By Gavin Boyle
Video games continue to serve as the most popular pastime for young Americans, so parents should understand how the activity shapes those engaging with it daily.
“Video games are the modern equivalent of the neighborhood pickup game: a place to compete, connect and experiment with identity,” Zishan Kahn, MD, told Parents. “Multiplayer and cooperative games can strengthen friendships, especially for kids who struggle socially offline, giving them a shared activity and low-pressure way to interact.”
Video games certainly provide benefits to the children who play them every day. Along with the positive social impact, they also teach skills like problem-solving, strategic thinking, performance under pressure, creativity and teamwork. Furthermore, they can instruct children about the real world in low-stakes situations, including topics like economics.
“I would argue that most students today, and that the younger generations, they learn about the financial system through gaming more than any other source,” said Joost van Dreunen, a professor at the Stern School of Business in New York.
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“[Video games and economics] match really well,” added researcher Dmitri Williams when discussing how video games are well suited to teach economics. “When people have the same incentives, people feel about their in-game money the way they feel about the real-world money.”
While there are benefits to video games, there are also drawbacks as well.
The World Health Organization has classified video game addiction as a verifiable mental disorder which can profoundly impact a person’s life. Even before things reach this level, though, video games can start to detract from a young player’s life. Research has found that after roughly 10 hours per week, video games start to cause harm.
“What stood out was students gaming up to 10 hours a week all looked very similar in terms of diet, sleep and body weight,” Mario Siervo, a population health researcher professor, explained. “The real differences emerged in those gaming more than 10 hours a week, who showed clear divergence from the rest of the sample.”
“Each additional hour of gaming per week was linked to a decline in diet quality, even after accounting for stress, physical activity and other lifestyle factors,” Siervo added.
Furthermore, any amount of time spent on online video games can expose players to bad actors using them as a way to target children. Predators are common on the most popular games, such as Roblox, so those platforms require parental oversight in order to protect children.
While video games can be a part of a healthy lifestyle, like most things in life, they require moderation. Video games, however, are often created to be addictive. Understanding how video game addiction happens will help parents better protect their children.
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