the seventh blog

                   The effects of games on children and youth

                  Children, especially born after 1980s, love to play computer and video games. They often get great satisfaction during playing all kinds of games. Boys like playing action games and role playing games while girls prefer education games. If children can allocate their time properly on playing games, actually, games act as stimulations to their studying. However, if they fail to have good schedule on games, addict to games and even study games, something bad will happen.

                  Many games now become much better on pictures, playability and even make people feel like being in reality. Counter Strike, Call of Duty series, World of Warcraft and StarCraft represent some of the best games in the world. One of the common points of those games is filled with violence. Counter Strike and Call of Duty series are best interactive point and shoot games. StarCraft gives people a chance to develop their strategy about mastering the overall picture. As for World of Warcraft, it is a purely bloody game. The majority victims of playing games are children and youth because they always confuse about fantasy and reality. When they are playing an interactive shooting game, they are experiencing conditioned skill practice. Because children have strong imitate ability, so those conditioned skill practice helped school shooters commit for real violence. It is true that many military schools use point and shoot video games as their real battle training. Although published games may not be as professional as those games used in military schools and many students may not be trained professionally with those games, every time students play the games, to a certain degree, they learn some practical skills and it is very dangerous to others.

                 Not all games are bad to young people. Computer games also acts as a teaching machine. Many good game players are active in solving problems. They are not easily beaten by obstacles and on the contrary, they treat mistakes as opportunities of practice and learning. What is more, if in a game, a team is needed, it is also a good chance to learn leadership, teamwork and how to assign works between group members. A good example of this kind of game is Civilization III. In this game, there are many countries and each country has its unique characteristics. For example, when you choose the Old Babylon, you will discover that its advantage is in technology and the cost of technology and religious building is only half of other nations. When players change regime of the Old Babylon, there is no chaos period. However, you will not appreciate those advantages before you choose other civilizations. Once you use other nations, the differences come. Because each nation has its own advantage, so players must pay more attention to those huge differences in choosing nations. After people play the game, they will learn some useful experiences that may be used in future life.  

                No matter what kind of games children play, they should cope with those games properly. Although games play an important role in and have great effects in youths’ lives, it is better for them to assign proper time on playing games.