Online games: are they all bad? It’s a complex area for parents who are unsure whether they should be allowing their children to play games or not.
Taking an educational lens, let’s look at some of the pros and cons of online gaming.
Pros
- Teamwork skills. Playing games with other people is often a bonding activity, and people who play collaborative games have a chance to improve their skills in teamwork, transferrable skills which will become useful in day-to-day life.
- Hand-eye coordination. Playing games isn’t a fully passive activity – it actually involves a lot of coordination of the physical and the visual.
- Problem-solving skills. Video games nearly always involve some form of problem solving, and the best games actually enhance your ability to make quick decisions when it comes to complex issues.
- Development of cognitive skills. Some research has actually demonstrated that gaming can improve cognitive skills in both children and adults, including concentration, multitasking skills and memory.
- Education. Lots of games are educational and will help children learn about a vast number of areas, from history, to maths, to English. If you’re concerned about your child’s gaming, consider finding some games which are more educational for them to play.
Cons
- All things are best done in moderation. One risk of gaming is that it might pull you away from everyday life if you become addicted, thus distracting you from the things that really matter, like family, exercise, school, or work.
- Potential risks to eyesight. When you game too much, you may experience a number of eye-related side effects, including discomfort, fatigue, headaches and impaired vision. It’s always important that screen time is limited, especially for younger children.
- Age-appropriate content. For children, especially, it can be difficult to monitor all elements of a game to ensure it is appropriate for them. Parents should ensure that their children’s games aren’t exposing them to content which they deem inappropriate for their age.
- Cyber-bullying. Online games connect people across the globe. This kind of technology can be a positive, but also a negative, as it can allow cyber-bullying which is very common in more toxic gaming communities.
If you loved this article, you will LOVE all of our other articles, such as: How to Develop Problem-Solving Skills in Students, Top Tips for Scholarship Exam Preparation and The Benefits and Importance of Learning About Grammar.
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