Psychological Effects of Video Games on Children and Adolescents
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JULY 05, 2020
Psychological Effects of Video Games on Children and Adolescents
Active Video Games (AVGs) have effectively substituted the outdoor games that children and adolescents were initially accustomed to playing in avoidance of the sedentary life at home. While the AVGs have helped in reducing idleness and other destructive effects of inactivity at home, there are a number of disadvantages attached to it. Studies show that outdoor games played a significant role in improving as well as maintaining good health amongst children due to their active nature. However, these health benefits have recently also been attributed to AVGs in regards to the physiological and psychosocial developments of kids. In the Journal articles “Video Gaming and Children’s Psychosocial Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Study” by Lobel et al. and “Competitive active video games: Physiological and psychological responses in children and adolescents” by Lison et al., the authors empirically show that video games have benefits as well as drawbacks to the physiological and psychosocial developments of children and adolescents. This paper gives an overview of each of the articles main points of argument as well as a critique on the same.
In “Video Gaming and Children’s Psychosocial Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Study” by Lobel et al., the study primarily gives insights into some of the positive and negative influences that video games have on the psychosocial developments in children and adolescents. The study draws its participants primarily from children of the age between 7 years to 11 years. This age group is chosen chiefly because the children falling within it have barely formed behavioral patterns on how to handle issues affecting them both socially and psychologically. Additionally, the study focuses on violent gaming, cooperative gaming, and competitive gaming. It uses interviews and lab sessions to establish the impacts of the aforementioned gaming types on the emotional changes of children and adolescents as they develop psychosocially. Cooperative gaming involves video games that require multiple players to cooperate in teams to achieve a certain gaming goal (Lobel, Engels, Stone, Burk & Granic, 2017). In contrast, competitive gaming involves video games that antagonize players to achieve respective personal gaming goals (Lobel, Engels, Stone, Burk & Granic, 2017). Moreover, the study’s focus is on externalizing problems, internalizing problems, peer relations problem, hyperactivity and inattention as the main negative effects of video games on children (Lobel, Engels, Stone, Burk & Granic, 2017). In this respect, the findings of the study are that violent and competitive gaming potentially causes externalizing problems such aggressive behaviors among children, competitive gaming leads to reduction of pro-social behaviors among children especially who play the video games more frequently, and high frequency gaming causes inattention and hyperactivity. The underlying reason highlighted by the authors for these drawbacks are the use of feedback cycles in the AVGs, quick rewards for fast-paced games and reinforcement schedules which conditions the mind towards unhealthy habits (Lobel, Engels, Stone, Burk & Granic, 2017).
Nevertheless, the study also shows that video games helps in conditioning the children’s mind to perform healthy mental habits such as effective communication in the case of cooperative gaming, effective handling of negative feelings of frustration in the case of competitive gaming and determination in personal goals (Lobel, Engels, Stone, Burk & Granic, 2017). However, the study shows that the relationship between gaming and hyperactivity is lacking (Lobel, Engels, Stone, Burk & Granic, 2017), and video games generally have minimal impact on the psychosocial development of children and adolescents.
In “Competitive active video games: Physiological and psychological responses in children and adolescents”, the study focuses on the physiological and psychological impacts of Kinetic Adventure Games in children as well as adolescents. The study also draws its participants from the age group between 7 years and 13 years. Kinetic Adventures Games (KAGs) involves either a single player or multiple competing players (Lisón et al., 2015). This particular study shows that KAGs effect mental experiences such as self-efficiency, perceived ability as well as affect. It finds that an increase in the rate of perceived exertions causes increase on the affect or emotions (Lisón et al., 2015). The study shows that competitive gaming in active video games is perceived by children to be engaging and exhausting than the single-player video games. This is because it increases the experiences of pleasure and affect that are similar to any other physical activity (Lisón et al., 2015). Additionally, the study also found that AVGs are without barriers of participation such as weather conditions, time limits and safety of environment since the activity is in-door. However, the drawbacks such as high cost of gaming consoles, ability to manipulate the game settings and less physical movements when playing video games inhibits use of AVGs as an alternative of outdoor games.
Both articles give clear empirical evidences of the positive psychological and social effects of active video games in the psychosocial development of children and adolescents. However, the studies fall short in elucidating how the psychological impacts of the AVGs are able to reduce the health risk that might result from physical inactivity which is greatly associated with video gaming. The primary concern of most pediatric health experts and parents is on both psychological and physical development of children. The studies have not shown biologically how the positive psychological experiences of playing video games translate to physical benefits. Nonetheless, video games are effective substitutes for outdoor games especially in regards to psychological developments of children and adolescents.
References
Lisón, J., Cebolla, A., Guixeres, J., Álvarez-Pitti, J., Escobar, P., & Bruñó, A. et al. (2015). Competitive active video games: Physiological and psychological responses in children and adolescents. Paediatrics & Child Health, 20(7), 373-376. doi: 10.1093/pch/20.7.373
Lobel, A., Engels, R., Stone, L., Burk, W., & Granic, I. (2017). Video Gaming and Children’s Psychosocial Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Study. Journal Of Youth And Adolescence, 46(4), 884-897. doi: 10.1007/s10964-017-0646-z
