Parents know that there are lots of reasons to be wary of letting their children play video games. But a lot of recent research has shown that online gaming can positively affect kids’ real-world interactions with other people—especially when those interactions take place online as well! Here are some important things for parents to consider:
Online Gaming’s Positive Effects on Children
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Social Skills
Social skills are essential for children, as they help them interact with others and develop relationships. The online gaming community is an excellent place for kids to practice these skills—and it can even teach them some life lessons! This can be beneficial for children’s future success in the workforce.
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Teamwork
Online gaming helps kids learn how to work in teams and with others. When playing an online game, your child will typically be part of a team that needs to coordinate their actions together. They may also need to communicate and strategize with teammates about how best to achieve their goals within the game (for example, deciding whether they should go on an offensive or defensive strategy).
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Sportsmanship
Being able to accept loss is an important part of learning from mistakes. One way this can manifest itself is by being gracious after losing a match in order to not only avoid offending others but also to help encourage future wins down the road! Online gaming helps kids learn how to be good sports when losing or failing at something difficult.
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Patience
Online gaming affects children and helps kids learn patience, so they don’t take action too soon without thinking through all possible solutions (or worse yet: acting out themselves). This skill has applications beyond just playing games into real-life situations such as solving problems at school.”
Online Gaming’s Adverse Effects on Children
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Unsociability
Online gaming can also have negative effects on children’s social skills. Children who play online games too much are less likely to socialize with people in real life, leading to bullying and addiction.
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Physical Deprivations
In addition, online gaming has been linked to anxiety and sleep deprivation among young people. A recent study found that teens who played games for at least three hours per day were twice as likely to have problems sleeping than those who played less than an hour per day; 25% of teens surveyed said they had experienced symptoms consistent with Insomnia. Gaming was also found to cause anxiety in some cases: 62% of the participants reported being unable to relax after playing video games until midnight.
Children who play video games are less physically active
- Video games are sedentary. You sit, play the game, and then go back to sitting. This is a problem because sitting for too long can lead to weight gain and obesity—which will have lifelong health consequences for your child.
- Children who play video games are more likely to be overweight or obese than those who do not play them. A study published in The Lancet found that children who spent just one hour a day playing video games were more likely to develop unhealthy eating habits and become overweight or obese than their peers who didn’t spend as much time gaming.
Exposure to Inappropriate Content
Adult games are designed for adults and may include violence, gore, or nudity, and you can play them on game consoles like the PlayStation or Xbox and PCs and Macs.
These games may also include language unsuitable for children. If your child plays these games with other people online, they will encounter words you would not want them to use in real-life situations in school or at home because they are considered offensive by many today.”
Facing Dangerous Predators
Predators might abuse the anonymous chat systems of online games to harass or groom children for unacceptable purposes. Online grooming is when an adult tries to befriend a child online in order to meet them in real life and commit a crime against them. Sex offenders are more likely to use grooming since they are forbidden from contacting children directly without facing the law again. Grooming allows them to gain access to more than one child at once by befriending as many people as possible on social media platforms.
Financial Exploitations and Gambling
Some games encourage children to spend money, gamble with real money, or both. Such games are designed to make players feel like they need to spend money in order to make progress. There are parental control products that you can use to control how much your child spends in-game because many of these apps and games offer in-app purchases that give children easy access to payment without requiring parental consent.
Parents shouldn’t allow children to use their credit card information as it could push them into debt or cause other problems in the long term.
Parents should monitor their children’s online play and make sure they’re doing other activities with actual people as well.
While it’s important for parents to be aware of and monitor their children’s online play and be aware of how online gaming affects children, it’s equally important for them to make sure that their kids are spending plenty of time interacting with other people as well. Encouraging children to go outside and participate in other activities is a great way to learn valuable social skills and gain experience interacting with others in person. Parents can also limit the amount of time their kids spend playing video games by using parental control products like Safes parental control app and its smart schedule options!
Conclusion
Online gaming affects children and allows them to practice social skills, but parents must monitor their kids’ game time and make sure they’re safely doing other activities with actual people. As the world becomes more connected through technology, we need to be aware of how our children interact with each other in person and online—and what kinds of effects this has on them.
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