Research Project Final check
Liang6
Qibin Liang
Joyce Kevin
English 102
2018/6/1
Effects of Video game playing on Children
One of the effects of video game playing is that children associated with high video game usage tend to display a high intellectual functioning compared to those that do not play video games more often. This serves to show that video game playing in children results in high intellectual functioning. High video game playing among children, therefore, can be associated with increased odds of elevated intellectual functioning. In a study carried out by Kovess-Masfety et al., a sample of more than 3000 young children from six European Countries indicated that high usage of video games was associated with significantly a high intellectual functioning. High video game usage, in this context, refers to video game playing for at least 5 hours every week. The results of the study indicated that children that played more than 5 hours every week displayed 1.75 times the odds of high intellectual functioning (95 % CI 1.31–2.33) compared to the others that did not play as much video games. The results of this study, therefore, supports the causative effect of video game on better intellectual functioning because it seems to link video game playing with increased intellectual functioning in children.
The second effect of video game playing in children is that high usage of video games can result in better classroom results in children. Children that spend a lot of time playing video games can be associated with better academic achievement compared to children that spent no or less time on video games. This can be drawn from the argument that children that play video games most of their time tend to display better results in their class work. In the study by Kovess-Masfety et al., a survey data of more than 3000 school children from six European countries in the age bracket of 6 to 11 years indicated that the children that reported to play video games more often displayed better classroom results and overall school competence. They displayed 1.88 times better classroom performance and overall school competence compared to their peers that reported playing video games less often. The specific areas of class performance that were focused in the study included spelling, reading, mathematics, and the overall classroom performance. Children that reported spending more time playing video games showed better results in all these areas compared to their classmates that reported spending less time for video game playing. The fact that those children that reported to spending more time playing video games were associated with better overall classroom results is an indication that video game playing enhances children’s ability to perform better in their class work.
The third effect of video game playing in children is that playing video games help reduce children’s peer relationship problems. This is connected to the view that children that play video games more often tend to show a lower prevalence of peer relationship problems. One important point that is worth mentioning here is that video games are often played in a manner that involves several people playing cooperatively or competitively. This means that most video game players are in a virtual social group. Even though they may not be together physically, they can communicate with one another through the established game-based communication channels. Video game playing can thus be considered a social affair because several players can be connected to one another during the process. This is in fact supported by a study by Kovess-Masfety et al. According to the results of this study, children who were reported by their teachers or mothers to have peer relationship problems were generally in the low video game usage group. The others that did not have any peer relationship issues, on the other hand, were identified to belong to the high video game usage category. According to the study, it was reported that high usage is associated with decreases in peer relationship problems [OR 0.41 (0.2–0.86) as well as prosocial deficits (0.23 (0.07, 0.81). Video game playing, therefore, can be a good protective factor against peer relationship problems in children.
This is also supported by Granic et al. (pg.72) that over 70 percent of people that play video games to it their friends either competitively or cooperatively especially for the case of multiplayer video games. Some video games also lead to the formation of virtual social communities where decisions need to be reached at instantly on whom to reject, accept, trust and how to be an effective team leader. Such social contexts, therefore, enable video game players to learn social skills and prosocial behavior rapidly. These may later generalize to the layers’ family and peer relationships outside the environment of video game playing.
One common rebuttal point associated with video game playing is that video games tend to make the players to be socially isolated. Stereotypes have been that people that play video games remain alone locked up in their houses without getting time to interact with other people. This is in fact not true considering the fact most of the commercial video games in the market today are multiplayer in nature meaning that players play in pairs or groups either cooperatively or competitively. This implies that video games enhance prosocial behavior.
The fourth effect of playing video games is that it enhances a wide range of cognitive skills in children. This is something that has been shown to be true to action or shooter games. According to Granic et al. (pg. 68), numerous training studies have reported that shooter or action games enhance children’s cognitive skills compared to games that are non-action in nature. According to these training studies, when children that play video games less often or those that have never played video games are randomly divided into two groups, with one group assigned action video games and the control group assigned to play a game other than a shooter game; children in shooter games tend to show more accurate and faster attention allocation, enhanced mental abilities, and a higher degree of spatial resolution in terms of visual processing compared to the control group (Granic et al. pg. 68). Spatial skills improvements that children derive from playing action video games can enhance the same skills as the university or high school-level courses that are meant for enhancing those same skill in students. Research has also indicated that video games can be used to train spatial skills within a very short period of time and the acquired skills can last for a very long period of time. Additionally, skills developed from video game playing can be transferred to other spatial activities that a child does outside the context of video games (Granic et al. pg. 68). This implies, therefore, that video games can have a positive effect on children’s cognitive abilities.
The most common rebuttal point associated with the cognitive aspect is that video game playing can be an intellectually lazy activity and sedating. Common unproven stereotypes out there are that people that play action or shooter video games are generally tend to be violent due to the associated violent action. This is not the truth because action video games have been proven to enhance a wide range of cognitive skills among people that play them.
The next effect of video game playing is that brings about an effective motivation style in children’s psychological functioning. Video games have been designed in such a way that they demand a player’s engagement. Video games can thus pull players into a virtual environment where they have to constantly work to achieve certain meaningful goals, go through numerous failures, and celebrate rare triumph moments when they successfully complete such challenging tasks. Studies have shown that certain motivational styles that are characterized by continuous effort of engagement and persistence are very important contributors to an individual’s achievement and success (Granic et al. pg. 71). Children have a tendency to develop beliefs about their abilities and intelligence. These beliefs underlie certain specific styles of motivation and have a direct effect on a child’s achievement. A child that is praised for his/her traits; as opposed to his/her efforts tend to develop the innate theory of intelligence. This theory is based on the view that one’s intelligence is a trait that s innate and that remains fixed and can never be improved. A child praised for his/her effort; on the other hand, tend to develop the incremental theory of intelligence. They tend to develop a belief that intelligence is something that can be developed with time and effort (Granic et al. pg. 71). Playing video games, therefore, can enhance a persistent and optimistic style of motivation in a child that can further be applied in school or work environment.
The other effect of video game playing in children is that it generates positive feelings. Most people use different forms of media, such as video games, to enhance good emotional states and manage their moods. Children can thus use video games to enhance positive feelings. Several studies have reported that there is a causal relationship between people’s playing of their preferred video games and increased positive emotion or improved mood (Granic et al. pg. 71). Puzzle video games, for instance, reduce anxiety, promote relaxation, and improve the moods of the players. Puzzle video games refer to the games characterized by high degree of availability, short-term commitments, and minimal interfaces (Granic et al. pg. 71). Pull for effective emotion regulation strategies involved in video game playing thus tend to generate positive feelings in children.
The best way to reap the benefits of video games by children would be to ensure that the content of the video games is educative in some way and to ensure that children do not spend most of their time playing video games. This would enable them to reap the most benefits out of them and minimize any associated negative effects (Sălceanu pg.838).
Works Cited
Granic, Isabela, et al. "The Benefits of Playing Video Games." American Psychologist, vol. 69, no. 1, Jan. 2014, pp. 66-78. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1037/a0034857.
Kovess-Masfety, Viviane et al. “Is Time Spent Playing Video Games Associated with Mental Health, Cognitive and Social Skills in Young Children?” Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology 51.3 (2016): 349–357. PMC. Web. 25 May 2018.
Sălceanu, Claudia. “The Influence of Computer Games on Children’s Development. Exploratory Study on the Attitudes of Parents.” Social and Behavioral Sciences 149 ( 2014 ): 837 – 841