Video games represent one of the most popular leisure games among children and adults. The followership of video game fanatics has significantly increased from 2011 up to date due to the rising increase in technology and affordability of mobile gadgets. According to Milani et al. (2018), video games are well-known for some health benefits, including increasing one’s rate of concentration, boosting focus on something, improving working memory, and helping a person learn how to multitask. Nevertheless, the benefits come with particular costs when the video games are excessively used without regulations; for instance, in kids. Children who have access to video games spent the most significant part of their time playing video games, forgetting their social life, and even failing to show career and education commitment. According to Mihara and Higuchi (2017), excessive indulgence in video games promotes problems with fellow peers and lowers social skills as one hardly interacts with the outside environment.
On the contrary, the current video game use amongst children has become widespread as children spent most of their predominant time participating in video games, influencing a child’s psychological functioning. Besides, in recent years, the amount of focus directed towards research on the effects of video games among children has considerably increased, thus contributes to this research in establishing the behavioral influence caused on children due to excessive indulgence in video games (Milani et al., 2018). Nevertheless, most of the scientific studies conducted concerning this research area focus majorly on video games’ diverse correlatives and the extent of video gameplay amongst children. While some researchers are fascinated by the primary benefits resulting from video games and even made suggestions concerning video game use in the therapeutic industry, others still believe that extensive video games might lead to health dangers due to prolonged lack of social life.
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Literature Review
Overview of video games overindulgence by children
Playing video games among children has shown numerous challenges that emanate from players’ behavior. This creates an opportunity for more research based on children's behavior after long-term engagement in video games. Consequently, researchers have a chance to learn new behaviors and skills or pre-existing ones that have developed as a result of video games. Quwaider et al. (2019) argue that changes in children's behavior resulting from the excessive playing of video games are predictable and visible among adolescent personalities due to the effect of the changes in the players' growth and attitudes. The response from engaging in a particular game is different from one player to the other depending on the contents of the video game and how the player's mind displays and interprets the video game contents (Milani et al., 2018). The players' personality influences a video game's impact because some people strongly influence their specific thoughts and behaviors under particular conditions.
This, in turn, is objectively reflected in the individuals' in-game behavior. According to Jeong & Kim (2011), most players who play online video games transfer these video games' influence to the real world. Consequently, players who engage in playing violent video games have a high likelihood of becoming violent in real-life situations. Milani et al. (2018) confirm that neurons in the human body that handle the stimulations of violent video games tend to act similarly during real-life scenarios, thus why most children who engage in video games might be violent even in real-life scenarios. The effects on video game players can be either positive, such as improving mental skills on finding solutions and improving social skills; the effects can also be adverse, including one turning violent, causing anxiety and stress due to the traumatic experience, and aggression. The following discussion explores both the negative and positive impacts of video games on children’s personalities.
Positive Impacts of Video Games among Children.
While one of the most held perceptions about video game playing is that it is lazy, such activity can influence one’s cognitive capacity functioning and promote perfection in some capabilities. For example, some skills that are likely to be affected positively involve cognitive skills because it improves reasoning capacity, spatial navigation, and memorability abilities (American Psychological Association, 2013). The former also mentions that research conducted in 2013 indicated that children who often play shooting video games have an excellent cognitive ability to think about objects and a good memory perception. These skills how an essential part of video games influence a child’s education and career development.
Another research conducted by Halbrook et al. (2019) suggests that video games help children develop good problem-solving skills, which support different critical decision-making incidences. The authors of the article mentioned above argue that a study whose participants were adolescent students showed that playing strategic video games showed increased problem-solving techniques and a positive influence on the grades. Besides, APA (2013) adds that children’s creativity was also boosted significantly by playing different video games, including violent ones. On the contrary, when children increased their use of other forms of technologies like computers and mobile technology, their creativity stagnated. The latter shows the positive influence of video games on children’s cognitive skills in decision-making.
Also, video games positively impact children by impacting their moods as they ward off anxiety and promote happiness and relaxation. According to Halbrook et al. (2019), children became happier and psyched up when playing video games; children also learn how to keep resilience even during times of extreme failure. By playing video games, children build emotional resilience and become used to emotionally draining cases; this promotes their real-life strength on emotional resilience, a skill that one can rely on daily. Research conducted by Halbrook et al. (2019) disputes the stereotype of the socially isolated loner. The research identifies that more than 70% of children who play video games do it with at least one friend, and millions of people engage in the activity worldwide. Besides, there are multiplayer video games used in classroom settings to improve the interaction between an educator and learners.
Negative Impacts of Video Games among Children.
Even with the discussion that video games are healthy and fun, gaming can be harmful to children in different ways. When children spent most of their daily time playing video games, their social skills and interaction with the outside world become limited, thus promoting a loner's routine (Mihara and Higuchi, 2017). Besides, games are made of online virtual communities, which enhance people to work together via online platforms to achieve a common task. Some examples of negative impacts of video games on children include;
Gaming injuries – gaming injuries include numerous activities done in a repeated way that strains the muscles and tendons, causing bodily injuries. According to Jeong & Kim (2011), pain and inflammation also develop from the overuse of specific muscles; if the injuries are not treated with medication and proper precautions, there are high chances of permanent injury. Most remarkably, overuse injuries are common to children who are addicts or rampant players of video games (Mihara and Higuchi, 2017). Video games also encourage gaming addiction among children and are associated with various psychological problems.
Research Questions
What is the behavioural change on children as a result of playing video games?
Is there a behavioural difference between video game playing children and those who don’t?
What are the positive and negative impacts of video game playing among children?
Theoretical Framework
Of recent years, literature concerning the effects of video games on children has flocked the internet; however, the theoretical integration of these literature still remains minimal. Hastings et al., (2009) argues in favour of the aggression model, one of the most explored theories that try to explain the linkage between increased playing of video games among children in United States and the growing aggression witnessed among many children. The aggression model is a cognitive model that uses data to analyse different types of human aggression and their ascribing factors.
According to the aggression theory, children who are prone to playing of video games have a significant increase of aggression in them resulting from the common indulgence in violent and aggressive scenarios (Hastings et al., 2009). The theory goes further to explore the influence of aggressive video games on the prospective thoughts and feelings of children involved. It argues that children who are often involved in playing video games have increased thoughts and feelings that promote psychological arousal of aggressive behaviour, this also promotes aggressive behaviour across communities due to the overarching playing of video games experienced in the current society.
Methodology
To assess the effects of video games among children, a sample of 50 children was considered for participation, where in-person interviews were administered to each. According to the results obtained, further analyses were done to establish each participant's use of video games. The interviews were equally distributed between males and females for fair opinions to be collected without being biased to one side of the research. The participants were also drawn from different regions so that opinions and ideas for the diversity of ideas and opinions.
Description of analytical techniques
The analytical techniques involved a computed zero-order in creating a relationship between video gaming variables and children's psychological functioning. According to Homer et al. (2012), a computation of partial correlations enables researchers to control the sex and ages of participants, thus provide a balanced opinion. To establish the effects video games had on each child as per the interviews administered, all participant responses obtained were analyzed to identify the impact of video games on every student (Kowert et al., 2014a). Besides, a control experiment was also used where a child who does not play video games was interviewed using a similar set of questions like ones used for those who participate in video games.
Data Interpretation, analysis, and implication of findings
This study aimed at shedding light on the association of diverse video gaming and the establishment of aggressive behavior among children. Drawing data from the sample of 50 students who participated in the interviews, it is evident that there is a slight influence of video games on growing children in the contemporary world. The research also indicated that children had different reasons to participate in video games; thus, a difference in the influence caused. Some of the negative impacts of video games on children include low self-esteem, inadequate social skills, a preference for solitude, and poor extended performance in school grades (Kowert et al., 2014b). On the other hand, other effects of video games can also be positive. For example, video games have been identified to improve the rate of concentration for a child; one becomes used to active engagement for long hours.
The findings are of much importance for future studies and precautions necessary for eliminating the negative impacts of video games on children. For example, lengthy playing of video games has been established to be dangerous for developing social skills and maintaining a social life. Consequently, children should be limited when they spend playing video games which can be dangerous if overdone (Kowert et al., 2014b). Other dangers of excessive playing of video games include gaming injuries that result from overuse of particular muscles or tendons. This results in inflammation and body complications, thus regulating children from overindulging in video games.
Future Research
This research paper creates room for future research since most of the theoretical perspectives associated with children's video games are not covered. For example, one central area for future research is video games' impact on children's concentration abilities.
In conclusion, the research explored video games' nature and their extensive use among children in the contemporary world. Video games significantly affect a child’s behavior in several ways, including increased concentration and boosting problem-solving skills. On the other hand, video games also promote negative impacts, including solitudes, lack of social skills, and advanced loner behavior.
References
American Psychological Association. (2013, November 25). Video games play may provide learning, health, social benefits [Press release]. http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2013/11/video-games
Halbrook, Y. J., O’Donnell, A. T., & Msetfi, R. M. (2019). When and How Video Games Can Be Good: A Review of the Positive Effects of Video Games on Well-Being. Perspectives on Psychological Science , 14 (6), 1096–1104. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619863807
Hastings, E. C., Karas, T. L., Winsler, A., Way, E., Madigan, A., & Tyler, S. (2009). Young children's video/computer game use: relations with school performance and behaviour. Issues in mental health nursing , 30 (10), 638–649. https://doi.org/10.1080/01612840903050414
Homer, B. D., Hayward, E. O., Frye, J., and Plass, J. L. (2012). Gender and player characteristics in video game play of preadolescents. Comput. Hum. Behav. 28, 1782–1789. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.04.018
Jeong, E. J., & Kim, D. H. (2011). Social Activities, Self-Efficacy, Game Attitudes, and Game Addiction. Cyberpsychology, Behaviour, and Social Networking, 14(4), 213–221. doi:10.1089/cyber.2009.0289
Kowert, R., Domahidi, E., Festl, R., and Quandt, T. (2014a). Social gaming, lonely life? The impact of digital game play on adolescents’ social circles. Comput. Hum. Behav. 36, 385–390. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.04.003
Kowert, R., Domahidi, E., and Quandt, T. (2014b). The relationship between online video game involvement and gaming-related friendships among emotionally sensitive individuals. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 17, 447–453. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2013.0656
Mihara, S., and Higuchi, S. (2017). Cross-sectional and longitudinal epidemiological studies of Internet gaming disorder: a systematic review of the literature. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 71, 425–444. doi: 10.1111/pcn.12532
Milani, L., La Torre, G., Fiore, M., Grumi, S., Gentile, D. A., Ferrante, M., et al. (2018). Internet gaming addiction in adolescence: risk factors and maladjustment correlates. Int. J. Mental Health Addict. 16, 888–904. doi: 10.1007/s11469-017-9750-2
Quwaider, M., Alabed, A., & Duwairi, R. (2019). The Impact of Video Games on the Players Behaviors: A Survey. Procedia Computer Science, 151, 575–582. doi:10.1016/j.procs.2019.04.077
