Annotated of Negative Effects of Video Games on Children & Teenagers

        The author of this article discusses one of the recent studies published in “The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics”. The purpose of this study was to analyze that how video games impact the behavior of gamers. So, 2463 females and 2436 males were made part of this research study to get results about the impact of videos games on them. The study made a finding that if children play video games for fewer hours, then it was found to have some positive effect on them and they showed pro-social behavior and no considerable issues were found with them. But it is not the case with people, who play games for most of the time. The study found out that children who play games for more than half of their free time on daily basis, they have showed some kind of negative behavior. The life satisfaction as well as pro-social behavior was missing in these children, who play games for too much time.

This article supports my topic assumption, which says that video games do have negative effects on children

        It is a fact that video games have been played by so many people around the world, and as per stats from United States, more than 150m people play video games on regular basis including children and teenagers. This article reveals the results of a study by scientist, who analyzed 116 studies related to gaming, and tried to figure out effect of gaming on brain as well as behavior. The research found out various positive effects of gaming on the brain, but continuous gaming also came with many negative effects as well. For instance, it was found that people have become addictive to play video games, and this situation is referred to as “internet gaming disorder”. The behavior of gamers can also change due to play games on regular basis as they mostly remain addictive with gaming, which can isolate them from their social system.

The facts revealed in the article again showed that video games may have certain positive things to relate, but they always come with some negative effects on gamers.

        The author of this article has focused on both positive and negative effects of gaming on the teenagers. However, the focus will be given to only negative effects to relate to the topic. It has been described by the author that teenagers, who regularly play video games can show aggressive behavior in their daily life. It has been observed that violent games can alter the behavior of teenagers, and make them aggressive. Moreover, the other negative effect of gaming is the addiction, as teenagers become addictive and they don’t pay attention to other important tasks like studies. This leads to poor performance in their studies. The teen’s school performance found to be affected by regular interaction with gaming. In addition to that gaming can also have negative effects on health of teenagers, as they can get obese by sitting all the time and avoiding physical activities.

It was again proved that teenagers can face various negative effects of gaming like they may become aggressive, show poor academic performance, as well as may also face various health issues.

        The authors of this research study tried to find out that kind of effects are created by gaming on the behavior of children especially regarding aggression. The study selected 100 school students from community schools, and they were given survey questionnaire to fill out. It is important to mention that study included both male and female students. After analyzing the data collected from these 100 school children, it was found out that children, who have been involved in playing violent games, they showed behavior of arguing and fighting with their peers. It concluded that video games do promote aggressive behavior in children, especially when content of the video games is violent. It means that students are involved in a behavior of arguing, bullying, fighting and yelling.

The research article again relate to the topic that video games can have negative effects on children, and it was proved by the primary research that students playing violent games showed more aggressive behavior.

        The author has focused on overall impact of the video games on the children, adolescents and teens including its positive as well as negative effects. The article did mention various positive effects on children like they may get better in their computer literacy as well as it can also help them to show a pro-social behavior. But when it comes to violent video games, it tends to have great negative impact on behavior of teens. It has been observed that most famous games in the world are fighting & action games, which incite violence in behavior of teens when they are addicted to play these games on daily basis. The research has also observed that when children play violent video games for longer period of time without any control or monitoring from their parents, they tend to be more aggressive in their school years as compared to others.

  The point made in the topic was again endorsed by this article too that violent videos games have been found a positive relationship with aggressive behavior of teens.

        It has been observed that playing video games for long hours on daily basis can become an addiction and this addiction can have various negative effects on the physical and mental health of the children. This is what being explained in this article that how video games addiction can affect children. The HealthyChildren.org released information that a child should not be allowed more than 2 hours of watching TV, playing video games as well as surfing on the internet, otherwise it can become addiction. The video games addiction preoccupies a child, who goes in isolation by not participating in extracurricular activities. Due to this, the relationships with family, parents & friends can suffer a lot. Moreover, the children also face many health problems because when they are addicted to games, they may not sleep well or skip their meals, which can cause serious health issues.

This article is again a good evidence to support the claim made in the topic of this discussion.

        It is a fact that in terms of teenagers & children entertainment field, the video games have been one of the great innovations as they have provided so much variety of entertainment. But this has some costs to pay as well, because children do get addicted to these games, so they are disturbed and effected by these games not physically but psychologically as well. The parents do complain that their children are becoming more aggressive and violent, and they need to understand that it is happening due to excessive amount of interaction of their children with video games. The research studies have found out that in comparison to movies and television, the adverse effects of video games are more severe. The psychology as well as behavior of children gets affected negatively due to active participation in the games.

This article is another evidence to support the thesis that children do get affected negatively by the video games as it has talked about various such elements.

        This research article reflects the importance of debate that how psychosocial development of children is being affected by the video games. The researchers explained that earlier, video games were not associated with any cooperative or even aggressive behavior of children, but this thing has increased a lot in recent times, where there has been some relationship between games and behavior of children. For instance, it is generalized that violent games are associated with aggressive behavior of children, whereas cooperative games are linked with pro-social behavior of children. But this research has found out that gaming frequency is the most important element in affecting the behavior of children, rather just making generalized conclusion regarding any category of games. If a child is playing more than 8 hours in a week, then risk of decreased pro-social behavior can increase. But to find out more results about each category of games, more research is needed.

The claim was supported by this research article that higher frequency of gaming can show the risk of negative behavior in children, however more targeted research is needed in this regard.

            This particular research study was conducted to see the relationship between school performance and behavior with the essence of playing video games. The teenage students were taken from Tehran’s secondary school, and number of these male & female students was 508. After collecting data from these students, the authors found out that playing video games had no considerable relationship with the school performance of children, but they did show changes in behavior. The male students who played video games were more aggressive in nature. On the other hand, female student not only showed strange mental status, but they also came with abnormal behavior. Moreover, both male and female students also showed that they were shouting more as well as overeating was also associated with them, who played video games.

This research study from Tehran gives evidence from another region that when children do play video games, their behavior is affected negatively, and they show negative changes in their actions.

        This research article discusses the fact that literature has come up with evidence that there is positive relationship between aggression in behavior of children and violent video games. But the authors wanted to verify this claim in the Italian children whether they also show the same results. So, 346 Italian children were selected for this study, and age of these children varied between 7 to 14 years and they were given 4 questionnaires. After collecting the data, when it was analyzed properly, it was evident that children, who used to prefer playing violent video games, they were identified with more aggressive behavior as compared to others. The data collected from this research study confirmed the fact that risk of change in aggression and behavior of children is more likely with the essence of violent video games. It means that if children are exposed to violent games, they may involve in aggressive kind of behavior.

 The topic of this discussion has again been endorsed by another country, which means that it is not a problem faced by United States or UK, etc, even children from Italy showed the same negative effects.

        The video games can become an addiction and this assertion has also been made by the WHO. The video games tend to show various harmful effects to children and teenagers, and one harmful effect is issues with their health due to addiction. That’s why WHO has included “gaming disorder” as a medical disease in its draft presented to International Classification of Diseases. It shows that situation is quite serious in this regard. The move made by WHO is welcomed and it is believed that it will help to treat patients of “gaming disorder” as people will start looking at it more seriously. It was said by one of the Doctors that he has met patients with gaming disorder, who had similar kind of mental health problem, which a cocaine addictive person may have.

        The claims revealed in this article very much show that my claim is right about negative effects of games on children & teenagers, as it talked about addiction of gaming as a specific medical condition.

References of Negative Effects of Video Games on Children & Teenagers

Shapiro, J. (2014). A Surprising New Study On How Video Games Impact Children. Retrieved June 13, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/08/27/a-surprising-new-study-on-how-video-games-impact-children/#7f3f89e87556