How Gaming Consoles Affect The Youth

Gaming is a vast amazing world! Foe to teachers and parents alike, friend to pretty much everyone else. This generation is really all about the latest trends and being with a big group of friends to seem cool. A lot of people have been starting to get into games because they are just all around fun and you get to connect with your friends! But as with every good thing, there are downsides.

Let’s start with what is a video game? A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with an electronic device, whether it’s an Old arcade machine, a computer, a console or even your phone. The first video game was developed in 1958 “pong” It was a very simple tennis game. Throughout the rest of the 1960s, digital games were created more and more by programmers. As the audience for video games expanded to more than a few dozen research institutions, a wider variety of games began to be developed, and so video games kept on advancing till we reached the point we are at now. Why are so many children playing video games? There is such a huge variety of games which means any type of person can find a game that suits them. There are educational, games, management games, simulation games and the most ‘popular’ genre which are shooter games.

Because video games are so prominent in children’s lives, it is difficult to prevent them from playing video games entirely– but is that even necessary? With such a variety of game types out there, it is difficult to say if video games in general are good or bad. Luckily, there have been countless studies done on this and information on the pros and cons can be easily found. (Danielle Dai and Amanda Fry) What child is going to choose a game about learning versus a game where they can kill zombies or drive cars at insane speeds? It’s just so much more interesting and engaging but, some studies say if a child is just spending hours and hours playing such violent games it obviously going to take a toll on their mental and physical health. Mentally it will make then ease into the thought that hurting someone is okay or normal, have more violent thoughts so on and so on, basically not good. Physically it’s the fact that children are spending too much time playing games rather than playing outside. By spending so much time on their game console or on the computer, that makes them have a much higher chance in eventually becoming obese.

However, a majority of the more recent studies have found video games to be mentally beneficial in many ways. Playing video games change the brain’s physical structure the same way as do learning to read, playing the piano, or navigating using a map. Some of the benefits include improved memory, hand to eye coordination, reaction time, multitasking, communication, teamwork, and a plethora of other benefits. It is important to note that the game in question is very important to determine what skills and traits are going to be developed in a person, certain games are basically the equivalent of “junk food” which provide little to no benefit other than entertainment. What’s also clear from the scientific literature is that the negative consequences of playing almost always involve people that are excessive video game players.

There is little evidence of serious acute adverse effects on health from moderate play (Mark Griffin) In shooting games, the character may be running and shooting at the same time. This requires the player to keep track of the position of the character, where the character is heading, their speed, where the gun is aiming, and so on. All these aspects need to be taken into account, and then the player must then react with the movement in their hands and fingertips. This requires a great deal of hand eye coordination to be successful. There have been even studies with adults showing that experience with video games is related to better surgical skills. There are certain games that are simulations of many real life tasks and jobs that a large community people enjoy playing, which train you in real life skills that are needed for real life applications. Gaming helps improve children’s social life a lot most games are a lot more fun with a team, you could just match up with a random team but, to be good at the game you’ll need a team of people that you are familiar with so each person knows their strengths and weaknesses to strategize and win which is what we all want to do. In doing so that deepens the bond between friends making them closer. Gaming makes it so much easier on boys to make friends, unlike girls they wouldn’t really like to go out shopping or go to a café and have a drink so to connect with their friends and maintain a fun competitive spirit they game together. Gaming also teaches children how to work with people, even playing with random people helps the child learn how to speak to others.

At work this will be essential because they won’t know every person in their building or every client they will work with so, the interactions they have in game with people helps them develop a friendly personality or at least not be shy, awkward or nervous and to be able to approach people. Gaming has many benefits some that you may not even realize, but it all depends on how many hours is spent playing and on which games are those hours being spent on, parents should put a limit to how much their child plays but not completely ban games from their child, by setting a time limit on how much the child can play they won’t become addicted and will spend their time on other important things they have to do. In conclusion, an excessive amount of anything can start to cause damage so, keep on gaming but not for too long.