Online games are becoming more and more popular recently. People prefer them over actual physical sports because apart from just being fun they can increase our vision, reduce depression, reduce stress, and can improve our ability to make sound decisions and multitask.
All of these benefits are highly subdued in the culture and all the disadvantages that come along with the popularity of online gaming are more widely promoted. The disadvantages that we are talking about are linked to obesity, poor grades, addictive behavior, an increase in depression, an increase in violent or aggressive behavior.
In general, parents are often more worried about their kids being indulged throughout the day in online gaming while the children seem to not care about those disadvantages and focus more on having fun.
What does a “video game” actually mean?
When we talk about video games the criteria that we are dealing with is very huge. Any game that you can play on a device using technology can be categorized as a video game. For example, a simple game of solitaire where a person can play on its own against the AI is also a video game. On the other hand, a famous Battle Royale game which is completely played online with thousands of players from all over the world is also included in the term video game.
Game rating process
As we mentioned above, parents are often worried about the type of game or games their children are playing because there is just a large variety of video games out there with different objectives and influences. So, in order to cope with parents and even the youth in identifying the type of content that they will face while playing a game. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) evaluates each and every video game and provides them and appropriate rating as per the content. The rating is highly informative and is structured in a way that helps the youth and the parents identify which games are suitable for different age demographic and which are not.
Gaming consoles
Initially, video gaming was mostly done on computers but as the popularity increased throughout the years, dedicated game consoles became more and more popular. Gaming consoles are consoles that are designed specifically to run high-end to low-end games with ease and are considered a great investment by the gaming community.
Another great feature of the gaming devices is family safety settings which are also called parental controls which allows the parents to set different restrictions on their children as per their preferences. These can range from restricting inappropriate games, setting time limits, whether the person can interact with other gamers or can only interact with their friends or not interact with anyone at all. These are just examples, there is a large number of such features to ensure that a parent does not feel threatened by the gaming consoles.
If you are a parent and watching this, before making a decision about buying gaming consoles keep in mind that even though the parental controls are very effective and the team behind those gaming consoles are working very hard to ensure the effectiveness of those controls, the truth is even if the setting is set up, the actual conversation that the players will have with other players will not be directly monitored by the console and cannot be guided.
Tips for healthy gaming
Communicating with your kid about playing appropriate games – Communication is very important to make your children understand about all the disadvantages and harmful effects that inappropriate gaming can have on them. This is the best way to ensure that they are not interested in playing those games.
Be aware of the gaming device – It is important to monitor the activities of your child on the gaming device and make sure they are not interacting with someone who is very toxic and negative on a regular basis because that can negatively affect your children’s health.
Consider the maturity and the age of your child – In order to do this, you can check out the ratings provided by ESRB and only allow your kids to play those games that are suitable for their ages. It is observed that kids will want to play other games that are not suitable but I am sure that you do not go hard on them about this because that can make them stubborn. The best way is to communicate about the disadvantages and ill effects of inappropriate gaming.
