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February 16, 2016 College Living Experience

They Aren't Just a Waste of Time

by Scott Allen, Psy.D., Director of Psychological Services, CLE Austin

Like it or not, the appearance and methodology of socialization are changing in our kids and young adults. As technology becomes a greater part of our everyday lives, it makes sense that our everyday practices may be influenced both negatively and positively by its tremendous pull. Video games were first popularized when I was a young child; however, they were an activity that was by and large used in free time while parents encouraged their children to engage in more "constructive activities," such as social play.

These days, gaming is more intricately entwined with socialization. All "next generation" systems have modalities to play remotely with other users, game publishers are taking advantage of social gaming by publishing more games that give clear advantages to people who play with others, and more group-based games are being published. The boundary between socialization and gaming is becoming less and less clear, and we as professionals and parents need to evolve along with technology if we truly want to impact students on the autism spectrum or with other special needs in a positive way.

As a clinician who has been working with students with autism-spectrum disorders and other executive-functioning difficulties for over ten years, I strongly believe in the power of utilizing student interests in order to teach new or difficult skills. On some occasions, it may be as simple as offering a few minutes of time on an iPad as a reinforcer after a period of hard work. On others, the gaming experience may be utilized as a tool to teach new skills. This use of gaming serves not only as a rapport-building tool, but it also increases students' motivation in the interaction and improves the relatability of the clinician or provider.

Here are some examples of ways that video games can be utilized in social-skills training.

Children and young adults with autism and other disabilities (not to mention neurotypical individuals) often struggle with turn taking during conversations and games. It doesn't take an expensive program or game to work on turn taking; there are numerous free and/or cheap applications to suit this need. One of my favorite strategies is to use the game Angry Birds as a cooperative game. Participants can pick a different type of bird on each level and they must switch off to perform each bird's respective actions. Using a video game for this purpose increases student interest and investment in the activity.

A great number of games, such as the World of Warcraft series involve tasks or quests involving multiple people with different roles. One character type simply cannot complete every task or every goal in the game. There are simpler games that can fit the same purpose, such as Super Mario 3D World or any of the Lego games, where there are clear advantages of healthy communication among players.

I certainly don't believe that video games are the only way to teach social skills; however, they can be wonderful tools for individuals who are difficult to motivate or who have strong interests in gaming. If anything, I view video games as an extension of the principles of incidental teaching, a teaching methodology that involves finding opportunities in play to teach new skills.

Simply introducing games in social skills training can increase rapport, improve communication (games often take the defenses down), and they assist students with seeing the relevance of the skills that they are learning. It also adds an experiential component to teaching that is likely to contribute to faster skill acquisition, application, and generalization. I strongly believe that if we look hard enough, we can find opportunity to teach in any activity. Based on this principle, I strongly encourage you to "game on."

Newsletter Articles - February 2016

The post The Use of Video Games to Teach Social Skills appeared first on College Living Experience | CLE | Choose Your Future.

This has been a special needs program update from College Living Experience | CLE | Choose Your Future. You may also click here to read the original article on the main program website.

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The Use of Video Games to Teach Social Skills - Special Needs Program Directory

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They Aren't Just a Waste of Time by Scott Allen, Psy.D., Director of Psychological Services, CLE Austin Like it or not, the appearance and methodology of socialization are changing in our kids and young adults. As technology becomes a greater part of our everyday lives, it makes sense that our everyday practices may be influenced ...

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News Science

Scientists found associations between high video game use and better social skills and school performance

Young children who play a lot of video games may be more likely to have better intellectual and social skills than their non-gaming peers, a new scientific study has suggested.

The study, conducted by an international team of researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York, involved the analysis of mental health data relating to thousands of children between the ages of six and 11 from across Europe.

The data was collected through questionnaires filled out by parents and teachers, and the children responded to the questions through an interactive tool.

Read more

Accounting for variations in development explained by the children's ages and genders, the team found that high video game usage was associated with a 1.75 times increase in the odds of high intellectual functioning.

Children who played a lot of video games were also found to be 1.88 times more likely to have "high overall school competence."

The affect of video games on children's social skills is often a cause for concern, but the team found links between high game usage and better peer relationships and good social skills.

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During their analysis, the researchers found no significant associations between gaming and child mental health problems, regardless of whether they were reported by parents, teachers, or the children themselves.

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Katherine M. Keyes, PhD, an assistant epidemiology professor at the Mailman School who worked on the study, said: "Video game playing is often a collaborative leisure time activity for school-aged children, and these results indicate that children who frequently play video games may be socially cohesive with peers and integrated into the school community."

However, Keyes urged against over-interpretation of their findings, saying that "setting limits on screen usage remains an important components of parental responsibility as an overall strategy for student success."

A paper detailing the findings, published earlier this month in the journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, concludes by saying that mechanisms through which games stimulate children should be investigated further.

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1/1 Video games may improve children's intellectual skills, study finds

Video games may improve children's intellectual skills, study finds

Scientists found associations between high video game use and better social skills and school performance

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Video games may actually have positive effects on young children, study finds

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News Science Scientists found associations between high video game use and better social skills and school performance Young children who play a lot of video games may be more likely to have better intellectual and social skills than their non-gaming peers, a new scientific study has suggested.

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Imagine a hardcore video game fanatic, and the picture you summon probably won't resemble Roman Rivera.

He grew up captivated by games from "Pokemon" to "Call of Duty," and evaded his mom's screen time limits by covertly playing his Game Boy after lights out. Now that he's 21, he spends up to four hours a day battling enemies in the virtual arena of "Dota 2."

Yet he was an honor student and a member of the debate team at Downers Grove North High School, and today he's studying economics at the University of Chicago. These accomplishments didn't come in spite of gaming, Rivera said; in a way, gaming helped to make them possible.

"You pick up skills from whatever you do, and you can decide to aim those skills in an intellectual direction," he said, crediting video games with broadening his interests and improving his mental dexterity. "They definitely enhanced the abilities I needed in life that weren't always directly present. Without a doubt they have benefited me."

Rivera's belief echoes a new wave of research that has found surprising advantages in an activity many dismiss as a waste of time, if not an outright menace. Social scientists have recently linked gaming with enhanced mental skills, moral sensitivity and even physical fitness, creating a new image of this ubiquitous but controversial pastime.

"We're working really hard on understanding what aspects of gaming could be leveraged for the betterment of society," said Daphne Bavelier, a cognitive neuroscientist who researches video games at the University of Geneva in Switzerland and the University of Rochester in New York. "Everyone understands it's here to stay. It's not going to disappear. You could try to ban it, but it seems to have really interesting positive effects."

John J. Kim, Chicago Tribune

Noah Bakshis, 15, plays the computer video game "Dust: An Elysian Tail" at his Plainfield home.

Noah Bakshis, 15, plays the computer video game "Dust: An Elysian Tail" at his Plainfield home. (John J. Kim, Chicago Tribune)

'Techno-panic' ending
Researchers have done thousands of studies on gaming since the 1980s, often with unmistakably negative results. Some associated video games with an increased risk of epileptic seizures, while others cautioned that the games could provoke dangerously elevated heart rates. Many studies also linked violent games to aggression and anti-social behavior.

Such findings contributed to the anxiety surrounding video games, said Christopher Ferguson, a psychology professor at Florida's Stetson University. He cited the outcry over violent games that came when Newtown gunman Adam Lanza was portrayed as a shooting game obsessive (investigators ultimately found that Lanza's primary gaming fixation was "Dance Dance Revolution").

Ferguson said early research into any new technology is often flawed. Studies that aim to find negative effects get funded and promoted, while those with more benign findings are unpublished and forgotten, he said.

When a new generation of scholars more familiar with the technology comes along, different results often appear - and that's what is happening with gaming, he said.

"We're just not seeing the kind of data emerge that would support the techno-panic that was common in earlier years," he said.

Ferguson has done dozens of studies on the subject and has consistently found that violent video games do not contribute to societal aggression. One recent project actually concluded that some children who play violent games are less likely than others to act like bullies.

"My speculation is that maybe kids turn to video games cathartically ... or it could just be that they're busy, so they don't have time to bully other kids," he said.

Another counterintuitive take on video game violence came from University of Buffalo communications professor Matthew Grizzard, who had research subjects play a first-person shooter game as either a United Nations soldier or a terrorist.

He found that those who took the role of bad guy often felt guilt over the virtual bloodshed they committed and exhibited greater moral sensitivity than those who played as soldiers.

"Video games are these important moral sandboxes," he said. "They allow us to practice moral decision-making we can't do in the real world. Games can be this really important tool for teaching people what the right decisions might be. Maybe one way to do that is showing what the consequences of wrong decisions would be."
Gamers more fit?
Gaming has long been identified as a factor in worsening child obesity, but research that scholar Chennan Liu performed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign suggests the pastime might have gotten a bad rap. Youth survey data she examined found that those who play video games for an average of three to six hours a day were healthier than those who played less.

Liu, now a professor of social work at Renmin University of China, said the unexpected result calls for further study. But she guessed that gaming might burn more calories than watching TV, or that kids gripping a controller are less inclined to pick up a snack or a soda.

That theory made sense to Dan Wojtowicz, 18, a student at Andrew High School in Tinley Park, who spends up to seven hours a day on "Starcraft II," "League of Legends" and other games.

"When I go on long gaming streaks, many times I don't feel the need to eat as much, even though it takes a lot of my energy," he said. "I can go without eating for three to four hours."

The most intriguing studies might be coming from neuroscientists, who are using MRIs and other high-tech devices to learn how gaming affects the brain. Simone Kuhn, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, has found that the prefrontal cortex actually grows thicker and gray matter more voluminousin people who play games as humble as "Super Mario 64," changes that could improve memory and navigational ability.

Bavelier has focused on cognitive performance, finding that first-person shooters - one of the most reviled categories of video games - can help improve a person's vision and ability to pay attention.

How that might translate into real-world benefits is still unclear, but Bavelier noted that young gamers have been shown to make superior laparoscopic surgeons, performing faster and making fewer errors than more experienced peers.

"One thing about this work, you need to leave at the door what you think this technology is doing and study it in earnest," she said. "It's not the case that we can get a sense of its impact intuitively."
Doubters remain
Not everyone is sold on the positive findings coming from recent gaming research. Joseph Bisoglio, who has studied the subject at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, said "the hype has outpaced the data."

One big problem, he said, is that studies generally don't compare gaming with other activities that stimulate the brain, such as learning to speak another language or practicing a musical instrument. So while gaming might improve cognitive performance in some ways, he said, other activities could produce even more profound effects.

"I'm just generally cautious, especially when something can very easily bemarketed," he said. "Video games already make a lot of money, and to say they're therapeutic before the evidence is there, that really concerns me."

Doug Bakshis was dubious of the value of video games when his son Noah began to shut himself in his room to play the likes of "Minecraft" and "Fallout: New Vegas" for hours at a time. But then Noah, who has Asperger's syndrome, started to show a more open personality.

"The games have had a very calming effect on him," Bakshis said. "In the gaming world, he's in control of the environment, where he's not in the real world. He's gotten much more focused, and when things have happened in the real world, he's been more able to deal with it."

Noah Bakshis, now a 15-year-old freshman at Downers Grove North, said gaming has expanded his interests, prompting him to study archery and Japanese culture after first encountering the topics virtually. His attention, focus and coordination have also improved, he said, as has his self-awareness.

"(Games) helped me discover what my inner ethics are, what choices I would make in particular situations," he said. "What I've found is I generally try to resolve things peacefully. ... You can grow emotional attachment to the characters, and that's not a bad thing. It proves they can give humanization to a bunch of polygons."
Twitter @JohnKeilman

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Video games can be good for you, new research says

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Imagine a hardcore video game fanatic, and the picture you summon probably won't resemble Roman Rivera. He grew up captivated by games from "Pokemon" to "Call of Duty," and evaded his mom's screen time limits by covertly playing his Game Boy after lights out.

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The topic of how video games have evolved over the years is massive. There have been millions of games created in the 50 years since creation of 1962's Spacewar!, the first true video game. So the best way to approach this topic briefly is to select a genre and survey the main trends. This essay will focus on games in the adventure/roleplaying genre in which players take the role of one or more heroes on a quest of some sort.

The earliest adventure video games were, in a sense, not video at all. Instead they used text to create worlds for the player to explore. The first of these was Adventure, designed by Will Crowther and enhanced by Don Woods. The player read text descriptions of a cave and typed in simple noun-verb commands ("go north" "take lantern", etc.) to navigate through the cave and interact with its denizens. Text-based games worked around the limited RAM (random-access memory) in early computers by focusing on story and setting at the expense of graphics.

The earliest adventure video games were, in a sense, not video at all.

A major evolution in the adventure genre (or step back, as text-game purists might claim) was the translation of the text-adventure to a visual format. In 1980 the Atari 2600 released its own Adventure. Adventure included the exploration, loot gathering, and simple monster fighting of the early text adventures. Given the limitations on computer processing power, however, the main character had to be represented as a colored square. Objects and monsters, swords and dragons, were all represented by crude pixelated graphics. Still, the use of a joystick and a visual environment gave players the ability to explore more widely and in real time rather than in the turn-based format of text adventures.

[New games] took advantage of gaming hardware's increasing capabilities.

With the advent of computers and consoles that could render video, adventure games, and all other video games, began to develop in similar ways. First, they took advantage of gaming hardware's increasing capabilities. The Atari 2600 had no hard drive to store programs, virtually no RAM, and ROM (read-only memory) game cartridges with only two to four kilobytes of memory. Graphics could only be displayed at a resolution of approximately 160 by 228 pixels in 128 colors. Modern PCs have hard drives measuring in gigabytes, onboard RAM averaging four gigabytes (one gigabyte is approximately a trillion kilobytes). Perhaps more important, modern gaming PCs have dedicated chips for rendering video, allowing for graphics verging on photorealism.

Second, controllers gradually developed into the modern forms. The classic Atari joystick had a directional control and a single button. The NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) controller had a four-way directional pad and two buttons: more inputs meant potentially more actions one could take in a game. Current consoles such as the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 have controllers with a directional pad, one or more thumb-sized joysticks, and a series of triggers and buttons that can be combined to create a large number of different player inputs. In the PC gaming realm, the development of the mouse and keyboard combination allowed for an even greater number of player inputs.

Players of the adventure genre came to demand more sophisticated stories and moral choices.

These and other changes affected adventure games in unique ways, as well. The original text and Atari Adventure games had bare-bones stories. As the art of game design developed and the representational abilities of computers increased, players of the adventure genre came to demand more sophisticated stories and moral choices.

One of the better-known games to focus on moral elements was Bioware's Star Wars-based roleplaying game (or RPG, a hybrid of adventure and combat games) Knights of the Old Republic. In this game players could choose to follow the "light" or "dark" side by making choices that helped or hurt in-game characters. In contrast, Bethesda's popular Elder Scrolls RPG series, the most recent of which is Skyrim, focused on consequences to actions rather than an overarching morality system. The game's designers created a sandbox-like environment where players could even avoid the main story altogether and focus instead on exploring the simulated world.

Video game history has not been a straight line towards larger, more complicated, more graphics-heavy games.

However, video game history has not been a straight line towards larger, more complicated, more graphics-heavy games. Text-based adventure games have not disappeared. For instance, the company Infocom developed and released text-based adventures throughout the 1980s. They actively compared their games to the crude graphics available on consoles and computers at the time: "We draw our graphics from the limitless imagery of your imagination-a technology so powerful that it makes any picture that's ever come out of a screen look like graffiti in comparison." When commercial sales of text-based adventures trailed off in the 1990s, fans of the format began developing text-based games themselves and distributing them for free.

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The topic of how video games have evolved over the years is massive. There have been millions of games created in the 50 years since creation of 1962's Spacewar!, the first true video game. So the best way to approach this topic briefly is to select a genre and survey the main trends.

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Claim - Video Games Affect Children in Many Ways 

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Claim - Video Games Affect Children in Many Ways 

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What Happens When Kids Get Affected by Video Games

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What Happens When Kids Get Affected by Video Games

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1.Obesity
2.Socializing
3. Addiction

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Getty Images

A new study finds changes in brain regions associated with addiction in frequent video gaming teenagers. But the findings raise questions about whether such research is really relevant to the understanding of true addiction.

Led by psychologist Simone Kuhn of the University of Ghent in Belgium, scientists studied 154 normal 14-year-old videogamers. About half were frequent gamers who played at least 9 hours of video games a week. The others were less frequent gamers whose playing time didn't reach that amount.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers scanned the teens' brains and found that frequent gamers had a greater volume of gray matter - indicating a higher number of brain cell bodies - on the left side of a brain region called the ventral striatum, which is known to play a role in reward and addiction.

Further, while inside a functional MRI scanner, participants performed a task that involved pushing buttons to get varying levels of points for correct responses. Teens were advised in advance of how many points the correct answer would earn on each trial and were kept informed of their scores. The task was designed to gauge brain activity as the participants' anticipated and received (or lost) a reward. Frequent gamers showed higher levels activity in the left ventral striatum when they received feedback about losing points - activity that mirrors that seen in addicted gamblers.

Outside of the scanner, the teens were also tested on a gambling task, in which they had to bet on the color of a hidden object, under conditions of greater or lesser probability of a correct answer. Frequent gaming teens made decisions more quickly during this task.

MORE: Why Kids With High IQs Are More Likely to Take Drugs

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of studies have associated the striatum with reward, motivation and desire. This brain region is rich in dopamine cells and helps guide decision-making and the pursuit of desired experiences and goals.

Changes in this region have also been seen in drug addictions, sometimes showing increased volume, sometimes less. It's hard to know exactly what that means, however, because many drugs themselves directly change dopamine activity. The precise effect of such brain changes would be clearer with more research in behavioral addictions that don't involve brain-affecting chemicals.

The authors cite research showing that increased left striatum activity in response to loss has been seen in addicted gamblers. They also note that these brain differences in video gamers may not reflect the effects of video gaming itself, but rather the fact that people who have higher striatal responses to gaming are more likely to become skilled at video games and that this may make it more rewarding for them.

"These findings, linking ventral striatum abnormalities to compulsive computer gaming in young people, are highly relevant to clinical practice as they further close the gap between this activity and other addictions, giving us a better understanding of possible long term treatment interventions," said Henrietta Bowden Jones, a lecturer in neuroscience at Imperial College London, in a comment released in conjunction with the study.

But I'm left wondering where in the research the authors found the teens engaging in "compulsive" behavior. Indeed, this study may actually tell us more about the healthy experience of reward than it does about addiction. None of the teens imaged for these studies were addicted gamers; in order to be cleared to participate, they had to be psychologically healthy. If they had been having problems with their parents or grades, they would have been excluded.

It's rather unsurprising, in fact, that people who enjoy videogames more would have greater activation in the pleasure-related regions of the brain while engaged in similar activities than those who are less into them. It's also not especially shocking that those who care more about the outcome of a game have a stronger response to losses within it. While people tend to think of dopamine as "coding for" pleasure, in fact, some dopamine neurons respond to negative experiences like stress and fear.

Consequently, I wonder what would be seen in the striatum if researchers scanned top scientists, musicians, athletes or chess champions while engaged in a test of their skills. If our theories about the actions of dopamine and this region are at all correct, it would be rather astonishing if they didn't find similar activity with such intense engagement in the experiences that particular people find most rewarding.

Would that mean that these high-level performers are "addicted" to their talent? Their friends and family who feel neglected because of their single-minded dedication to achievement might make that case - but most people, especially those who study addiction, wouldn't buy it in all but the most extreme cases.

According to the most widely accepted definition, the one found in psychiatry's DSM, addiction consists of compulsive activity despite negative consequences. It's not simply pursuing pleasure or being obsessed by a drug or activity. If the consequences of the obsession are positive or neutral, the behavior does not meet the criteria that would define the condition as addiction.

As a result, if we want to understand addiction, studies like these can offer important insight into what goes on when the disorder is not present. However, if we see these striatum changes as representing addiction or possibly early signs of it, we may completely fail to find the relevant differences between addicts and others. The differences that matter have to do with being unable to stop, not enjoying a passion.

If we continue to pathologize video game use by assuming that it is simply a negative activity that must be addictive because adults think it's a waste of time, we will fail to understand the difference between ordinary and problem gaming. And continue to misunderstand addiction more generally, reducing our chances of effectively helping those who suffer from it.

The study was published in Translational Psychiatry.
Maia Szalavitz is a health writer at TIME.com. Find her on Twitter at @maiasz. You can also continue the discussion on TIME Healthland's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIMEHealthland.

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Brain Changes in Video Gamers: Addiction or Just People Having Fun?

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A new study finds changes in brain regions associated with addiction in frequent video gaming teenagers. But the findings raise questions about whether such research is really relevant to the understanding of true addiction. Led by psychologist Simone Kuhn of the University of Ghent in Belgium, scientists studied 154 normal 14-year-old videogamers.

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There's this term called parentification where a child is forced to become a little adult. This happens for many reasons, one of which is having a parent who is addicted to some substance or behavior. With video game addiction, children may learn:

Their needs are not important, and they may delve into the role of rescuer. This can translate into being a caregiver as an adult where relationships are not equal. Children of addicts who adopt this caregiver role may gravitate to others who need rescuing, or who may benefit from being cared for; people pleasers.

Being parentified tends to rob a person of their childhood, since they had to grow up so quickly. There may be a sense of unresolved loss, as well as an attempt to reclaim childhood as an adult.

There may also be a high sense of responsibility for others, and discomfort when things are imperfect. This high responsibility and perfectionism can help with being successful in certain aspects of life, like working for others or climbing the professional ladder. Paired with perfectionism and responsibility, though, is anxiety, lots of it.

Having to live with an addict may also develop a sense of hyper vigilance, and even heightened interpersonal skills. Being a child around an angry adult is scary. To survive, a child may learn how to read the most subtlest of cues to know when to respond by alleviating the stress, or to run away for safety.

The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma notes that we tend to repeat our traumas for the sake of closure and healing. If a child is exposed to addiction, this behavior is normalized, and has a very high chance of being part of the child's narrative. If it isn't video games, it might be some other type of substance that numbs the bad feelings.

In addition to a high possibility of becoming an addict themselves, they may not know what a healthy relationship is, or what it looks like to cope through life's problems in a way that isn't damaging. This will take time to unravel and heal before new skills are adopted. Recovery is very possible. Living with addiction can shape the most compassionate people. It takes guts to live a life where you believe you are worthy of something different.

As noted by Alexander, age of the child can affect how influential a parent's addiction is. If a child is older, they may be able to adapt more quickly, and find resources to help the family cope. An older child may also be able to verbalize their worries for their parent.

Having addiction as part of your story can direct you towards helping others as well. Being a resilient person can help children cope, and reframe their experience as a strength. Adult Children of Alcoholics, for instance, have support groups and mentors to help others along their journeys. Lots of professionals in mental health use their story to help others.

Increased compassion. There is a potential for those who witness addiction to have more compassion for others, and over time, for themselves as well. To see someone at their worst, controlled by a substance, can help increase perspective to see give others the benefit of the doubt.

Harming Your Child by Making Him Your Parent | World of Psychology

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If a parent is addicted to video games how will it affect their children?

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Answer (1 of 3): There's this term called parentification where a child is forced to become a little adult. This happens for many reasons, one of which is having a parent who is addicted to some substance or behavior. With video game addiction, children may learn: * Their needs are not importan...

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You love your video games, but how much is too much? Find out in this article for kids.

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How do Video Games Affect          The Child's Brain

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How do Video Games Affect          The Child's Brain

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1. Video Games affect the child's brains in some good ways. For example, first person shooters like Call of Duty, improve visual-spatial benefits in areas like perception, attention, task switching, mental rotation, brain plasticity, learning, short-term memory, crowding acuity, contrast sensitivity, and perceptual decision processes.2. Nonetheless, Violent Video Games desensitize kids, and actually make kids used to violence.

"continued exposure to violent videos will make an adolescent less sensitive to violence, more accepting of violence, and more likely to commit aggressive acts.”
3. Video Games make people addicted to it. As a study found that, kids that play games have an increase in in " number of brain cell bodies — on the left side of a brain region called the ventral striatum, which is known to play a role in reward and addiction."

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Jesse Lackman says his son spends a dozen hours a week waging medieval combat across the dreary dreamscapes of computer games. Just don't expect to find Lackman sitting beside him battling ogres and dragons.

"It's just such a waste of time," said Lackman, 47, a power plant operator from Center, N.D. "I tell him, 'Do something that has some lasting value.'"

Lackman's avoidance of the digital diversions that captivate his 15-year-old son, Tyrus, is shared by many parents. More than four in 10, or 43 percent, of those whose young children play video or computer games never play along with them, according to an Associated Press-AOL Games poll released Monday.

While experts debate whether electronic gaming is bad news or a blessing for children and their families, many parents are voicing their preference by never - or seldom - joining their kids when it's time to slay cyber scoundrels.

Besides those who simply don't play the games with their children, another 30 percent say they spend less than an hour a week doing so. All told, about three in four parents of young gamers never or hardly ever touch the stuff.

"I don't think it's good for them, the violence, the obsession," said Karen Kimball, 55, of Hale, Minn., another nonplayer who estimates her 17-year-old son plays 25 hours weekly. "No longer is it, 'Let's go out and throw a football.'"

Those who game with their children are likelier to be younger, single and part-time workers than those who don't, the poll showed.

Among them is stay-at-home dad Marvin Paup, 33, of Golden Valley, Ariz., who says he plays 30 hours a week with his son and dozens more on his own.

Their current favorite is "Halo 3," a shooter game played online by thousands of players at a time. His state-of-the-art equipment includes an Xbox 360 console, surround-sound turned up "really, really loud" and a 65-inch wide-screen television, he said.

"That game has bonded me with him," he said of his 10-year-old son Allen. "It's like a whole new reality with me and him."

Overall, the survey highlighted how pervasive - yet age-related - interest in electronic gaming is today.

According to the poll, in which only adults were questioned, 81 percent of children age four to 17 play computer or video games at least occasionally, compared with 38 percent of adults. Typically, both adult and child gamers play two hours weekly - half play more and half less - including about three in 10 who play five hours or more each week.

Reflecting the technology's relatively recent introduction, 59 percent of those age 18 to 29 play at least sometimes, double the rate for people age 50 to 64. There is little difference among users by race or region, with middle-income earners likeliest to indulge.

"It's something to take your mind off business and everything else," said Todd Williams, 33, a salesman from Lexington, Ky., who estimates he plays 10 hours weekly, especially interactive adventure games. "I guess it's the time, which is seldom, that I spend alone."

Sales of games and gaming hardware are rising steadily, said David Riley, marketing director of the NPD Group, a market research firm. He estimates that video and computer game sales this year will total $19 billion in the U.S., up from $13.5 billion last year.

Even so - and despite the publicity given to newer game consoles like the Nintendo Wii, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360 - the proportion of adults saying they play electronic games was virtually unchanged from April 2006, when an AP-AOL poll asked the same question.

Casual games like card or board games were the favorite of 31 percent of gamers, about twice the number who like action games, the next most popular alternative. About half of women cited casual games as their favorites, triple the number of men who did so, while twice as many males than females preferred action games.

Adventure, strategy and sports games were also among the most popular.

The poll also found that among gamers:

44 percent said they play over the Internet;

26 percent said they spent nothing on the pastime last year, another 46 percent spent up to $200 and 12 percent spent $500 or more, with men usually the bigger spenders;

Price is the chief factor for people purchasing a gaming console, followed by the availability of games.

The poll involved telephone interviews with 2,016 adults conducted Oct. 9-11 and 16-18, and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. Included were 770 people who said they play computer or video games, for whom the margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.5 points.
AP reporter Lou Kesten and AP News survey specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

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Many parents avoid video games with kids

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Jesse Lackman says his son spends a dozen hours a week waging medieval combat across the dreary dreamscapes of computer games. Just don't expect to find Lackman sitting beside him battling ogres and dragons. "It's just such a waste of time," said Lackman, 47, a power plant operator from Center, N.D.

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1. Most parents think that video games are bad for their kids.
"I don't think it's good for them, the violence, the obsession; let's go out and throw a football."
2. Some parents play games with their children and think that it's good for them.
"That game has bonded me with him," he said of his 10-year-old son Allen. "It's like a whole new reality with me and him."
3. However, if a parent is addicted to video games, the child would be affected by parentification, where the kid matures earlier than usual.
"Being parentified tends to rob a person of their childhood, since they grow up so quickly. There may be a sense of unresolved loss, as well as an attempt to reclaim childhood as an adult."

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Video games are a unique form of entertainment because they encourage players to become a part of the game's script. Although video games have been available for more than 30 years, today's sophisticated video games require players to pay constant attention to the game.

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1. How do Video Games affect the Child's Brain?
2. What are different styles of effects that children have on Video Games?
3. What causes the child to be affected by Video Games?

4. Are Video G6. Who created the 1st video game?

ames Good for children?
5. Why do children play Video Games?

7. How do Games Work on the child?

8. What do parents think about kids playing video games?

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Although it is not yet recognized by the American Medical Association as a diagnosable disorder, video game addiction is a very real problem for many people. According to the University of New Mexico, recent studies suggest that 6 to 15 percent of all gamers exhibit signs that could be characterized as addiction. Though this disorder can have significant consequences to those suffering from it, its signs and symptoms can sometimes be very difficult to recognize.

Are There Different Types of Video Game Addictions?

There are two major types of video games and therefore two major types of video game addictions. Standard video games are generally designed to be played by a single player and involve a clear goal or mission, such as rescuing a princess. The addiction in these games is often related to completing that mission or beating a high score or preset standard.

The other type of video game addiction is associated with online multiplayer games. These games are played online with other people and are especially addictive because they generally have no ending. Gamers with this type of addiction enjoy creating and temporarily becoming an online character. They often build relationships with other online players as an escape from reality. For some, this community may be the place where they feel they're the most accepted.

What Causes an Addiction to Video Games?

Many different causes factor into video game addiction. One of the main reasons that video games can become so addictive, however, is they are designed to be that way. Video game designers, like anyone else trying to make a profit, are always looking for ways to get more people playing their games. They accomplish this by making a game just challenging enough to keep you coming back for more but not so hard that the player eventually gives up. In other words, success for a gamer often feels just out of reach. In this respect, video game addiction is very similar to another more widely recognized disorder: gambling addiction.

What Are the Signs of Video Game Addiction Problem?

As with any other addiction, video game addiction has warning signs. It is important to know how to recognize these signs if you or someone you care about is an avid gamer. According to the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery, these symptoms can be both emotional and physical.

Emotional Symptoms of Video Game Addiction

Some of the emotional signs or symptoms of video game addiction include:

Feelings of restlessness and/or irritability when unable to play

Preoccupation with thoughts of previous online activity or anticipation of the next online session

Lying to friends or family members regarding the amount of time spent playing

Isolation from others in order to spend more time gaming

Physical Symptoms of Video Game Addiction

Some of the physical signs or symptoms of video game addiction include:

Migraines due to intense concentration or eye strain

Carpal tunnel syndrome caused by the overuse of a controller or computer mouse

Poor personal hygiene

Short-Term and Long-Term Effects of Video Game Addiction

Like any other compulsive disorder, video game addiction can have severe negative consequences. Though most of the symptoms listed above have short-term effects, they can lead to more severe long-term repercussions if not addressed properly. For example, someone addicted to video games will often avoid sleeping or eating proper meals in order to continue gaming. While the short-term effects of this may include hunger and fatigue, it could eventually lead to a sleep disorder or diet-related health issues. Similarly, those who isolate themselves from others in order to play video games may miss out on family events, outings with friends, or other events in the short-term. If this continues to be a pattern for a long period of time, however, addicts might find themselves without any friends at all.

Other long-term effects of video game addiction to consider are the financial, academic and occupational consequences involved. Video games and video game equipment can be very expensive, especially when factoring in recurring costs such as the high-speed Internet connection required for online multiplayer games. These games can also be very time-consuming, leaving addicted gamers with less time to focus on their education or career.

Is There a Test or Self-Assessment I Can Do?

The most effective self-assessment that can be done is to examine the above list of symptoms associated with video game addiction. If you find that you or someone you care about exhibits any of these warnings signs, it may be a good time to cut back on the amount of time spent gaming. If you are unsure whether these symptoms apply to you, we can help. Call our toll-free number at to discuss your possible symptoms or to learn about treatment options.

Medication: Are There Drug Options for Video Game Addictions?

Treatment for video game addiction can come in many forms, including different types of therapy or 12-step programs. Certain medications may even be able to inhibit addictive behaviors.

Drugs: Possible Options

According to addictionblog.org, bupropion is one medication that has been used recently to treat this type of disorder. The drug works in a way that changes the brain's chemistry and helps to decrease cravings for video game play. Though it has proven to be fairly effective, this option may not be for everyone. Others may choose to medicate only when absolutely necessary, treating the symptoms as they occur. For example, a gamer suffering from migraines may take medication for headaches. Likewise, an addict suffering from sleeplessness may turn to sleeping pills.

Medication Side Effects

When you take any form of medication, especially when self-medicating, it is very important to read all directions and follow dosage instructions carefully. Even over-the-counter medications can result in dependency and therefore should not be taken for long periods of time unless it is recommended by a medical professional.

Bupropion, though often helpful, is not for everyone. Some possible side effects include:

Antidepressant Drug Addiction, Dependence and Withdrawal in Online Addicts

Due to the evident link between video game or Internet addiction and depression, it is not surprising that many addicted gamers take antidepressant medication to help with the symptoms. Though most healthcare professionals consider this type of medication to be safe and effective, it also comes with its own set of risks and side effects. One factor to consider before beginning antidepressant medication is that it may be difficult to stop taking it. It is common to experience withdrawal symptoms, including anxiety, irritability, nausea and dizziness. In more serious cases, it is possible to experience depression as a symptom of withdrawal from the medication. This depression can be even more severe than the original depression, leading the patient to believe that the illness has returned.

Medication Overdose

According to the National Safely Council, unintentional overdose is responsible for more deaths among Americans between the ages of 35 and 54 years old than motor vehicle crashes. When taking any medication for addiction or any other problem, it is important to take only the amount prescribed. If you suspect possible overdose, it is important to act quickly. Options for immediate response include dialing 911 or contacting the National Poison Control Center.

Depression and Video Game Addiction

Two recent studies concerning the ties between video game addiction and depression showed an alarming correlation between the two. If you suffer from both conditions, it's important to seek help at a treatment facility that can address both issues. If you attempt to treat the video game addiction without treating the underlying depression, the addiction is more likely to recur.

Dual Diagnosis: Video Game Addiction and Substance Abuse

Because video game addiction has been linked to depression, sleeplessness and an overall lack of concern for one's own health, it is not surprising that substance abuse is also a problem for many gamers suffering from this compulsive disorder. For those suffering from video game addiction as well as substance abuse, proper treatment is imperative to recovery. If you or someone you know is currently suffering from one or both of these disorders, seek professional guidance immediately by calling us at .

Getting Help for Video Game Addiction

Recovery is not always easy, but it is achievable. Video game addiction can be just as dangerous as any other addiction and should be treated as such. The first step in overcoming dependency is being able to recognize that it exists. If you or someone you know exhibits any of the signs or symptoms described above, please don't hesitate to find help treating a video gaming addiction. Call our hotline today at to begin the road to recovery.

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Video Game Addiction Symptoms, Causes and Effects - PsychGuides.com

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Although it is not yet recognized by the American Medical Association as a diagnosable disorder, video game addiction is a very real problem for many people. According to the University of New Mexico, recent studies suggest that 6 to 15 percent of all gamers exhibit signs that could be characterized as addiction.

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Let's face it, most people of this new generation will grow on video games as I did. Video games have become the new normal in media as television and movies were in the past, and the video game industry will continue to rake in the profits.

Many parents seem horrified by video games for a number of reasons, but they fail to recognize that there are some positives from the games as well. For example, video games encourage problem solving skills and logical reasoning, which in fact allows children to solve puzzles creatively, both literally and figuratively. Video games have been shown to increase hand-eye coordination and motor skills, and even has been shown to improve quick thinking.

According to researchers at the University of Rochester, games simulating stressful events are a useful tool for real world situations, and allows the brain to make quick decisions, something necessary for a child's development. One of the benefits of video games that seems to be rarely talked about is aiding in learning how to type. Video games provide an incentive structure for typing, as better typing ability allows greater performance in the games. Not only this, but it allows for greater reading comprehension and inductive reasoning through these means.

Knowing this then what are the harms of video games? It seems like the cons of video games are more prevalent in the mainstream press, as typically the audience is geared toward an older segment of the population. That being said there are certainly harms, as a report by the Surgeon General stated that video games can make children more fearful and less sensitive to pain. Does that mean that children are at a far higher risk of being violent if they play video games?
Well no, as the violent juvenile crime rate in the U.S. has decreased as video game sales have gone up. The arrest rate for juvenile murders has fallen from 71.9 percent between 1995 and 2008 to 49.3 percent, and during this time period video games sales increased tremendously. Despite that it is quite possible that children will not have the same type of social development if they spend a large amount of their time playing video games which can be concerning. Video games, in fact, decrease violence, but there are still concerning factors within video games such as decreased attention, lack of physical activity among others.

So what should one's relation to video games be in this ever changing world? To have an absolute response in either direction is detrimental to a child's well being. Parents should encourage their children to partake in physical activity of course and focus more on education than video games however video games can become part of this. There are many educational video games, and games that encourage physical activity and to slowly ease a child into this only serves to benefit them. This way the child will learn that video games are not a taboo, but at the same time not become dependent on them as many children are today. With video games, as with most things in life, there must be a balancing act between reality and a virtual world.

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The Impact of Video Games on This Generation

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Let's face it, most people of this new generation will grow on video games as I did. Video games have become the new normal in media as television and movies were in the past, and the video game industry will continue to rake in the profits.

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Video games are by many measures one of the most popular and commonly enjoyed forms of entertainment of our time, yet there's a lot of controversy around them.

In the wake of tragic events like the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, political figures like President Donald Trump have declared they want to investigate links between video games and violence.

"I'm hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts," Trump said after the Parkland shooting.

President Obama had similar questions after the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newton, Connecticut.

"Congress will fund research into the effects that violent video games have on young minds," he said at the time, also calling for policies that would ban the purchase of military-style weapons and improve background checks for firearm purchases (changes that could have an impact on gun violence).

Even the World Health Organization has considered adding "gaming disorder" to a list of mental health conditions, stating that problematic gaming behavior might cause problems in other areas of people's lives.

But many other people have pointed out that some types of games offer benefits, including the potential to improve people's ability to pay attention and process visual information.

For all of these reasons, people have lots of questions surrounding what science says about the effects of video games. Do games cause violence or aggression? Are they addictive? Are they healthy ways to relax and de-stress? Could they improve brain processing speed?

Similar questions have arisen after every new form of media appeared - including television, movies, pop music, comics, and even books.

Fortunately, there's a fair amount of research that about how video games affect our brains and bodies. Here are the most important takeaways.

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How playing video games affects your body and brain

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Video games are by many measures one of the most popular and commonly enjoyed forms of entertainment of our time, yet there's a lot of controversy around them. In the wake of tragic events like the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, political figures like President Donald Trump have declared they want to investigate links between video games and violence.

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Danielle Dai and Amanda Fry
Little bit o' history
If you are a parent in this era of information and technology, chances are you have a child who has played, is playing, or will be playing video games. The video game industry is a rapid-growing market that went from having a market volume of $100 million in 1985 to $4 billion in 1990 (Gartner, 2013). How did this industry gain so much ground? Where did it start? Prior to the 1980's, there were what we may consider rudimentary computer games, commercially sold coin-operated games, and home consoles. Shortly after the North-American Video Game Crash of 1983 -a massive recession that hit the industry- the Nintendo Entertainment System induced a resurgence in popularity that has only continued to grow (Cesarone, 2014). In the years since, the gaming world has expanded and subdivided into numerous categories. There are casual, serious and educational games in mediums ranging from console games to online RPG's (role playing games) to the most recent and flourishing market of mobile games. In 2013, the worldwide market volume totaled $93 billion (Metrics 2.0, 2007).
So what does this mean for our kids today?
In America, 81% of youths play at least once a month, 8.5% of them are addicted and "the average 8- to 12 year-old now plays 13 hours of video games per week, while the average 13- to 18 year old plays 14 hours of video games per week" (Metrics 2.0, 2 007). Because video games are so prominent in children's lives, it is difficult to prevent them from playing video games entirely- but is that even necessary? With such a variety of game types out there, it is difficult to say if video games in general are good or bad. Luckily, there have been countless studies do ne on this and information on the pros and cons can be easily found.
Negatives of Video Games
There are various types of video games available in today's industry. Video games are intended to target different aspects of a child's life. These video games are comprised of a variety of educational, serious, and casual games, but in reality, what child is going to choose a game about learning versus a game where they can kill zombies or drive cars at unruly amounts of speed? A study from Buchman and Funk found that "violent games became consistently popular across grades for both boys and girls" (Cesarone, 1998). Educational games were more popular for some of the girls being asked, but throughout all the age groups, violent video games never lost their superior power in the gaming industry.

Studies have shown the negative effects violent video games have on the younger generation. Calvert and Tan did a study on young adults, where they compared the differences between playing versus observing violent video games. Studies found that "students who had played a violent virtual reality game had a higher heart rate, reported more dizziness and nausea, and exhibited more aggressive thoughts in a posttest than those who had played a nonviolent game" (Cesarone, 1998). Although these studies do not directly determine if aggression increases in their experimenters, they are able to observe behavioral changes that include more aggressive patterns.

Another negative aspect of video games is the fact that kids are spending too much time playing the games rather than physically playing outside. From the quote above, it is evident that kids involved with video games are spending 13 and 14 hours a week playing them rather than just an hour here and there. By spending so much time on their game console or on the computer, children are missing out on their social life. Children are less likely to go out and compete in extracurricular activities which inhibit them from meeting new people and making friends. Funk and Buchman did another study on the effects video games have on kids, but in this one, they were testing for self-competence. Results found that "for boys, but not for girls, a stronger preference for each of the three types of violent games was associated with lower self-competence scores in one or more developmentally important areas, including academic, interpersonal, and behavioral skills" (Cesarone, 1998). This finding factors into the idea of taking time away from doing other things for these boys because they are suffering in important factors in life that will allow them to succeed.

Lastly, let's take a look at the obvious reason why video games are not beneficial to a child's development, obesity. According to the CDC, in 2009-2010, 12.1 percent of children ages 2 to 5 are obese, 18 percent of 6 to 11 year olds are obese, and 18.4 percent of 12 to 19 year olds are obese. Now, this is only the percentages of obesity, and does not account for the amount of children who are overweight as well. What is causing this to occur? I can tell you, the amount of time children are now spending playing video games is a factor in that. By spending much of their free time on the computer or on their game console, kids are not going out and participating in activities that will keep them physically fit in healthy. Kids get the lazy mindset and would rather not go play outside.
Benefits of Playing Video Games
Research has shown that playing video games can be beneficial for a number of cognitive functions and may also contain social benefits. The first and foremost thing one discovers in a game is that following directions is of the utmost importance. In order to progress in games, one must first learn to follow the guidelines, restrictions and components of them. As the player confronts new challenges, he must use problem-solving to find solutions. This is true for educational games, mind games, and RPGs alike. The player cannot get through with what they already have or know and must find new combinations and incorporate old skills with new skills to overcome obstacles such as the level or quest (Gee, 2003). In relation to this, the player can also learn strategy and anticipation, management of resources (simulation games), mapping, pattern recognition, how to judge the situation and practice reading (with directions, dialogue, etc.) and quantitative calculations (through educational games, managing finances, buying and selling for profit, etc. (Tumbokon, 2014).

Gamers also get used to multitasking. As games become more intricate, players must juggle different objectives while keeping track of all the changing elements and connecting ideas. Games also induce quick thinking. According to cognitive scientist Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester, results of a study found that people who play video games become more attuned to their environment and able to keep visual tabs on friends in crowds, able to navigate better and better at everyday things like driving and reading small print. Playing games also "significantly reduced reaction times without sacrificing accuracy" beyond the context of the games ( Bavelier et al., 2009) and into making correct real-world decisions. Because of this effect on perceptual reaction times, even the U.S. military uses warfare simulation games in training and claims its benefits (Vargas, 2006).

Video games also increase hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills and spatial reasoning (Tumbokon, 2014). For example, in shooter games, the player keeps track of their position, direction, speed, aim, results and more. The brain processes all this information and then coordinates with the hands since all actions are done through the controller or keyboard. These skills can be applied to real world situations like surgical procedure (Florida Hospital, 2013).

Finally, gaming is stimulating, a learning experience and a social activity. The reason why people find it so enjoyable is that games are usually the right degree of challenging and the player takes an active role (unlike watching television) so there is an incentive to achieve (Gee, 2003). Let's also not forget that many games, like "Rise of Nations" or "Age of Mythology" are educational and have a lot to offer in areas like science, politics, history and cultural studies and some games are practical, like pilot-training simulations. The gaming world is very popular. Thus, playing video games has become a social activity. In fact, nearly 60% of frequent gamers play with friends, 33% with siblings and 25% with a spouse or parents. Many games require cooperative play and logistics, comradeship and frequent interactions between team members.
Wrap-up
Like so many other issues these days, the concept of video games is controversial. The line between a healthy amount of gaming and an excessive amount is easily blurred and crossed- especially when video games are as addicting as studies claim. As parents, it is prudent to find moderation in all things. Banning games entirely may be good for some households, but others (depending on the prominence of gaming within the environment) will find that it may socially isolate their children, take away a source of joy and possibly cognitive development. However, opening the door to the good, will also allow access to the bad including exposing the children's minds to the realm of violence, taking their free time away from doing other things, and putting them at risk for obesity. In the end, it is important that the parent monitors what kinds of games children are playing and being exposed to. Part of this job is to know the descriptors and the genres they represent. The Entertainment Software Rating Board has ratings that provide concerned parents information about the content of the games (ESRB, 2014). Efficient use of these ratings can help parents to make more informed choices for their children.
References:
Cesarone, Bernard. "Video Games and Children - Child & Adolescent Development: Overview." Gracepoint. Gracepoint. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. http://www.gracepointwellness.org/28-child-adolescent-development-overview/article/1949-video-games-and-children

Cesarone, Bernard. "Video Games: Research, Ratings, Recommendations. ERIC Digest." ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education Champaign, IL. November 1998. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED424038.pdf

"Gartner Says Worldwide Video Game Market to Total $93 Billion in 2013." Gartner Says Worldwide Video Game Market to Total $93 Billion in 2013. Gartner, 29 Oct. 2013. Web. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2614915

"Video Game Addiction: 81% of American Youth Play; 8.5% Are Addicted." Metrics 2.0: Business and Market Intelligence. Metrics 2.0, Jan. 2007. http://www.metrics2.com/blog/2007/04/04/video_game_addiction_81_of_american_youth_play_85.html

JAMES PAUL GEE. "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy." ACM Computers in Entertainment. Vol. 1, No. 1, October 2003. http://studentweb.niu.edu/3/~Z1629863/tportfolio/games.pdf

Tumbokon, Chacha. "The Positive and Negative Effects of Video Games." Raise Smart Kid. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. http://www.raisesmartkid.com/3-to-6-years-old/4-articles/34-the-good-and-bad-effects-of-video-games

Matthew W.G. Dye, C. Shawn Green, and Daphne Bavelier. "Increasing Speed of Processing With Action Video Games." A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Vol. 18 No. 6 (2009) : 321-326. http://psych.wisc.edu/CSGreen/dye_CDiPS09.pdf

Vargas,Jose Antonio. "Virtual Reality Prepares Soldiers for Real War." Washington Post 14 February, 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021302437.html

"Video Games Help Doctors Improve Surgical Skills." Florida Hospital. Florida Hospital, 9 Oct. 2013. https://www.floridahospital.com/news/video-games-help-doctors-improve-surgical-skills

"ESRB Ratings Guide." Rating Categories, Content Descriptors, and Interactive Elements from ESRB. Entertainment Software Rating Board. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

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Effect of Video Games on Child Development

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Danielle Dai and Amanda Fry Little bit o' history If you are a parent in this era of information and technology, chances are you have a child who has played, is playing, or will be playing video games.

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"Hi honeys, I'm home!"

You skip into your house after a brutal day at the office, greeting your offspring with a generous smile.

"I'm so happy to see everybody!"

Silence. No one looks at you. Everyone is hunched over, hypnotized by a gizmo.

Teen daughter Tabitha is texting furiously. Tommy, your tween, is blasting video game bad guys. Five-year-old Theresa stares rapturously at an episode of Annoying Orange, a YouTube video on the gleaming screen.

"I've lost my kids! They're brainwashed by mind-gobbling gadgets!"

You sit down. Take a deep breath. To relax, you scroll through Facebook and catch up on your email. Meekly, you join the other mesmerized zombies...

All wired now

We're all wired now, incessantly interacting with our digital doodads. You don't worry about your own habits because you're a grown-up, but you do fret, enormously, about the possibility of your kids contracting wicked side effects. When you were a youngster today's devices were barely imagined. Today, kids spend seven hours a day, on average, on some sort of electronic device, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, and 97 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 play digital games.

Are kids' brains in danger? Or not? If tech toys are mentally malevolent, why are our kids so happy? But if we take the e-companions away, our kids go crazy... like addicts!

To determine the neurological impact on our little ones' minds, we took a close look at the research, and what it says about the e-things your kids are obsessed with, to determine the effect on their developing brains.

Violent, vacuous - or vindicated?

Video games come in many beguiling forms, but only a few subgenres have been examined closely in terms of their effects on the brain.

Dr. Daphne Bavelier, brain scientist at the University of Rochester and the University of Geneva, has prolifically researched homicidal "first person shooter" (FPS) games such as Call of Duty. Her research found that gamers' brains show activity in multiple brain regions, indicating numerous - and surprising - visual-spatial benefits in areas like perception, attention, task switching, mental rotation, brain plasticity, learning, short-term memory, crowding acuity, contrast sensitivity, and perceptual decision processes.

Bavelier isn't an outlier, either: Italian, Polish, and Dutch researchers agree with her findings. In a 2013 study, for example, researchers found that FPS game participants showed a more flexible mindset and faster reaction time than non-gamers.

But wait: are these types of visual-spatial skills useful to anyone other than future assassins? Yes. Many bloodless vocations - including engineering, mathematics, natural sciences, economic forecasting, architecture, art, and design - require the eye-hand intelligence that video games develop.

Medical surgery (gut-soaked, but ethically so), for example, requires visual-spatial adeptness. Andrew Wright, associate professor of surgery at University of Washington, is a surgeon and self-proclaimed "gaming geek" who steadies his nerves and fingers by playing Assassin's Creed. According to Wright, "Gamers have a higher level of executive function. They have the ability to process information and make... split-second decisions." Comparing FPS games to tense operating rooms, Wright notes that both have a "sense of life and death and urgency."

In fact, many daily modern chores - like reading maps, driving in heavy traffic, packing objects, and orienting yourself in a new environment, such as a school or office building - demand visual-spatial intelligence.

Girls and games

Two visual-spatial skills - attention and mental rotation ability - are more developed in males than females. This provides boys, many researchers believe, with an edge in mathematics and engineering. Want your girl to catch up? A surprising study from University of Toronto suggests that "only 10 hours of training with an action video game" decreased or eliminated the female disadvantage.

Does gruesome mayhem make kids violent?

Opinions vary widely on this question. Organizations including Mothers Against Video Game Addiction and Violence and Parents Against Violence have mobilized to combat video game carnage. Both groups argue there's a link between school shootings - such as those that occurred at Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland - and violent video games.

Psychologist Craig A. Anderson, a vocal video game critic, conducted a 2010 study that shows a link between exposure to violent video games and increased aggressive behavior, as well as decreased empathy among gamers. Barbara J. Wilson of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne concluded in a 2008 study that exposure to violent video games, like exposure to violent television, can contribute to aggressive behavior. And research led by Dr. Jordan Grafman of the National Institute of Health and published in the Oxford Journal suggests that boys exposed to violent video games were desensitized because emotional responses are blunted. According to Grafman, his research indicates that, "continued exposure to violent videos will make an adolescent less sensitive to violence, more accepting of violence, and more likely to commit aggressive acts." Even more disturbing is a 2014 report that found that youths who had played violent video games in the past year were four times more likely to also report they'd carried a weapon to school.

But researchers disagree. Psychologist Christopher J. Ferguson of Stetson University believes data in studies linking video games and violence have been improperly analyzed. He contends that this research ignores important social factors - such as mental health status and family environment - that can trigger violence, while pinning all the blame on gaming. His prolific research supports his conclusion that factors like depression, antisocial personality traits, exposure to violence in the family, and the influence of peers are far more likely to trigger aggressive behavior than gaming.

What's the damage?

Will video games ruin vision, destroy attention spans, and eviscerate impulse control?
In fact, the opposite is true, according to brain scientist Bavelier. She cites abundant evidence that tech toys train brains to see better. Video games also don't lead to distractability, she asserts; au contraire, they can improve attention. The 2013 Italian, Polish, and Dutch study also observed that gamers' impulse control was undamaged by the hobby.

Less bloody alternatives

If you don't like violent video games, or if you have younger kids for whom such games are not appropriate, there are other options. Try steering your children toward "real-time strategy" (RTS) games, such as Civilization, Risk, Age of Empires, and StarCraft.

Take caution: warfare lurks in this genre too. But it's far more subtle - with more emphasis on other, less lethal activities - including exploration, managing an economy, and building construction. Meanwhile, you get the gift every parent wants for his or her child: cognitive gain. A 2013 study at Brock University in Canada found that students who played strategic video games reported that gaming increased their problem-solving skills and that these enhanced skills led, in turn, to better grades. A 2013 South Korea study that conducted brain scans on the nation's professional Starcraft gamers found enhanced cortical thickness in three brain regions and concluded "long-term playing of online games is associated with... cognitive flexibility." (Tip: Starcraft II's three-dimensionality boosts four brain regions that are not enhanced playing two-dimensional Starcraft I).

Two additional strategic videos recommended by psychologist Christopher Ferguson include LEGO video games (for age 6 and up) and Europa Universalis, which Ferguson admires for its " real high cognitive load."

If you want 100 percent peaceful play, try Tetris, the block-fitting puzzle game that packs skulls with smarts instead of bullets. Japanese researchers reported that Tetris, practiced 15 minutes a day, five days a week for four weeks, led to improved attention and visual-spatial ability.

A third genre that may enhance intelligence are the open world games such as Minecraft, the Swedish sensation that has sold 35 million copies. Minecraft.edu helps teachers use the complex, captivating game to teach subjects like physics, geography, and languages.

Is gaming addictive?

This is a concern for many parents. "Anything that stimulates pleasure can be addictive to a very small segment of the population," according to Ferguson. "Some individuals have difficulty regulating their reward centers and balancing short-term rewards with consequences." Ferguson argues that pathological gaming infects 3.1 percent of the population, less than alcohol abuse among kids ages 12 to 17 and far less than kids over 18. "Parents should be concerned about that."

Also in this series:

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Your child's brain on technology: video games

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Our kids are awash in technology 24/7 - should we worry about the effects of video games on a child's brain?

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Curious Kids: Why do adults think video games are bad?

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Bo, aged nine, wants to know why adults think video games are bad.

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Borusiak, Peter, Anastasios Bouikidis, Rüdiger Liersch, and Jarrod B Russell. "Cardiovascular Effects in Adolescents While They Are Playing Video Games: A Potential Health Risk Factor?" Psychophysiology 45, no. 2 (March 2008): 327-32. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.2007.00622.x.

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Gopinath, B., L. A. Baur, J. J. Wang, L. L. Hardy, E. Teber, A. Kifley, T. Y. Wong, and P. Mitchell. "Influence of Physical Activity and Screen Time on the Retinal Microvasculature in Young Children." Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology 31, no. 5 (April 20, 2011): 1233-39. doi:10.1161/ATVBAHA.110.219451.

Ivory, James D., and Sriram Kalyanaraman. "The Effects of Technological Advancement and Violent Content in Video Games on Players' Feelings of Presence, Involvement, Physiological Arousal, and Aggression." Journal of Communication 57, no. 3 (September 2007): 532-55. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2007.00356.x.

Kim, Eun Joo, Kee Namkoong, Taeyun Ku, and Se Joo Kim. "The Relationship Between Online Game Addiction and Aggression, Self-Control and Narcissistic Personality Traits." European Psychiatry: The Journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists 23, no. 3 (April 2008): 212-18. doi:10.1016/j.eurpsy.2007.10.010.

Koepp, Matthias J., Roger N. Gunn, Andrew D. Lawrence, Vin J. Cunningham, Alain Dagher, Therese Jones, David J. Brooks, C. J. Bench, and P. M. Grasby. "Evidence for Striatal Dopamine Release during a Video Game." Nature 393, no. 6682 (1998): 266-268.

Kohyama, Jun. "A Newly Proposed Disease Condition Produced by Light Exposure during Night: Asynchronization." Brain and Development 31, no. 4 (April 2009): 255-73. doi:10.1016/j.braindev.2008.07.006.

Kuo, Frances E., and William C. Sullivan. "Aggression and Violence in the Inner City: Effects of Environment via Mental Fatigue." Environment and Behavior 33, no. 4 (July 1, 2001): 543-71. doi:10.1177/00139160121973124.

Lee, J, K Lee, and T Choi. "The Effects of Smartphone and Internet/Computer Addiction on Adolescent Psychopathology." San Francisco, CA, 2013. http://www.psychcongress.com/article/smartphone-addiction-linked-increa...-.

LeGates, Tara A., Cara M. Altimus, Hui Wang, Hey-Kyoung Lee, Sunggu Yang, Haiqing Zhao, Alfredo Kirkwood, E. Todd Weber, and Samer Hattar. "Aberrant Light Directly Impairs Mood and Learning through Melanopsin-Expressing Neurons." Nature 491, no. 7425 (November 22, 2012): 594-98. doi:10.1038/nature11673.

Meyer, David. "Multitasking and Task Switching." Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory: University of Michigan, 2006. http://www.umich.edu/~bcalab/multitasking.html.

Mierau, Andreas, Thorben Hülsdünker, Julia Mierau, Andreas Hense, Johannes Hense, and Heiko K. Strüder. "Acute Exercise Induces Cortical Inhibition and Reduces Arousal in Response to Visual Stimulation in Young Children." International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience 34, no. 0 (May 2014): 1-8. doi:10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2013.12.009.

Paddock, Catharine. "Bedtime Texting, Internet Use, Disturbs Sleep And Mood In Teens." Medical News Today, November 3, 2010. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/206546.php.

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Pervanidou, Panagiota, and George P. Chrousos. "Metabolic Consequences of Stress during Childhood and Adolescence." Metabolism: Clinical and Experimental 61, no. 5 (May 2012): 611-19. doi:10.1016/j.metabol.2011.10.005.

Rowan, Cris. "Unplug-Don't Drug: A Critical Look at the Influence of Technology on Child Behavior With an Alternative Way of Responding Other Than Evaluation and Drugging." Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry 12, no. 1 (April 1, 2010): 60-68. doi:10.1891/1559-4343.12.1.60.

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Sundar, S. Shyam, and Sriram Kalyanaraman. "Arousal, Memory, and Impression-Formation Effects of Animation Speed in Web Advertising." Journal of Advertising 33, no. 1 (January 1, 2004): 7-17. doi:10.1080/00913367.2004.10639152.

van der Aa, Niels, Geertjan Overbeek, Rutger C M E Engels, Ron H J Scholte, Gert-Jan Meerkerk, and Regina J J M Van den Eijnden. "Daily and Compulsive Internet Use and Well-Being in Adolescence: A Diathesis-Stress Model Based on Big Five Personality Traits." Journal of Youth and Adolescence 38, no. 6 (July 2009): 765-76. doi:10.1007/s10964-008-9298-3.

Wells, Stefanie L. "Moving Through the Curriculum: The Effect of Movement on Student Learning, Behavior, and Attitude." Rising Tide 5 (Summer 2012): 1-17.

Yang, Yuan-Sheng, Ju-Yu Yen, Chih-Hung Ko, Chung-Ping Cheng, and Cheng-Fang Yen. "The Association between Problematic Cellular Phone Use and Risky Behaviors and Low Self-Esteem among Taiwanese Adolescents." BMC Public Health 10 (2010): 217. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-10-217.

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This Is Your Child's Brain on Video Games

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Video games leave kids revved up, stressed out, and primed for a meltdown.

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The Effects of Video Games in Modern Society Essay | Bartleby

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Free Essay: Video game effects are relatively new in modern society. Even though these games are often entertaining, the content of the game has been...

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In the last decade, video games have become the dominant form of entertainment worldwide - especially given the steady decrease in TV viewing habits. No longer confined to arcades or the home, today video games can be found almost everywhere. Portable systems, smart phones, and tablets make gaming a possibility regardless of where you happen to be. Of course, home consoles and computers also remain popular gaming systems for children, teens, and adults. What percentage of teens and children are addicted to video games?
Why are video games so addictive to children and teenagers?
What are the most addictive types of video games for children and teenagers?
Although the most addictive computer and video games will obviously differ from child to child, research has consistently found that online role playing games (MMOs), and to a lesser extent first person shooters (FPS), are the genre of games with the greatest potential for obsession and addiction.

There are numerous reasons for MMO computer game addiction, including:

Video games target the natural interests of children and adolescents

There is no single factor that makes video games so appealing to kids (or adults for that matter). Something about a game that is fascinating to one child may seem rather boring to another. The key is that no matter what the child happens to be interested in or engaged by...there is likely a video game that allows him or her to easily escape into this virtual world.

Children who in past generations may have spent hours playing "cops and robbers" or "war" may today be fascinated with first person shooters like "Call of Duty" or "Halo". Children that are interested in sports may today be more likely to live out their fantasies in a video game than on an actual field. Teens that are interested in fantasy worlds and exploration may be drawn to games like "World of Warcraft" rather than reading novels such as "Lord of the Rings". Children who would previously spend hours creating impressive structures out of Lego may now find greater appeal in a game like "Minecraft" which arguably allows for even greater creativity with much less effort.

Online gaming, social connections, and the appeal of virtual worlds

The online components of most modern video games adds not only to their general appeal and replay value, but also is thought to significantly increase the likelihood of addiction. During the first video game boom of the 1980s, games were largely single-player activities designed to keep the player engaged with increasingly difficult hand-eye coordination challenges coupled with the goal of obtaining a high score (think Super Mario Brothers and Tetris). True, some young players did become obsessed with mastering the games, but the possibility that children or teens could truly become addicted to video games really started when online gaming was introduced in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Suddenly, gaming was no longer a single player challenge focused on mastering and memorizing a series of jumps and button presses. They were multi-player gaming experiences in which the players themselves became an essential part of highly detailed, constantly evolving, user-created virtual worlds. Gamers designed their own characters, started alliances with other players, created their own game objectives, and built digital universes that some players found more enjoyable than living in the real world. These online universes became more than just games - they were now approaching fully-realized societies with towns, currency, classes, stores and services, histories and mythologies, political systems, and even law enforcement!

Why some kids become addicted to video games

In summary, it can be argued that video games take what children naturally find interesting and:

...offers opportunities to explore these interests in a seemingly more engaging and visually stimulating format

...which allows the player to temporarily adopt a more exciting, powerful or appealing virtual identity

...which allows for virtual experiences impossible in the real world

...which requires much less effort than pursuing these interests otherwise

...and reinforces continued play though online social connections, obligation to teammates, rewards for continued play, a carefully crafted sense of gradual accomplishment, and well-established principals of psychological and behavioral reinforcement

Again, the previous passages describe just a few factors that potentially contribute to video game addiction in children and teens. For many (many) more, see the article " Why Are Video Games Addictive?"

The problem in answering this question is that, video game addiction is not officially classified as a mental health condition. Although the parents of children who are addicted to computer games, protest every time they are asked to quit, and have little interest in other activities would probably argue otherwise, video game addiction has not been recognized as a "true" psychological disorder. Therefore, unlike a problem like compulsive gambling, there is no list of universally accepted video game addiction symptoms.

As a consequence, researchers wishing to study child video game addiction have been forced to define the problem using their own set of symptoms. Not surprisingly, this has resulted in many different conclusions about how many kids and teens may be addicted to computer games. Nevertheless, findings the 2 - 12% range are common in most studies - depending on the population sampled and the criteria used to define video game addiction. Given the current limitations of the research, as a general guideline, 5% seems to be a safe prevalence estimate for video game addiction in children.

Not surprisingly, the ubiquitous nature of video games coupled with children and teens who do not always know when to stop playing, has resulted in parents who are concerned about child video game addiction. Parents understandably worry when video games become the number one priority in a child's life. They may neglect hobbies, sports, friends, argue frequently with family members who try to limit gaming, and put little or no effort into schoolwork.

The purpose of this article is to review the growing problem of teen and child video game addiction. The article is intended primarily for parents and those who work with young people who may be obsessed with video / computer games. Is video game addiction a real problem for children and teens? Why do some children and teenagers become addicted to computer games? What are the risk factors and warning signs for video game addiction? What can parents do to help teenagers or children addicted to video games?

Read on for the answers to all of these questions and many more.

The goal is to present a complete look at teen and child video game addiction which is based on current research and best clinical practice.

How many hours per day should parents allow children to play computer games?
First, it is recommended that any screen time (whether it is television, computer games, console games, games on an iPad, etc.) should come only after children or teenagers have attended to other responsibilities (e.g., homework and/or household chores). The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting a child's viewing of movies, watching TV, and playing video games to How many hours of video games per week indicates that a child is addicted?
There is no set number of hours per day or week that signifies that a child or teenager is addicted to video games. Obviously, the more a child or teen plays, the more likely it is that he or she is playing too much. Extreme cases of computer game addiction are quite obvious (for example, 10% of the gamers in How does child video game addiction affect school grades?
Although there is a "common sense" assumption that kids who play video games do worse in school, the research generally does not support this conclusion! Simply being interested in and playing video games (as most children and teen do) does not appear to negatively affect school performance. Most kids can play video games without becoming addicted and their academic grades do not suffer as a result of occasional play. How should parents handle homework and video games?
Again, any video game time should be seen as a privilege that comes only if the child properly attends to other responsibilities. I strongly encourage parents to get their children into a daily habit of completing homework before allowing video games. Even if your child's school doesn't assign homework (yes, this is unfortunately becoming very common), I highly recommend that time be set aside each day for academic-related work. What psychological and social problems are associated with teen and child video game addiction?
Although child video game addiction research is still in its early stages, there is growing evidence that teens and children who are addicted to computer games can experience a host of social, emotional, and behavioral problems:

There are very good workbooks available for all school grades and subjects (try a quick search on Amazon) and many excellent educational apps for tablets (the iTooch series is excellent and one that I often recommend). The earlier parents start a regular schedule the better, but it is never too late to begin. With consistent enforcement of homework before video games, before long your child will understand that "learning time" must be a priority over video games, and that gaming time is earned, not an entitlement.

However...for teens and children who are addicted to video games and play much more than their peers, the research has consistently shown that obsessive and excessive play is associated with lower grades in school.

For more on this distinction, see the research article " Children and Video Games: Addiction, Engagement, and Scholastic Achievement".

this study played an average of 63 hours per week). A child who spends 5 hours per week playing video games is unlikely to be addicted. A teen who spends 10 hours per week is also likely to have gaming under control.

However, most parents start to worry when gaming creeps into the 15 - 30 hour per week range. Is this an addiction? In most cases, the definition of a problem will depend on how excessive computer gaming is affecting other areas of the young person's life. Is an obsession with video games resulting in poor grades at school? Conflict with parents? Extreme inactivity? Neglect of household responsibilities? Poor sleep habits? Lack of interest in other activities or hobbies? Loss of friends?

To assess whether your child may be addicted to video games, see The Video Game Addiction Test for Parents.

one or two hours per day. I personally recommend a limit of one hour per day of video games for school age children and no more than two hours per day for teens.

What are the risk factors for child and teenage video game addiction?

For more, see Ten Video Game Addiction Risk Factors and
Is teen and child video game addiction caused by an "underlying issue"? Short answer: Sometimes, but not always. Are other mental health issues caused by video game addiction? Again, sometimes, but not always. Can these issues exist independently from the other difficulties? Absolutely.

Yes, of course excessive gaming can occur in response to other difficulties (for example, depression or social anxiety). But, and this is the point some health professionals still seem to miss, excessive gaming can almost certainly exist independently as the primary problem...and as the underlying cause of other difficulties. Video Game Addiction Statistics - Facts, Figures, Percentages, & Numbers.

If a child or a teen is addicted to video games, is this just a symptom of a larger "underlying issue"?

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The truth about child video game addiction - TechAddiction

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In the last decade, video games have become the dominant form of entertainment worldwide - especially given the steady decrease in TV viewing habits. No longer confined to arcades or the home, today video games can be found almost everywhere. Portable systems, smart phones, and tablets make gaming a possibility regardless of where you happen to be.

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legitladygamers.net : Video Game Controller

It's the year 2016; we are at an age where technology is a society constant. Life at this juncture is practically unimaginable without the technology we enjoy today. In particular, life would not be as it were if not for video games. While, yes, one may think that video games don't seem as important as telecommunications, and social media, and all the modern day conveniences we need to live an optimal life, we neglect to think about just how much video games influence, shape, and impact our culture, history, and way of life.

zavvi.com: Mario

Our culture has been influenced by video games for more than 30 years. Starting with classic games like Pong in 1972 and Space Invaders in 1978, which kick started a cultural revolution. Notably in 1981, with Nintendo's masterpiece, Donkey Kong, and not only the introduction of the titular character, but the protagonist, Mario, who would become the mascot of Nintendo for years to come. Other examples include Pokémon, which became the most popular children's toy in 1999, and Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog in 1992, and the titular character becoming a mascot, these franchises have served as not only mascots, but also popular culture icons, every kid who grew up in the nineties has at least heard of them. It is also to the point that Pokémon even has it's own month dedicated to it throughout the year. But over that 30-year span, approximately 7 generations of video games have been created. It sprang from consoles and arcade games, to online-gaming and virtual reality. This gives a setup to a whole new culture.

nichegamer.com: 1979 Revolution
Today's history is influenced by video games; Grand Theft Auto developer Navid Khonsari created a video game called 1979 Revolution, a video game based on the 1979 Iranian revolution that established today's republic. However, the Iranian government has declared the game propaganda, and Khonsari a spy. Even current events today, like the war on terror in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan is reflected by the Call of Duty series. Why this is so prevalent in video games today, Kate Edwards, president of the International Game Developers Association, gives the appropriate answer, "On the issue of violence, I think most game designers are cognizant of the role that violent actions serve in their game's stories, similar to how a film's scriptwriter or a book's author leverages such acts to serve in stories they wish to tell."
nerdist.com: Pokemon
Other examples in today's culture are how video games shape our culture into what it is today, such as Pokémon, when it was introduced in the nineties, it started out as three games, Pokémon Red, Pokémon Blue, and Pokémon Yellow. As documented by Kurt Squire, in his article, " Video Games in Education", he had noted that Pokémon had developed from just a simple video game to a cultural phenomena. After spinning off into a trading card game, a TV show, multiple movies, lines of toys, and more games, it became a staple in youth culture. Another example is " Super Mario Bros." Back n the eighties, it quickly became so popular, that Mario had become Nintendo's mascot, to a point where there is likely not a single person who doesn't know Mario. Also, in the eighties, there is one mascot who was not so well known outside of Japan, Segata Sanshiro. Sanshiro would become a "Chuck Norris-like" figure known for accomplishing impossible feats while promoting the Sega Saturn. Sanshiro later became known in the United States and has become an icon for video gamers of the eighties.

america.pink/civilization-series

There is also an impact in education, thanks to video games. As Squire mentions, video games have clear, meaningful goals, multiple goal structures, scoring system, adjustable difficulty levels, random element of surprise, and an appealing fantasy metaphor, all things a good education system should have. An example of all of these qualities was provided in the form of simulation games that require one to form their own world, such as the Civilization series, and the Tycoon series. Other ways video games provide education, as Squire put it, allowing manipulation of otherwise unalterable variables, seeing phenomena in new perspectives, and observing actions over time.

While yes, arguments can still be made for video games and their connection to violence, there can conversely be arguments made for video games and their beneficial, positive, effect on our world today, the world has been molded and shaped today by the characters we grow to love and adore, and hopefully, as video games continue to make leaps into a new future, so shall we.

For another story of interest, see: " The Real-Life Superhero"

By, THOMAS CREGGE

@MasterBradC

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VIDEO GAMES and THEIR EFFECT on MODERN DAY SOCIETY

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legitladygamers.net : Video Game Controller It's the year 2016; we are at an age where technology is a society constant. Life at this juncture is practically unimaginable without the technology we enjoy today. In particular, life would not be as it were if not for video games.