Video games are a favourite pastime or hobby among our children. It is one of the hobbies which children enjoy the most, and in most of the cases it has become an addiction. But are there any benefits of video game play?
This post would help you understand the popularity, effects, and benefits of children's video game play. At the bottom of the post I have compiled some more article links which would be interesting and useful to read.
I like to play board or puzzle games at my pc, but "Syberia" was the first and only video game, which I was really addicted to. I played both parts within about 3 months, as I didn't have internet access and could not get 'walk through' to finish it earlier. I still look for the video game which are from the same adventure and puzzle catagory.
But the fact is that I don't want my son to be an addict of video games. Like many parents I always thought that addiction of video games is not good for children, until I read some articles about benefits of video games play.
But remember that there are some negative effects of few catagory of video games and as a parents or teachers, it is our duty to check and suggest proper video games for our kids. Moreover as an educator I think we should ask our teens or kids to limit video games playing to some extent where it could not effect their physical or educational activities.
Few fact about Video Games
Video games have been incorporated into the daily routines of 65% of all U.S. households, and 85% of those with male children. When figures for game systems are measured against recent Statistics Canada estimates that PC's have penetrated just 40% of Canadian households and the internet only about 20%, the video game appears to be by far the more important children's communication medium. video gaming became the fastest growing and most profitable children's cultural industry which is expected to garner an estimated $30 billion in 1998 for the corporations that manufacture, design and sell them.
Just as parents were becoming accustomed to the fact that their kids were spending close to three hours a day with television, the video game came along and began changing children's leisure.
The video game industry has not only been selling our kids on digital technology, but also a unique entertainment experience which has already dramatically affected the way kids allocate and spend their leisure time.
Douglas Rushkoff, in his book Playing the Future, says "While their parents may condemn Nintendo as mindless and masterbatory, kids who have mastered video gaming early on stand a better chance of exploiting the real but mediated inter-activity that will make itself available to them by the time they hit techno-puberty in their teens." He goes on to quote Timothy Leary to support his optimism about the impact of kids interactive entertainment: "The importance of the Nintendo phenomenon is about equal to that of the Gutenberg Printing press. Here you had a new generation of kids who grew up knowing that they could change whats on the screen."
Video Game Culture
More articles and studies:
* 'The creativity of players may be enhanced by their involvement with video games. Players often create their own games with computer technology that allows them to use their own music and visual patterns (7). This may allow players to stimulate their brains and thought processes in order to create the often elaborate scenarios involved in complex video games. Furthermore, video games often allow players to use their imaginations in order to transport themselves into scenarios completely different from real world situations. While there are certainly creative benefits to playing video games, it is important to remember that players must be actively interested in these types of games and must be invested in them in order to gain these benefits.'
Full artilce: Video Games: A Source of Benefits or Addiction?
* The Many Benefits of VIDEO GAMES
* 'Mark Griffiths, professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University, says they can be a distraction for children undergoing painful treatment.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, he added that games can also help children with attention deficit disorders gain social skills.'
Read more: 'Computer games 'do have benefits' at BBC world
* Reading and video games
* "To understand why games might be good for the mind, begin by shedding the cliché that they are about improving hand-eye coordination and firing virtual weapons. The majority of video games on the best-seller list contain no more bloodshed than a game of Risk. The most popular games are not simply difficult in the sense of challenging manual dexterity; they challenge mental dexterity as well. The best-selling game of all time, The Sims, involves almost no hand-eye coordination or quick reflexes. One manages a household of characters, each endowed with distinct drives and personality traits, each cycling through an endless series of short-term needs (companionship, say, or food), each enmeshed in a network of relationships with other characters. Playing the game is a nonstop balancing act: sending one character off to work, cleaning the kitchen with another, searching through the classifieds for work with another. Even a violent game like Grand Theft Auto involves networks of characters that the player must navigate and master, picking up clues and detecting patterns. The text walk-through for Grand Theft Auto III—a document that describes all the variables involved in playing the game through to the finish—is 53,000 words long, the length of a short novel. But despite the complexity of these environments, most gamers eschew reading manuals or walk-throughs altogether, preferring to feel their way through the game space."
Read this informative article at "Discover magazine": Your Brain on Video Games
* Video games that contain high levels of action, such as Unreal Tournament, can actually improve your vision, according to a group of Researchers at the University of Rochester.
"Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information," Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, said. "After just 30 hours, players showed a substantial increase in the spatial resolution of their vision, meaning they could see figures like those on an eye chart more clearly, even when other symbols crowded in."
Read more: "Action video games make your eyesight better"
* "The educational benefits of video games"
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