Excessive Gaming

Today in class we discussed the correlation between video games and obesity in adolescence. We compared our personal childhood experiences to those of children in today’s society. We concluded that as children we were forced to play outside, and were limited in the amount of time we could allocate towards playing video games. In today’s society, children are being allowed to play video games for hours on end.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, otherwise known as the AAP, excessive video gaming, or pathological gaming, has contributed to a plethora of physical and mental health issues. In addition to obesity, excessive gaming can lead to depression, anxiety, and performance in school. After conducting a study on 3,000 children in Singapore, researchers discovered 9% of them were addicted to gaming. They discovered that these children had the tenancy to experience higher levels of depression, anxiety, social phobia, along with other mental health concerns. Students who significantly reduced their gaming habits also reduced their levels of depression along with other mental effects.

A child is considered to be addicted, or a pathological gamer, if video games cause issues in their daily life. On average, pathological gamers play more than 31 hours of video games per week. AAP has recommended that children of elementary school age should not play more than one hour of video games per day, and high school aged students shouldn’t exceed two hours.

According to the Entertainment Software Association, “there simply is no concrete evidence that computer and video games cause harm”. The organization claimed that, according to research, video games can be used to improve our lifestyles through education, health and business aspects.

I personally feel that parents need to monitor their child's activities more closely. There is no reason that children should be allowed to play 31 hours of video games a week. I personally feel that the extent to which video games are being played has led many children to be diagnosed with attention disorders such as ADD and ADHD. If parents became more active in the life of their children this would not be an issue. Instead, they stick their child in front of the television with some gaming device, and use it as a babysitter.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/17/gaming.depression/index.html?iref=allsearch