisocial behavior.