Video games' positive and negative effects on children

Video Games and Their Effect on Children

Video Games were first introduced in the 1970s and rapidly caught on as a major leisure activity especially among children within a decade. Children these days spend more time watching TV or playing video games than any other activity save sleeping. Since video games are a relatively recent phenomenon research about its effects on children cannot be considered conclusive. However, most studies so far indicate that video games can have both positive and negative effects on children depending on the time spent in the activity and the type of video games played.

The Positive Effects

Most early researches in the effect of video games on children indicated that they had an overall positive effect on children.

Introduction to Computers

Video games were a friendly way to introduce children to the use of computers and improved their hand-eye co-ordination. Some older studies also indicated that children who played video games were highly motivated, intelligent, and achievement oriented individuals who generally performed better in their school studies. ("Video games: Cause for concern?") Educational video games could be used in classrooms and at home as useful learning tools.

Interactive

The positive aspect of video games is that it is an interactive activity as compared to the totally passive past time of viewing television. Hence if video game playing replaces TV viewing it can be considered to be a better past time for children and this is what the earlier studies about the effect of video games on children had concentrated on.

Stress Relief

Some children, especially in the adolescent age find video game playing to be a stress-relieving activity that can get one's mind off the problems. Wasting some 'bad guys' in front of the video screen is much better than relieving your frustrations by getting into actual fights. This is known as the 'catharsis' theory, which suggests that playing aggressive video games have a relaxing effect, by channeling and releasing of aggression.

Other Benefits

Other benefits include developing a sense of personal competence, experiencing power and control in the face of threat and chaos, and developing useful skills of concentration and logical analysis. (Mitchell) If video games are played with parents or other partners, it may help in renewing or developing important relationships that would have a positive effect on the child's development of personality.

Unfortunately subsequent developments in video games technology and recent studies have brought up several negative aspects of video games playing among children.

The Negative Aspects

Addictive

The technical improvement in today's video games as compared to the ones of the 70s and 80s may well have led them to become more addictive. Dr. Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University, an expert on video game addiction, thinks that the video games of the 21st century are more "psychologically rewarding" than the video games of the 1980s as they require "more complex skills, improved dexterity, and feature socially relevant topics and better graphics." He believes that by offering greater "psychological rewards" these video games may be putting the players at greater risk of developing an addiction. ("Video games: Cause for Concern") Addiction obviously does not happen to a majority of video games players. However, a small minority become genuinely addicted and exhibits all the classical signs of one. For example, young video game 'addicts' will sacrifice social and sporting activities for getting his 'fix,' will get irritable and restless when denied access to it, and get most of his/her excitement by playing the game.

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The proponents of the benefits of video games cite its interactive nature that is supposed to be an advantage over the passive medium of television. Other experts believe that this 'interactivity' of video games in which the player practices the performance of 'violent acts' instead of just watching them is much more damaging. They believe that the more children practice violent acts the more likely they are of performing them.

Increasingly Violent Video Games

Scientists have studied the physiological response of playing violent video games on people by measuring such responses as the heart rate and the galvanic skin response (the electrical activity on the skin). The studies show that the responses vary according to the content of the games -- the more violent games tend to produce a response similar to an adrenaline rush and the reactions were more pronounced in the adolescent males. (Clements). The research also shows that the players of violent games quickly get de-sensitized to the degree of violence. This 'de-sensitization' has more than one disturbing aspect to it. It leads to the development of indifference to violence and death in the youth and induces the manufacturers of video games to make their product even more violent in order to get the same level of response from the players. The development of computer and software technology that leads to increasingly life-like graphics also leads to more life-like and 'graphic' violence in the video games.

Other Negative Effects

Certain other negative aspects of video games are more common sense effects such as promoting obesity that have been confirmed by recent scientific studies. There is little doubt that physically inactive activities like video games have replaced the more physical play activities among children and promote obesity and weight problems.

Another problem of video games is that the games stress autonomous action rather than group action. Most video games are also geared for player of not more than one player at a time. This gives rise to an increasing degree of isolation and works against social interaction and team play.

The contents of most video games contain a level of gender bias that assigns a passive role to the female and sometimes depict them as victims. This has the potential of influencing children's future attitudes toward gender roles.

Conclusion

Video games, like most other technological developments, have their negative as well as positive aspects. It is apparent that video games per se are neither inherently good nor bad. It is only when children start to spend long hours in video games playing that the activity starts to become a problem. Parents, therefore, have an important role in controlling the amount of time their children spend in video game playing and keeping an eye on the contents of the games they buy or download. The manufacturers of such games too have a social responsibility in reining in the amount of violence that is presently depicted in their product as their products are mainly used by children and the adolescent.