Video Games and Children

When live in the digital age, it’s a fact. Children are using more technology than ever and in many ways it makes life safer and easier for families. But when 40- 75% of children in middle school already have cell phones, as well as 89% of children have their own laptops, and 97% of children and young adults play video games and/or own a gaming system. With the prevalence of video games obvious many adults have started asking themselves how these games affect their children. Should I be worried that my child is playing violent video games? How long should I allow my child to play video games? These questions are ones parents who are raising children in the era of technology should be asking, these are the questions that have prompted experts to conduct countless studies on the topic. So here it is the good, bad, and ugly of video games effect on children. I will present information on the positive effects of gaming the negative effects of gaming, and what experts recommend is healthy for a child. Violent shoot ‘em up games or seemingly mindless racing games like Mario Kart or time consuming apps like Angry Birds don’t necessarily bring pleasant thoughts to many parents minds but believe it or not there are some positive effects from video games. Video games actually improve problem solving and logic skills. Specifically, the popular app Angry Birds forces children and adults alike to quickly come up with creative solutions to problems. As for those violent video games parents begrudgingly by their children, well they tend to increase hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and spatial skills. Shooting games often require the virtual character to be running and shooting at the same time. In order to be successful the real life controller must keep track of the character, obstacles in the characters way, the targets position, and the speed at which they are pursuing each other and if the gunfire is hitting the target. Processing this information indeed causes the