Many have claimed that video games have had some form of affect on them, either in a positive or negative way. There have been countless studies on the influence that video games have played on individuals of different age groups. While some concluded that youth playing video games may be frowned upon especially by their parents, there have been studies to prove that it instead has beneficial effects on them. I personally believe that video games should not be viewed of as a "horrible evil demon," although I would agree that playing more than 3 hours a day would be over doing it. I would go as far as to say that people may possibly learn and gain new knowledge from playing certain types of games. Of course, not every video game is suited for every individual, such as 1st person shooting games, which are ideally more suited for a more mature audience.
For me, ever since I was exposed to my first video game, it has made me a much more open-minded and risk-taking person. I remember a couple of video games that I played when I was a young kid. Jump Start was one of a few games that my parents would allow me to play as I was growing up. I found it to be really educational and beneficial to me as I was able to learn new things. In fact, I was able to find an article online on Forbes about a study that shows the impact that video games has on children, which ultimately leads to it being more beneficial. Here is the link if any of you are interested in reading more about it: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/08/27/a-surprising-new-study-on-how-video-games-impact-children/
Even the United States military has utilized video games as a means for training their soldiers. For example, the Call of Duty video game was used by the US armed forces to test the soldiers' hand-eye coordination before being deployed. The military felt that Call of Duty was probably out of all the other 1st person shooting games considered to be the most realistic in terms of simulating real life war scenarios. Each individual would play the game which would then show their reaction time. I find this to be a good way of testing hand-eye coordination as well as reaction time in that because in the game, the enemies seem to appear out of nowhere.
After reading these studies and playing video games myself, I still believe that the positives far outweigh the negatives when it comes to how video games should be perceived as. Many parents feel that video games are a big distraction in their child's lives, but although it can be a distraction, the best way to prevent it from being a distraction is to monitor and control the amount of exposure that a child would normally have so as to not interfere with their studies.
Nice start
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