Video Games: Effect on Children

Academic effects on children:
Both positive and negative effects are involved when children use video games. It is proven that video games have both a negative and a positive effect on children academically. There are basically five varieties of video games including sports, general entertainment, fantasy violence, educational games and human violence. Extensive research has been conducted since the time of its inception to study the effects of video games on children. The results of these studies have shown that there are both good as well as bad effects and consequences on children playing video games, according to the type of game they play and their level of exposure. Let us look at the possible advantages and disadvantages of gaming on children.
Positive effects: * It improves the player’s manual skills and computer knowledge. * It provides the players a realistic experience of playing virtually through graphical techniques and improves hand and eye coordination. * Video games are so seductive that they stimulate the sensory portions of the children’s brain. * Educational institutions encourage these games where children learn problem solving skills while playing. * Including the violent type of video games so children will think about reaching their goals. * Video games can develop the mathematical skills of children. Since for every game the kid tries to reach the next level, he will eagerly count the points he earned. In this way, even a mathematics-resisted kid can able to improve the mathematical skills.
Negative effects: * The found the adverse effect of aggressive behaviour on children. * In addition to this aggressive behaviour, the use of video games by children for a longer period of time tend to desensitize to violence, decline in process in school, argue with their parents, teachers, and others decrease in attention span, fight with their peers and are labeled as antagonist for their violent acts. * Indulging in games that have a lot of shooting and killing is said to increase the emotion of anger in children, leading to aggressive behavior in real life. * Further, as their act of violence is rewarded in the world of gaming, they may become motivated to repeat it in real life. Video games hook the children to their consoles as repetitive playing and winning boosts their morale. They start feeling that shooting and killing are normal and do not even feel guilty about beating or clobbering siblings or peers. * There is also said to be a direct correlation between poor academic performance and playing video games. Studies have shown that some children spend a lot of time playing video games, thus ignoring their studies, resulting in poor scores at school. * Video games also have negative effects on the physical health of children.

Bibliography http://www.theparentszone.com/behavior-problems/is-the-impact-of-video-games-on-your-child-positive-or-negative/ http://www.buzzle.com/articles/effects-of-video-games-on-children.html

Bibliography: http://www.theparentszone.com/behavior-problems/is-the-impact-of-video-games-on-your-child-positive-or-negative/ http://www.buzzle.com/articles/effects-of-video-games-on-children.html