The Isolation of Video Games

In an August 2011 New York Times article titled “The Kids Are Not All Right,” Joe Bakan wrote, “A recent Kaiser Family Foundation study reports that children spend more hours engaging with various electronic media -- TV, games, videos and other online entertainments -- than they spend in school." This simple statement makes a powerful impact--are the children of America spending more time plugged into the tv than they are at school? 
Since children’s primary opportunities for socializing occur at school, it’s a likely possibility that they really do spend more time with virtual friends than with real ones. Excessive video game use may be encouraging or even creating antisocial behavior in children. Parents, teachers, friends, and siblings need to combat this by making an effort to spend time with the children in their lives, enabling the kids to learn good social skills and acceptable behaviors.

updatednews.ca

            Everyone is affected by an overuse of video games, but children are especially susceptible. What children learn during their first several years of life is critical to their ability to develop and grow in a normal way. If, during this important time, they spend more time playing video games than they do socializing with others people, like family members, it will negatively affect the way they are able to befriend and interact with others. We’re going to end up with a generation of children with excellent hand-eye coordination and no social skills whatsoever.

Winmentalhealth.com

          It would be dangerous to oversimplify this issue, since different forms and types of video games promote and teach different things. But it would also be dangerous to assume that educational video games can take the place of personal relationships. In light of new research in support of educational video games, it becomes increasingly easy to let children spend more and more time in front of a screen, cut off from all others forms of human life. Despite the potential educational value of some video games, children need to spend time with others to create a healthy balance in their developing lives and susceptible minds.

photobucket.com

The Future of Children, a website published by Princeton University, has posted some interesting research on this topic and related subjects. In one online journal titled “Children and Electronic Media,” Barbara J. Wilson wrote, “Some media messages can teach children positive, pro-social lessons, while others can lead children to be fearful or even to behave antisocially.” Based on this information, it’s safe to say that the amount of time children spend playing video games needs to be carefully monitored and balanced with plenty of interaction with other people.

While video games can teach children everything from math and science to coping mechanisms and friendship, an overabundance of electronic face time can rob children of valuable social learning experiences and harm their ability to progress. 

By Katherine Cutchins