In recent years, video games have become eminent among children. This has brought significant influence to their behavior, attitude, and perception towards certain aspects of life. In this regard, Parents and guardians share in the blame for the adverse effects of video games on their children. Among the main reasons for the addiction to Video games by children is loneliness of the children, inability to interact with other children due to being incapacitated or lack of proper parental guidance. We shall explore the impact that video games have on children which are both negative and positive in details.
Video games help a great deal when it comes to the development of the child’s brain. The most crucial aspect of video games is following the instructions given. Without following the rules well, one cannot progress to the next level. As children play these games, they engage in different challenges which require their problem solving techniques. The outcome is that they can learn strategy, management, and proper judgment, which helps in improving the child’s problem-solving techniques (Tumbokon).
Playing video games stimulates learning experience and social activity. Children find it interesting to play video games as compared to watching television; this is so because video games pose some challenges and the player takes an active role in the game (Gee 20). Many games offer learning experiences for example, simulations to fly planes. Some of these games provide educational insights on politics, science, and geography. Moreover, video games are played with friends, sibling or parents. This, therefore, brings about the aspect of social interaction (Gee 20).
Children specialists agree that children’s development is very critical. Through this stage, children are required to learn the basic coordination of body parts. Video games enhance hand-eye coordination and when they play, children perfect the coordination between the eyes, the hands, and the mind. It also increases their productivity in day to day activities which is said to improve multitasking abilities (Dye et al 321). Quick thinking and response will help the children in dealing with a situation that requires multitasking or when asked to perform a duty while in the middle of doing another chore; this helps in reducing reaction times and assists in making more efficient decisions (Dye et al 321).
One of the disadvantages of playing video games includes children exhibiting aggressive reactions, social life limitation and deterioration in school performance. There are various types of games in the industry, which affects children life’s differently. They include educational, casual, entertainment or serious games that a child can choose over the others. Violent games are common among children. Selecting violent games over educational games poses a threat to the development of the children. Children who play violent games tend to exhibit more aggressive thoughts and tend to have more aggressive reactions to stimuli. They also copy what happens around them and influences their minds to try what has been done by the characters in the game. Overindulgence in the violent video games may bring harm to the children or those around them (Gunter 31).
Apart from being more aggressive to stimuli, these children spend most of their time indoors rather than playing physically outside. By so doing their social life is limited. The ability to learn new ideas or be more creative is also inefficient. This affects the child’s performance in class and the ability to tackle life-based issues. When a child is confined to the center of the house, it means that they will lack physical exercise. Children become obese at a very tender age. The situation is very dangerous since it leads to future health complications. The substitution of playing outside over spending time on the computer or phones reduces the time used for physical exercise thus the children remain physically unfit (Gunter 31).
The academic performance of a child can be negatively affected when all the time is spent on playing video games (Anderson 772). Most likely, children addicted to video games can argue with their teachers without fearing or respecting them, they also fight with their friends and the overall outcome is low grades at school (Anderson 772). Children addicted to video games tend to substitute their homework time to playing games. These habits are responsible for poor performance at school. Due to the addictiveness of the games, children tend to concentrate on games at the expense of class work (Anderson 772).
Video games have various effects that are either positive or negative on a child’s development. Parents, guardians, and teachers have a role to play in ensuring that video games play a positive role rather than a negative role in a child’s life. It’s their responsibilities to ensure that children only picks what is beneficial to them and abscond those video games that might be detrimental to their well-being. Looking at the impacts of video games to a child’s development, that is, stimulation of social activity, enhancement of body coordination, showing aggressive behavior towards situations, poor performance in class and limited social life, moderation in this matter plays a vital role in creating what might be referred to as a healthy amount of gaming. This, therefore, calls for the weighing of the merits and demerits to ensure that the judgment given does not undermine the child’s ability to sustainable development. It’s also very important for other stakeholders such as the Entertainment Software Rating Board to provide parents with ratings that are associated with various games.
