How do video games affect the psychosocial development of children?
A video game is an electronic game that is practiced through a controller and in which one or
more people can participate.
In the beginning of video games the people who continued to venture into the world of
electronic games rescued a lot of lessons from Alan Turing's experience.
It is for this reason
that the following attempt was based on extremely simple programming and with limited
information: Three online. This video game was presented by Josef Kates in the year 1950.
The only great detail that has overshadowed this fascinating achievement, is that the
Practice of this game was carried out without the use of video.
By the way, a curious fact
regarding this pioneering attempt, is that the computer on which the game was running had
a height of 4 meters. It was the year 1962 and the use of computers began to proliferate in
the United States. In the renowned MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), scientist
and programmer Steve Russell gave life to the legendary SpaceWar !, a video game that
consisted of two ships firing at each other, while fighting gravity. The fact that the computer
on which the game was running was connected to a screen, puts us in front of the first video
game in history.
The decade of the 70 presents a clear evolution of video games. With the appearance of the
first console (Magnavox Odyssey), the birth of Atari and his Pong was kicked off. During the
following years Atari would experience great growth as a company, bringing out new games
and giving birth to its cartridge console.
The 80s could be defined as two opposite poles. On
the one
In our generation, there are people who decide to live out of video games, and use platforms
such as YouTube or twitch. Using these they are able to gain a profit out of their activities,
making this their job. They decide to fully sustain themselves and many their families out of
this jobs since they make a lot out of this, with a lot of work. These influencers gain a lot of
support by their public and this is the reason of their success.
Social Development
Psychosocial development refers to the process by which a child learns to interact
with others around them. As they develop and perceive their own individuality within
their community, they also gain skills to communicate with other people and process
their actions. This is crucial on everyone’s development and growth, so it is vital that
children develop different types of activities in which they are challenged to
communicate with their environment, because this will reflect on their adult life.
Building up character from a very young age most definitely will help form a great
adult that will combine in the best way possible with the community. This will also
help the child learn how to handle certain situations that he will face once he grows,
so it is highly important to form children that show confidence and strength, in order
for them being able to have a healthy life.
Taking about psychosocial development it is key to mention the psychosocial theory,
made by Erick Erickson. Which consist of identifying according to age, the
challenges regarding the social environment around a person and the importance of
this one. Evaluating how much of an impact social development has on a lifespan.
The doctor divided “life” in 8 stages from the very deliver of the baby, up to his death.
They are:
One of the strengths of psychosocial theory is that it provides a broad framework
from which to view development throughout the entire lifespan. It also allows us to
emphasize the social nature of human beings and the important influence that social
relationships have on development
Having in mind, all of this information which should be considered to answer the
original question that has all of us here. We believe everything is bad if we make it
bad. Because it’s self video games aren’t really that bad I mean they were originally
made for having fun, but we have decided to abuse of their use. As my companion
said, there are even people who live out of gaming and as much as this sound easy
and good, it’s very time and energy consuming, since they have to sit playing for
hours and making content for this.
But now imagine a kid doing this, imagine how
much time he would put into this, how much he would lose to this. Time that he could
use to be with his family or be with his friends. This definitely affects his psychosocial
development due to the lack of personal interaction he has with his real non digital
environment.
Talking as well about facts many video games have been proven to go against
children integrity and have added to aggressive behavior. Particularly in aspects of
violence, anti-social tendencies and behaviors, and increased aggressive thoughts
and feelings. Many children have been victims of video gaming and have
experiences anxiety, depression, sense of loneliness and many more. This because
of the lack of interaction with people in a real environment.
So what we can conclude is that everything excessive can turn out bad, because as we
said already, video games weren’t created to deprive children from real fun or disconnecting
them from reality, they were created to add fun to our lives, their management depends on us.
By Carlos Guerra and
María Camila Montes,
Step 10
