You see it all the time. Kids walking through the hallways and they look like zombies. I saw it more at high school then at Penn State since you have to been dedicated to school work to get into here. But there would be a good amount of kids who you could just see that they felt uncomfortable to do anything that had to do with social interaction. Their shoulders would be hunched and they would be standing stiff as a board, especially if they were talking to girls.
I always wondered if there were studies done to prove or bring heavy evidence to the table that video games effect kids this way because I feel that it is pretty evident. I am not talking about kids that play every once in a while. I am talking about those kids that barely talk to anybody throughout the day because all they can think about is going home and playing video games into the early morning.
In this study,they tell how, “They got more depressed, they got more anxiety, and they had greater social phobia and they got worse grades in school,” he said. “That seemed to be a consequence of the video game addiction rather than a predictor of it.”
This was a study of more than 3,000 kids in Singapore, which I find to be pretty compelling evidence. I hope that this information gets out, so that parents will know the effects of letting their kids play too many video games.
Being a gamer all through high school, any study to do with video games really interests me! As your article suggests that it makes you more depressed, anxiety and gives you a social phobia, there are several articles that say certain video games make kids a lot more aggressive (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20067918-10391704.html) and sometimes make old people happy (http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/video-games-make-old-people-happy) I think it all depends on a third variable and these studies can’t claim opposite things and all claim to be true. I think people need to play and see what video games make them, or break them?
It really depends on the individual: if the individual can have a balance between socializing with others, and playing video games, then all should be fine. There are plenty of online communities that will allow one another to talk through Voice-over chats. Albeit, one does not have the same interaction over the internet as they would in real life. However, one can /assume/ that if one dedicates their time to just playing video games instead of socializing, then they could probably miss out a lot of mile-stones.
I feel like this isn’t necessarily that true. I know of people that just play video games all the time and they are perfectly normal. In extreme cases it may seem as if video games can consume one’s life. On the other hand though maybe it’s just a case of reverse causality? Instead of video games making kids socially awkward it’s the social awkwardness from the start that leads them to play the large amount of games. If someone doesn’t get good social exposure at an early stage of childhood it can hinder their social capabilities which may lead them to staying inside and playing games all day.
This is a great article that I think kids these days should read because they are getting sucked into these video games that are damaging them mentally. What happened to the days when kids would play outside until dinner time? That’s what parents need to start teaching their kids to do because when they are glued to the tv playing video games it’s not doing anything for their lives. The Palo Atlo Medical Foundation wrote a great article to explain the impact of video games on children.
It’s weird to think that most little kid pass time playing video games all the time. I feel like when I was little me and my friends went outside all the time instead. Parents should really consider that study for their kids.. I don’t want to sound mean saying that, but when you get to high school and if you go onto college, it would kind of suck to be shy and awkward. It’s so much better to be outgoing and social to make friends and make good memories, instead of living inside of a video game that isn’t real.
I think this brings up a good point, often times kids play tons of video games without knowing what its doing to them mentally. Not only does it make them socially awkward like you stated, but it could possibly make them more violent depending on what games they play. I know this from personal experience because one of my brothers use to play tons of violent video games like grand theft auto and it would cause him to try and reenact what was happening in the video game in real life, and most times towards me. This is not an exception to the majority. This happens to a lot of kids, because they are so easily influenced, these types of games can cause their behavior in real life.