What effects does gaming have on children

If it says M for mature, it's not for your child. Our kids have their system set up so they can't purchase a game, even if it's free, without me getting a notification. They're usually pretty good about saying, "Hey Mom, can I get this game so I can play with my friends?

We also have it set up in the living room so I know exactly how much time they're playing, what they're playing, and who they're playing with if it's on a group chat. You can also play the video games with your child to experience the game's content and know exactly what your child is playing. Set clear rules about the game's content for both playing time in and outside of your home. Like if they go to a friend's house. Strongly warn your children about the potential serious dangers of Internet contacts and relationships while playing online.

It's sad, but there are a lot of online predators that will look for children specifically playing video games and can lead them into them meeting in real life. Finally, remember that you are a role model for your child. Make sure the video games you play as an adult are ones you would be okay with your child playing. If you are concerned as a parent that your child is spending too much time playing video games or your child starts becoming obsessed with aggressive or violent video games, make sure you set some limits.

The scores assigned for criteria 6 blinded care provider and 7 blinded patient were lowest because of unspecified information related to blinding for those criteria. Additionally, criteria 2 concealed allocation and 5 blinding assessor were low because only two articles specified that information. All articles met criteria 3 and 4 adequately. Four studies specified handedness of the participants and excluded participants with game training experience.

The inclusion and exclusion criteria are presented in Table 4. Nine eligible studies were categorized as three types based on the control type. Two studies used active control, five studies used passive control, and two studies used both active and passive control. A summary of the control group is presented in Table 5.

Among the nine studies, one study examined teenage participants, six studies included young adult participants, and two studies assessed older adult participants. Participant information is shown in Table 7. Three studies examined female-only participants, whereas six others used male and female participants. Six studies with female and male participants had more female than male participants.

One study by Lee et al. One study did not specify total training hours. Two studies did not specify the training intensity. The training periods and intensities are in Table 8. Of nine eligible studies, one study used resting-state MRI analysis, three studies excluding that by Haier et al. A study by Haier et al. A summary of MRI analyses is presented in Table 9. The related resting-state, structural, and task-based MRI specifications are presented in Table 10 , Table 11 and Table 12 respectively.

This literature review evaluated the effect of noncognitive-based video game intervention on the cognitive function of healthy people. Comparison of studies is difficult because of the heterogeneities of participant ages, beneficial effects, and durations. Comparisons are limited to studies sharing factors. Video gaming intervention affects all age categories except for the children category. The exception derives from a lack of intervention studies using children as participants.

The underlying reason for this exception is that the brain is still developing until age 10—12 [ 52 , 53 ]. Among the eligible studies were a study investigating adolescents [ 40 ], six studies investigating young adults [ 41 , 42 , 43 , 47 , 49 , 51 ] and two studies investigating older adults [ 48 , 50 ].

Differences among study purposes underlie the differences in participant age categories. The study by Haier et al. The human brain is more sensitive to synaptic reorganization during the adolescent period [ 54 ].

Generally, grey matter decreases whereas white matter increases during the adolescent period [ 55 , 56 ]. By contrast, the cortical surface of the brain increases despite reduction of grey matter [ 55 , 57 ].

Six studies were investigating young adults with the intention of studying brain changes after the brain reaches maturity. The human brain reaches maturity during the young adult period [ 58 ]. Two studies were investigating older adults with the intention of combating difficulties caused by aging.

The human brain shrinks as age increases [ 56 , 59 ], which almost invariably leads to declining cognitive function [ 59 , 60 ]. Three beneficial outcomes were observed using MRI method: grey matter change [ 40 , 42 , 50 ], brain activity change [ 40 , 43 , 47 , 48 , 49 ], and functional connectivity change [ 41 ].

The affected brain area corresponds to how the respective games were played. Four studies of 3D video gaming showed effects on the structure of hippocampus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex DLPFC , cerebellum [ 42 , 43 , 50 ], and DLPFC [ 43 ] and ventral striatum activity [ 49 ].

In this case, the hippocampus is used for memory [ 61 ] and scene recognition [ 62 ], whereas the DLPFC and cerebellum are used for working memory function for information manipulation and problem-solving processes [ 63 ]. The grey matter of the corresponding brain region has been shown to increase during training [ 20 , 64 ]. The increased grey matter of the hippocampus, DLPFC, and cerebellum are associated with better performance in reference and working memory [ 64 , 65 ].

Decreased activity of the DLPFC after training is associated with efficiency in divergent thinking [ 70 ]. Two studies of puzzle gaming showed effects on the structure of the visual—spatial processing area, activity of the frontal area, and functional connectivity change. The increased grey matter of the visual—spatial area and decreased activity of the frontal area are similar to training-associated grey matter increase [ 20 , 64 ] and activity decrease [ 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 ].

In this case, visual—spatial processing and frontal area are used constantly for spatial prediction and problem-solving of Tetris. Functional connectivity of the multimodal integration and the higher-order executive system in the puzzle solving-based gaming of Professor Layton game corresponds to studies which demonstrated training-associated functional connectivity change [ 72 , 73 ].

Good functional connectivity implies better performance [ 73 ]. Strategy gaming affects the DLPFC activity, whereas rhythm gaming affects the activity of visuospatial working memory, emotional, and attention area. FPS gaming affects the structure of the hippocampus and amygdala. A study by Roush demonstrated increased activity of visuospatial working memory, emotion, and attention area, which might occur because of exercise and gaming in the Dance Revolution game.

Results suggest that positive activations indicate altered functional areas by complex exercise [ 48 ]. The increased grey matter of the hippocampus and amygdala are similar to the training-associated grey matter increase [ 20 , 64 ]. The hippocampus is used for 3D navigation purposes in the FPS world [ 61 ], whereas the amygdala is used to stay alert during gaming [ 74 ]. Change of the brain structure and function was observed after 16 h of video gaming.

The total durations of video gaming were 16—90 h. However, the gaming intensity must be noted because the gaming intensity varied: 1. The different intensities might affect the change of cognitive function. Cognitive intervention studies demonstrated intensity effects on the cortical thickness of the brain [ 75 , 76 ].

A similar effect might be observed in video gaming studies. More studies must be conducted to resolve how the intensity can be expected to affect cognitive function. Some of the studies also used specific handedness and specific sex of participants to reduce the variation of brain effects. Expertise and sex are shown to affect brain activity and structure [ 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 ].

Some concern might be raised about the quality of methodology, assessed using Delphi criteria [ 45 ]. Low quality in most papers resulted from unspecified information corresponding to the criteria.

Quality improvements for the studies must be performed related to the low quality of methodology. Allocation concealment, assessor blinding, care provider blinding, participant blinding, intention-to-treat analysis, and allocation method details must be improved in future studies.

Another concern is blinding and control. This type of study differs from medical studies in which patients can be blinded easily. In studies of these types, the participants were tasked to do either training as an active control group or to do nothing as a passive control group.

The participants can expect something from the task. The expectation might affect the outcomes of the studies [ 81 , 82 , 83 ]. Additionally, the waiting-list control group might overestimate the outcome of training [ 84 ]. There are four phases of clinical trials that start from the early stage and small-scale phase 1 to late stage and large-scale phase 3 and end in post-marketing observation phase 4. These four phases are used for drug clinical trials, according to the food and drug administration FDA [ 85 ].

Phase 1 has the purpose of revealing the safety of treatment with around 20— participants. Phase 2 has the purpose of elucidating the efficacy of the treatment with up to several hundred participants. Phase 3 has the purpose of revealing both efficacy and safety among — participants. The final phase 4 has the purpose of finding unprecedented adverse effects of treatment after marketing. However, because medical studies and video gaming intervention studies differ in terms of experimental methods, slight modifications can be done for adaptation to video gaming studies.

Several unresolved issues persist in relation to video gaming intervention. The participants might lose their motivation to play the same game over a long time, which might affect the study outcomes [ 86 ]. Second, meta-analyses could not be done because the game genres are heterogeneous.

To ensure homogeneity of the study, stricter criteria must be set. However, this step would engender a third limitation. Third, randomized controlled trial video gaming studies that use MRI analysis are few.

More studies must be conducted to assess the effects of video gaming. Fourth, the eligible studies lacked cognitive tests to validate the cognitive change effects for training. Studies of video gaming intervention should also include a cognitive test to ascertain the relation between cognitive function and brain change.

The systematic review has several conclusions related to beneficial effects of noncognitive-based video games. First, noncognitive-based video gaming can be used in all age categories as a means to improve the brain. However, effects on children remain unclear. Second, noncognitive-based video gaming affects both structural and functional aspects of the brain. Third, video gaming effects were observed after a minimum of 16 h of training.

Fourth, some methodology criteria must be improved for better methodological quality. In conclusion, acute video gaming of a minimum of 16 h is beneficial for brain function and structure. However, video gaming effects on the brain area vary depending on the video game type.

For more information, visit: www. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. None of the other authors has any conflict of interest to declare. Funding sources are not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, or writing of the study report. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Brain Sci v. Brain Sci. Published online Sep They enhance the visual-spatial ability amongst children. They are also responsible for developing mathematical and engineering skills in your children.

Most games encourage children to move to the next level and earn more scores in order to win or survive the game. This factor works positively amongst children. They learn calculations quickly and also develop an attitude which motivates them to always move ahead in life in order to achieve something.

Despite the learning and entertainment value of video games, there are many negative shades associated with playing video games. The negative impacts of video games on children are discussed below:. Playing aggressive games develops aggressive thoughts amongst children, which is reflected in their behavior as well.

This might not be a good sign, since we do not want our children to be more verbal and aggressive with their peers. Spending too much time on video games might affect studies as well. Lack of concentration and focus is evident amongst children who are crazy after video games.

Video games are known to encourage sedentary lifestyle. Children may develop poor eating habits and unhealthy lifestyle…. It is vital for children to spend time on both indoor and outdoor sports.

Excessive time spent on video games may curb some outdoor activities amongst some children. The downside of video games is that the more time children and teens spend playing violent video games the more likely they are to display aggressive behavior. Studies show "plugged-in" teens are more likely to be confrontational with adults, have fights at school and get poor grades.

Even more startling is that these effects on aggressive behavior can be long lasting. Parents can help by setting time limits for teens playing video games, not only on game systems, but on computers, smart phones, and tablets.

Parents should educate themselves on video game content and video game ratings. The Entertainment Software Rating Board has established a rating system for video games, much like the movie and television industry.