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The following are cool articles and facts that will teach you about video games, and what to look forward to learning in each!

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This is an amazing if you have no idea what a video game is, or general ideas about video games as a whole. The website is linked below.

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Video games [1] Definition Video games [2] are electronic, interactive games known for their vibrant colors, sound effects, and complex graphics.

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"Video Game Statistics"  Presented by: Randall Hand     

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"Video Game Statistics"  Presented by: Randall Hand     

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These are some interesting quick facts that are helpful to keep in mind while reading other articles on this topic. The info graphic is shown below

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"The Negative Effects of Video Game Addiction"                        By: Drea Christopher

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"The Negative Effects of Video Game Addiction"                        By: Drea Christopher

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This article is a great source when looking for all the ways children are negativity affected by video games, and how it can affect them throughout their entire life. The link to the article is shown below.

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Drea Christopher

Drea Christopher is a freelance writer with a bachelor's degree in English. She has more than 10 years of experience producing features and SEO articles for national consumer publications, trade magazines and industry leading Web content providers. She has a particular interest in craft, entertaining, education, home and garden and health-related topics.

Whether your child plays video games on a portable unit, a television or the Internet, excessive gaming can affect his life. Video game addiction can be as problematic as gambling and affects players as young as 8 years old, notes Keith Baker, director of Smith and Jones Addiction Consultants, in an article for Brigham Young University's NewsNet. Be aware of the effects of a video game compulsion to keep your child's hobby in check. He shouldn't be getting anymore than two hours of screen time per day and this includes time playing games, watching television and surfing the Internet, according to HealthyChildren.org.

Video of the Day

A video game addiction can be harmful if your child is unable or unwilling to participate in any interests or extracurricular activities other than gaming. The On-Line Gamers Anonymous website notes that it may be a sign of an addiction if your child is constantly thinking about his next video game session, devising ways to get back to the game, abandoning former hobbies that don't relate to video games or declining social events with personal interaction because he's spending time discussing video games on the Internet.

If your child spends all of his free time playing video games and skips meals or loses sleep because of excessive game play, a video game addiction can negatively impact his health. Children who spend more than two hours a day in front of a television or video games in lieu of participating in physical activity may suffer from childhood obesity. In addition, the University of Texas at Dallas notes that the addiction can lead to such medical issues as backaches, headaches, eyestrain and carpal tunnel syndrome--pain and numbness that your child may feel in his wrists, hands, shoulders and elbows.

Relationships with friends and family members may suffer if your child is spending more time gaming than he is talking to or going out with loved ones. The On-Line Gamers Anonymous website notes that gaming may be negatively affecting your child's life if he only wants to talk about video games, lies to cover up the amount of time he spends playing, and argues with you over his excessive gaming.

Video games that feature violent actions and scenarios may lead addicted players to be desensitized to the violence. Richard Gallagher, director of the NYU Child Study Center's Parenting Institute, states that players who become engrossed in first-person shooter-style video games, for example, may adopt a detached view of society or develop aggressive thoughts and tendencies.

Long hours playing video games can negatively affect your child's performance in school if he's preoccupied with video games. He can fail to work at his optimum level because he's exhausted from a late night of video game playing. If your child devotes more than one or two hours a day to television or video games, he may have trouble falling asleep, have problems paying attention and have lower test scores than other children who don't spend as much time in front of a television or video game console.

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The Negative Effects of Video Game Addiction

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Whether your child plays video games on a portable unit, a television or the Internet, excessive gaming can affect his life. Video game addiction can be as...

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“Video Games Play May Provide Learning, Health, Social Benefits, Review Finds.” By: Isabela Granic

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“Video Games Play May Provide Learning, Health, Social Benefits, Review Finds.” By: Isabela Granic

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This is a chapter from a book written by three experts in the physiological field. In this article you can find a variety of reasons why video games may be not so bad after all. The link to the article is shown below.

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WASHINGTON - Playing video games, including violent shooter games, may boost children's learning, health and social skills, according to a review of research on the positive effects of video game play to be published by the American Psychological Association.

The study comes out as debate continues among psychologists and other health professionals regarding the effects of violent media on youth. An APA task force is conducting a comprehensive review of research on violence in video games and interactive media and will release its findings in 2014.

"Important research has already been conducted for decades on the negative effects of gaming, including addiction, depression and aggression, and we are certainly not suggesting that this should be ignored," said lead author Isabela Granic, PhD, of Radboud University Nijmegen in The Netherlands. "However, to understand the impact of video games on children's and adolescents' development, a more balanced perspective is needed."

The article will be published in APA's flagship journal, American Psychologist.

While one widely held view maintains playing video games is intellectually lazy, such play actually may strengthen a range of cognitive skills such as spatial navigation, reasoning, memory and perception, according to several studies reviewed in the article. This is particularly true for shooter video games that are often violent, the authors said. A 2013 meta-analysis found that playing shooter video games improved a player's capacity to think about objects in three dimensions, just as well as academic courses to enhance these same skills, according to the study. "This has critical implications for education and career development, as previous research has established the power of spatial skills for achievement in science, technology, engineering and mathematics," Granic said. This enhanced thinking was not found with playing other types of video games, such as puzzles or role-playing games.

Playing video games may also help children develop problem-solving skills, the authors said. The more adolescents reported playing strategic video games, such as role-playing games, the more they improved in problem solving and school grades the following year, according to a long-term study published in 2013. Children's creativity was also enhanced by playing any kind of video game, including violent games, but not when the children used other forms of technology, such as a computer or cell phone, other research revealed.

Simple games that are easy to access and can be played quickly, such as "Angry Birds," can improve players' moods, promote relaxation and ward off anxiety, the study said. "If playing video games simply makes people happier, this seems to be a fundamental emotional benefit to consider," said Granic. The authors also highlighted the possibility that video games are effective tools to learn resilience in the face of failure. By learning to cope with ongoing failures in games, the authors suggest that children build emotional resilience they can rely upon in their everyday lives.

Another stereotype the research challenges is the socially isolated gamer. More than 70 percent of gamers play with a friend and millions of people worldwide participate in massive virtual worlds through video games such as "Farmville" and "World of Warcraft," the article noted. Multiplayer games become virtual social communities, where decisions need to be made quickly about whom to trust or reject and how to lead a group, the authors said. People who play video games, even if they are violent, that encourage cooperation are more likely to be helpful to others while gaming than those who play the same games competitively, a 2011 study found.

The article emphasized that educators are currently redesigning classroom experiences, integrating video games that can shift the way the next generation of teachers and students approach learning. Likewise, physicians have begun to use video games to motivate patients to improve their health, the authors said. In the video game "Re-Mission," child cancer patients can control a tiny robot that shoots cancer cells, overcomes bacterial infections and manages nausea and other barriers to adhering to treatments. A 2008 international study in 34 medical centers found significantly greater adherence to treatment and cancer-related knowledge among children who played "Re-Mission" compared to children who played a different computer game.

"It is this same kind of transformation, based on the foundational principle of play, that we suggest has the potential to transform the field of mental health," Granic said. "This is especially true because engaging children and youth is one of the most challenging tasks clinicians face."

The authors recommended that teams of psychologists, clinicians and game designers work together to develop approaches to mental health care that integrate video game playing with traditional therapy.

Article: "The Benefits of Playing Video Games," Isabela Granic, PhD, Adam Lobel, PhD, and Rutger C.M.E. Engels, PhD, Radboud University Nijmegen; Nijmegen, The Netherlands; American Psychologist, Vol. 69, No. 1.

Isabela Granic can be contacted by email, cell: 011.31.6.19.50.00.99 or work: 011.31.24.361.2142

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes more than 134,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.

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Video Games Play May Provide Learning, Health, Social Benefits

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WASHINGTON - Playing video games, including violent shooter games, may boost children's learning, health and social skills, according to a review of research on the positive effects of video game play to be published by the American Psychological Association. The study comes out as debate continues among psychologists and other health professionals regarding the effects of violent media on youth.

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"How Video Games Change Your Brain"                                            Published by: TIME Starring: Trace Dominguez On: Discovery News

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"How Video Games Change Your Brain"                                            Published by: TIME Starring: Trace Dominguez On: Discovery News

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This is an interesting visual representation on what happens inside ones brain while and after playing video games. The video is linked below.

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There has always been a debate on whether video games change your brain or not. What's the truth about games and the brain? Read More: 2013 State Of Online Gaming Report http://auth-83051f68-ec6c-44e0-afe5-bd8902acff57.cdn.spilcloud.com/v1/archives/1384952861.25_State_of_Gaming_2013_US_FINAL.pdf We spend 3 billion hours a week as a planet playing videogames. Is it worth it?

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“Effect of Video Games on Child Development.”                                 By: Emily Hughues

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“Effect of Video Games on Child Development.”                                 By: Emily Hughues

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This is another great source if you want to learn more about the affects video games have on children, and how the development because of video games will affect them. This article also explains how it affects them even after they stopped playing video games. The article is linked below.

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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.