Video games have been very popular over the years, many kids and adults spend their time in front of it. Many researchers have many opinions on this very controversial topic. A Lot of the sources where saying that video games were good for you, on the other hand, many said otherwise. Overall video games are not bad, they can be good for you, until it’s overdone. Many people spend hours in front of the video game and that’s overdoing it. Another example is being addicted to the game. That’s also bad because addiction to anything is bad for you. There are cons for playing video games but there is also the pros for playing video games. Also when do video games become bad for you?
One con of playing video games is that it’s addicting. Many kids are addicted to playing video games. Romeo Vitelli commented “At this time, however, video game addiction (GA) is not considered to be a mental disorder. Yet research suggests that 0.5 percent of all gamers and 1.7 percent of ninth-graders experience symptoms associated with excessive video game use. ( Vitelli)” o.5 percent of all gamers are addicted to video games, and that’s a lot because roughly 211 million people play video games and o.5 percent of 211 million is about 10 million people who are addicted to video games. That is a very huge number of people, Romeo Vitelli also commented “The motivation for playing also seems to be a factor in addiction. People who game for fun or socializing are less likely to become addicted to people who are caught up in the need for status or simply to escape from the problems in their lives. (Vitelli)” people who just games for fun are less likely to get addicted than competitive players.
Video game addiction can result in a lack of successful experiences in real life, divorce or separation of parents, behavioral problems or problems at school, truancy from classes, school phobia, poor grades, and finally repeating a grade. Problematic gaming can lead to bad things. Neha John-Henderson quoted “The survey results show that problematic gamers are much more likely to smoke cigarettes, be aggressive, and show symptoms of being depressed. (Henderson)” Problematic gaming is a form of addiction to video games but worse. The quote is telling us that based on survey results problematic gamers would more likely smoke cigarettes, be aggressive, and show symptoms of being depressed.
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There are many pros to playing video games. Frank Lantz comments “Video games can make us smarter, happier, improve our mood, elevate our energy level, protect from psychological damage, help us recover from neurological trauma, facilitate social coordination, and allow us to combine imagination, emotion, and analytical reasoning. (Lantz)” video games have many good side effects if you’re using it the right way. Video games can result in making us smarter also it can improve our mood, it can hype us up and reduce the chance of psychological damage.
All those things can help our day to day lives. Another quote from Frank Lantz “ Zimbardo admits that some data has shown that video games can improve our fluid intelligence, which is our capacity to learn new information and solve problems in novel situations(Lantz)” there is data that shows that video games improve our fluid intelligence, that’s our capacity to learn new things. “Games train the brain to see the hidden logic that determines the surface features of the world. (Lantz)”
There are many things that we sometimes don’t pay attention to and video games can help us with that. Finally “ Games are designed to produce situations we didn’t expect and problems whose solutions are non-obvious. The real world confronts us with problems like his all the time: scenarios with trade-offs, unintended consequences, and unpredictable outcomes. Games give our brains miniature playgrounds within which to safely explore the dangerous complexity of the world. (Lantz)” Video games allow us to do things in the game without judgment or consequences in the real world. Video games can also relieve stress, it’s a good way to take your mind off the work you have to do.
What are the red flags when video games start to become bad for you? The first one is addiction when you feel that you put everything aside to play video games. That’s a red flag because you might be addicted. In the previous quotes, addiction to video games is very bad, it says it can lead to things that hurt both you and the people around you. The second thing is if you play too much. This again goes back to addiction, you won’t play a lot only if you’re addicted to it. If you only play and forget about your work and life that’s an addiction and your playing too much. For example, if you played for 10 hours straight that is considered very bad. You wasted your time playing, and you probably had work to do.
Video games have both good and bad effects on us. Video games can get us addicted, we can also become a problematic gamer. But the good of video games outweigh the bad, video games can improve our fluid intelligence, relieve stress and improve our mood. Video games also helps us reduce the chance of us having a psychological damage, it also helps us recover from a neurological trauma. Video games can also help us get smarter in some ways, lets us see things we did not see before. And video games are a good playground to do what you want without getting judgement or consequences in the real world. This is why video games are actually very good for you.
