These days' computer/video games and play stations, are favourite playtime activities for young children and teenagers. Most parents argue that during their childhood they had plenty of positive playtime activities other than computer games. They fear that their children are wasting their energy and brainpower playing videogames for hours.
Recent studies have proved that videogames have both advantages and disadvantages for children. No doubt, violent videogames increase aggression and cultivate violent behaviours in children. Furthermore, repeated playing of violent electronic games can grow negative thoughts in young children and they become vulnerable to criminal activities.
On the other hand, playing videogames increase child-learning skills and accelerate his brainpower. Edutainment (fun + education) games enhance young player's abilities to learn, read, count and spell with fun. When you earn points and count these numbers, you actually practice your mathematics skills."
Too much screen time is unhealthy habit and can results in eye weakness, headache, rational attitude and obesity. To avoid these unhealthy symptoms, be on safe side, just as those parents who limit their children's videogame playing time. Restrict the playing computer games timings for two to three hours per week. Such restriction helps your child to concentrate on other physical activities. Ahmed, student of class 8th is very fond of playing videogames. On his midterm exams, he gets grade "A". The mother said, "He spends five hours in a week to play his favourite sports and educational games."
Advantages and disadvantages of videogames depend on the careful selection of the game. Researches show that playing videogames enhance child's sense of responsibility. For example, when child play a car racing game, he uses his mind power to go in front without breaking traffic signals and without having any accident. The more safely he drives the more chances he has to make points and win the game.
Many video games could do with two or more players. Playing in somebody's company, promote trustful companionship, sportsman sprit and friendly atmosphere. This way child learns the efficacy of joint efforts. It improves his social communication skills and he learns to share things with his friends. He learns to pay attention to the ideas of his friends and playing mates.
Parents should accompany their child to make stronger child-parent relationship. All children love to win games, winning boost up their confidence. It makes them believe in their abilities to achieve many great things in life.
Some kids have attention-deficit disorder. It is difficult for them to sit quietly in the class and to pay attention to the teacher's lecture. To teach such kids how to remain attentive for long period, experts recommend them to play video games. When he plays the video/computer game, his concentration focuses on the main characters, reading instructions and wining the points that help him to develop his reading and math skills.
"They have to discover the rules of the game and how to think strategically," said James Paul Gee, a University of Wisconsin-Madison curriculum and instruction professor. "Like any problem solving that is good for your head, it makes you smarter."
Usually children take lot of interest to play with their elders playing stuff. Therefore, Parent should allow their children to play with age specific video games because many video games are not suitable for school going kids and designed for adults.
Disadvantages of Video/computer games
Many games encourage children to be more violent to win the game. It means that he is not just a viewer but also an active participant of the game. He holds the command of the character of the game. For example, in Superman or Ninja Turtles video game series, he is the commander of the character
If he is playing a game in which the hero is to fight with the enemies from the space, according to the game rules he as given a choice to select the weapons for his hero. He can select the weapon and then command a deadly fight between his hero and the enemies. The child is in control of the violence and experiences the violence in his own eyes (killing, jerking, attacking and shelling). This active participation, recurrence and reward are effective tools for learning aggressive behaviour.
Top educators say that when children repeatedly play such violent games, their tender minds begin to adopt quarrelsome attitude. They slowly learn to quarrel noisily, angrily and disruptively without any genuine reason. Violent games make the player feel powerful, therefore he tries to exercise influence on his friends. This way he may also lose his friends gradually as good friendship needs love and affection, not violence.
Violent video game lovers fight more with their schoolmates as compared to those who are not addicted to this habit. They disagree with their friends without any rightful cause and are incapable to make long-lasting friendship. They also raise the bad practice of disagreeing with their teachers.
Many children even skip their homework to take pleasure in the thrill of these games. As a result, they are incapable to carry out better in class; this may also affect their grades in exams. A Study suggests that video games can be addictive for kids, and that the kids' addiction to video games increases their depression and anxiety levels. Addicted kids also exhibit social phobias.
Video games may also have bad effects on children's physical health such as eye weakness, obesity postural, muscular and skeletal disorders. Researchers found that each hour the children played video games doubled the likelihood that the child will be obese.
It reported that over 70,000 teenagers from 34 different nations are overweight or obese. It called a sedentary lifestyle - 'spending three hours or more per day watching TV, playing computer games, or chatting with friends' - is the main reason behind the figure. Only 25 percent of the boys and 15 percent of the girls get enough exercise, said the report. "With regards to physical activity levels, we did not find much of a difference between poor and rich countries," said WHO (World Health Organisation) official Regina Guthold, adding that "growing up in a poor country does not necessarily mean that kids get more physical activity."
Since children's favourite video/computer games are full of action, adventures and thrill, most of them prefer not to move from the seat and keep their eyes fixed on the computer screen until the end of the game no matter how long it takes. "Games are so interesting and challenging that it is difficult for us to leave the seat before they finish," said Farhan, a lover of video games.
Many school going children spend hours in downloading games from the Internet on their computers' hard disks. These games are fun-filled and keep the players busy for hours. Extreme use of computer to download and play games is a major cause of short sightedness.
A mother said angrily. Video game makers keep updating old versions. When kids get bored from old versions they insist on buying new editions of the games which is nothing but wastage of money." She adds that some video games are dangerous for kids since they develop their interest towards gambling.
Just as a coin has two sides, similarly, electronic games have both benefits and drawbacks. It is difficult for us to say 'no' to technology in this tech-savvy era therefore, always prefer to buy those games for your child which ensure edutainment (fun and education together) rather than those which show him the path of devastation.