3 of 20

Write now Article Tools

Page 2 of 2

lessons. They are as well rounded youngsters as I've met. However, I still look for reasons for their, and indeed my, relative success so far in life. The important aspect I can identify is moderation. I (ashamedly) confess that when I was a few years younger I went through a phase of playing online games for many hours a day. Once I played for eight consecutive hours. I can't ever remember feeling that alienated from the world. From then on I showed personal restraint, and younger than that, my parents enforced at least some kind of time limits on my gaming time. Yet there still friends of mine, and people who I happen to meet online who daily spend over six hours playing computer games. Socially they are often inept, and academically they under achieve. These are the individuals who have suffered through 'over exposure' as it were.

It is always sad to see a child ruined by excess of anything; an obese child or a spoilt child. For me, just as terrifying is an isolated, socially inept child who exists fully only in a virtual world. Perhaps I fear this child could have been me. Yet I will always champion computer games as an aspect of childhood, if responsibly managed both by parents and the individual child. Hours of fun and a vivid imagination is what I like to think computer games offer me.

To conclude, I think that an overall positive part can be played by computer games in a child's life. Yet as with anything, excess can be so damaging. It is the responsibility of first the parent and then the individual to monitor and regulate time spent gaming, and this is no different for any other part of a child's upbringing. Of course, there are other factors that must be considered with the industry: age restrictions and money spring to mind. However they are manageable by-products of an ever expanding and exciting part of the modern multimedia culture.

Learn more about this author, Jon Greene.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2

Add your voice

Know something about Young people and computer games?
We want to hear your view. Write now!