Will online games ruin children?
Recently, under the background of the new policy of "double reduction", the topic of minors playing online games has been pushed to the forefront again, causing social concern. Different from the past, this hot discussion has formed a completely opposite situation: on the one hand, it accuses online games of great harm to teenagers, and laments that it will destroy a generation in the long run; On the other hand, the game is not only innocent, but also should be vigorously developed and become a national "strategic emerging industry". In the face of online games, how can children "afford to play, let go, not refuse, not indulge"?
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Online games have ruined our family.
Zhao Nvshi, a junior high school parent
When my son was in primary school, his academic performance was particularly good, but when he was in junior high school, he became addicted to online games, just like a different person. Especially during the online class at home last year due to the epidemic, I didn’t listen to the class and didn’t write my homework. When I taught him a few words, he shouted at me and even told me to "get out". After returning to school and resuming classes, his grades plummeted and he became a poor student in his class, and he didn’t even want to go to school. I mobilized all my relatives and friends to go into battle, and finally managed to persuade him to go to school. Because he often plays games all night at night, his mental state is very poor during the day. Even when he goes to school, he sleeps, and he has a bad temper. He often conflicts with his classmates because of some small things, and his friends around him are getting less and less.
School starts in September, and my son should be in the third grade, but his state is so bad that we suspended him at the suggestion of psychologists. Now, he doesn’t communicate with us at all, and he won’t let me and his father go into his room. When eating, I can only put the rice at the door of his room and let him take it in. I feel very sad. It is online games that have ruined our original warm home.
I really shouldn’t have let my child "into the pit" at the beginning.
Senior three parents, Ms. Liu
Daughter from primary school to senior three, we don’t know how many "wars" have happened because of online games. From the initial angry tablet, to the subsequent confiscation of mobile phones, and then to the signing of a mobile phone use agreement, this protracted "tug-of-war" has been filled with smoke. I regret it very much now. I shouldn’t have let my child "into the pit" at the beginning.
I think it’s best for parents to intervene and act early, and explicitly ask their children not to touch online games when they are still young. Of course, this is a process of wits and wits. A friend of mine has been letting his children use the old-age computer in order to prevent them from playing games, even though his son has been in the third year of high school; I also have a colleague who has been in a cold war with his fifth-grade son for many days because he secretly played games … … These methods may not be the best, and they need to be adopted according to the children’s situation, but it must be said that parents must have a clear attitude towards their children’s playing games, and they must never let them go, let alone compromise because they are worried about their children’s excessive behavior.
Playing games makes it difficult to integrate into the group.
Teacher Wang, the head teacher of a primary school
As a teacher, I firmly oppose students playing online games, because indulging in them is extremely harmful to students and has caused immeasurable harm to their physical and mental development.
Judging from the classes I manage myself, in recent years, there are often students who are addicted to playing games and delay their studies, including children with excellent academic performance, teachers and parents. Some children are completely deaf and their grades have dropped sharply. A child stole six or seven thousand yuan from his parents’ bank card in order to buy game props, which made family relations very tense. Not only that, but the child’s eyesight also declined. In addition, because they pay special attention to winning or losing games, some children who play games are in a bad mood and unstable mood if they fail to pass the test. They are immersed in their own game world and are unwilling to communicate with teachers and classmates, making it increasingly difficult to integrate into the collective life.
I hope that the painful lesson will not be repeated.
Cao Lizhi, a teacher of Cuiwei School affiliated to the National People’s Congress.
I am a high school teacher. I didn’t think that online games were a scourge, but I thought that playing them occasionally could exercise the coordination of hands and brains. However, the painful lessons happened in my class and my students, which made me hate online games.
I once taught a particularly clever student, who was among the best in his freshman year, but somehow fell in love with online games. During his three years in high school, his academic performance went from bad to worse, but his level of playing games became better and better. No matter what games he played, he got started very quickly and was able to learn by analogy. Even the game company funded him to play games in other places. However, the college entrance examination gave him a blow, and he fell into Sun Shan. Now every time he comes back to see me, he will say a word: "Playing games in high school, getting possessed, killing people!" This child often makes me feel sorry. Later, I no longer support the students in my class to play games, and I have to explain the truth to them, so that they can stay away from games and come back to reality.
Teenagers’ excessive games have many hazards.
Chen Yao, Haidian Academy of Education
While online games bring people entertainment, the negative effects and harms in some aspects are increasingly prominent, especially for teenagers whose physical and mental development is not yet mature. Excessive games may lead to a series of abnormal psychological and behavioral reactions of children, which will bring negative consequences to individuals and families, and it is also easy to cause some social problems.
Excessive games will affect the physical development of teenagers. Looking at the screen at close range for a long time will make the ciliary muscle in the eyeball lose its elasticity, which will lead to the inability to recover the lens, which will lead to myopia. Teenagers spend too much time on games, which will lead to insufficient physical exercise time, especially outdoor exercise time, which will also have a negative impact on teenagers’ physical development. Teenagers who excessively play games often stay up late to play, which will lead to the body’s failure to produce enough melatonin. Without enough melatonin, they can’t get high-quality sleep, which will have a negative impact on teenagers’ daily mental state, physical growth and development, and the formation of physical immunity. In addition, studies have shown that the normal development of the left forebrain of teenagers who are addicted to games will be inhibited, especially for children who are in early intellectual development, and this effect is more obvious.
Excessive games will affect the psychological growth of teenagers. Due to the long-term lack of social communication and interpersonal communication caused by excessive games, people often regard the virtual online world as real life, and their thoughts and emotions will be out of touch with real life, and psychologically they will show the characteristics of self-isolation and self-righteousness. Although these teenagers can get psychological satisfaction through the virtual world, they can’t improve their ability to deal with real problems. Once they return to real life, they often feel at a loss, so that they always choose to escape in the face of real difficulties. At the same time, as a result of spending a lot of time on games, it is inevitable that the study time will be greatly reduced and the study standards will be lowered, so that the academic performance will decline again and again. In addition, for teenagers with immature psychological development and weak behavior self-control, violence and pornography in the game are likely to be the incentives for them to commit crimes.
Analyzing the reasons why teenagers are addicted to online games has great attraction, but the fundamental reason lies in the serious problems in their real life. Bad parent-child relationship, monotonous family life, great pressure of academic competition, insufficient sense of self-worth, blocked development of personal interests and hobbies, and insufficient ability of personal social communication and emotional adjustment, etc., the psychological needs behind these games are also worth pondering by parents and educators.
opposing
It is not the original sin of the game for children to go bad.
Mr. Cheng, a junior high school parent
Today, online games, like novels, dramas, movies, TV plays and other cultural and entertainment elements, have become an indispensable part of the development of human society and have a great impact on human social interaction. All kinds of games are important components in both computers and mobile phones.
The game has been criticized constantly since its birth. Some people think that playing games will damage the eyes, make people addicted to it and delay their studies. In short, children will become bad when playing games. However, are these questions really the original sin of the game? Will watching movies ruin your eyes? The closed and dim screening hall, strong light and big screen, which lasts for two hours at a time, is much more irritating to the eyes than playing games. Why didn’t anyone propose to ban teenagers from watching movies? Will online teaching ruin your eyes? Online classes should be staring at the screen, and I haven’t heard of social calls to cancel online courses. It is said that playing games will be addictive and addictive, but reading novels will be addictive, reading comics will be addictive, watching idol dramas will be addictive, and brushing videos will be addictive, as well as fishing, raising flowers and raising birds … … In fact, everything is addictive, which requires moderation and control. The board can’t just play games. As for the fact that games make teenagers tend to be violent and become bad children, we must admit that some games have violent content, and the users they face are adults, just as some film and television dramas are not suitable for children to watch, so are games. The game industry should set up a grading system, and teenagers should not be exposed to such games, but this is not the problem of games themselves, but what measures should be taken by relevant departments to standardize the management of teenagers playing games.
Playing games properly can make you feel happy.
Middle school student Xiao Zhang
In my daily busy study and life, I occasionally play online games, because it can play a certain venting role and make my mood happy. The game has scenes that can’t be shaped in real life. When playing the game, I can "play strange" or "make friends" according to my own ideas. I think that most students as old as me will not be addicted to games, and only a few cases confuse online games with real life. As long as enough is enough, playing games can explain the "combination of work and rest" well, and even get twice the result with half the effort.
Knowing the game is knowing yourself.
Xiao Du, a graduate of Game Design Department of Communication University of China in 2021.
I grew up with games all the time. From playing with all kinds of interesting toys when I was a child, to exchanging treasures and dreams with my partners when I was a student, to chatting with my friends in front of the computer, or looking for a board game bar to play cards all afternoon. It is precisely because I have always experienced the fun brought by games that my middle school days are diverse and positive. Because I like the fun of games, love to play and think everyday, and occasionally DIY some games, I chose the game major without hesitation in the college entrance examination. Combined with my own game experience and learning practice on campus, I have a strong interest and curiosity in game design. Good games can make people get meaningful happiness continuously and get rich experiences from games. This is a complex subject that integrates computer, art, psychology, economics and other knowledge, and it is still growing vigorously. Why do people feel happy? How to control the psychological expectation of good people? These are all problems that deserve our constant reflection and summary in the game production process and even in our life. To understand the game is to understand ourselves. Therefore, I encourage teenagers to try and experience games. Of course, the premise of playing games is to complete their daily study and experience them in their spare time.
Rudely stopping children from playing games will affect social interaction.
Senior gamer Zhan Congcong
As a veteran player with more than 20 years of gaming experience, I think it is normal for teenagers to play online games. If they are simply and rudely stopped from playing online games, their normal social interaction and their cognition of the world may be affected to some extent.
In the digital age, online games have become an important window for teenagers in the new era to know the world, acquire knowledge, understand the society, integrate into the group and gain a sense of accomplishment. Many teenagers’ initial cognition of historical figures and events comes from games, and many teenagers’ circle of friends is also established based on game circles. Online games have been catalyzing the cognitive iteration of teenagers in the digital age. It is almost a natural evolution process for some teenagers to choose to play online games, because teenagers need to establish some cognition during play, and the work of making these teenagers who love to play games establish this cognition is handed over to online games.
At present, the debate on online games in society mainly focuses on the idea that children are easy to indulge in online games, which will delay their study and affect their health. These problems do exist, because in the highly capitalized online game market in China, the mechanism design of most commercial games is based on user retention, so that players can spend enough time in the game to achieve their operational goals. The interlocking game task incentives make it easy for adult players to play hard, let alone teenagers. However, if game manufacturers can add a mechanism that rewards will be doubled if they play for more than a day in the game design process, maybe the outcome will be different. For example, in addition to the minor protection system, if the market supervision department can unite with game manufacturers and smartphone manufacturers to develop a combination of software and hardware to guide young people to control game time, it may also reduce some negative effects!
In fact, online games are just one of the countless ways of digital entertainment in this era. Forcing a child who likes to play games not to play games may not make him suddenly fall in love with learning. Here, I also want to say to those parents who are upset because their children love playing games: it may be more meaningful to know their children through games, to find out why children love playing games but don’t like learning, and to know what games bring to their children that they can’t get in real life, than to simply stop them from playing games.
Let foreigners know about China culture through games.
Hua Yin, an employee of a game company
In recent years, with the rapid development of the Internet industry, games have become one of the most important forms of entertainment for netizens because of their low threshold and low cost.
In the early years, domestic stand-alone games had a glorious period, and both the plot quality and the depth of the ideological core were not inferior to foreign masterpieces, and even won various awards repeatedly. Nowadays, with the continuous improvement of the quality of game products, domestic games have gradually gained a foothold in the domestic market, while focusing on the new battlefield of "overseas". The news from the China International Digital Entertainment Industry Conference held not long ago shows that the actual sales revenue of self-developed games in overseas markets in the first half of the year was 8.468 billion US dollars, up 11.58% year-on-year.
Based on the famous works such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, overseas developers have developed a series of games with the theme of the Three Kingdoms, which are popular all over the world. Previously, overseas game users’ understanding of China often came from the works of our neighboring countries, but they knew little about the spiritual and cultural core of China and China people now, and even had a lot of misunderstandings. Nowadays, with generations of gamers exploring and studying quality and culture, more and more China elements appear in overseas markets, and more foreigners learn about China culture through China games.
Expert opinion
Games are children’s friends
Li Qisheng, Vice Chairman of Beijing Science and Technology Education Promotion Association
Games are the shadow of life. What kind of living environment children have, what kind of game choices they have. With the changes of the times and the development of society, in the metropolis of the information age, children’s game positions naturally shift to computers, mobile phones and networks.
Games are the choice of conformity. When children are young, when they communicate with peers, they will naturally talk about games. Children who have no contact with games at all can easily feel isolated. Therefore, under the guidance of parents, children’s exposure to some video games often played by their peers will help children find common topics with their peers, help them empathize with each other and help them integrate into the group.
In the eyes of many parents, children’s friends are good or bad, and so are games. Games that transmit unhealthy information and guide unhealthy behaviors are "bad friends"; Games that inspire thinking innovation, convey unity and cooperation, and promote positive progress are children’s "good friends".
Undeniably, in this noisy era, some unhealthy video games are easy to defile children’s innocent hearts and affect their healthy growth. However, we need to face and accept children’s contact with computer games and mobile games calmly, because it is children’s nature to like games and games are children’s friends.
However, games are not the whole of life. Friends are friends, and life is life. As parents, we can’t simply and rudely deny our children access to games, nor can we let them indulge in games. When we first come into contact with games, we need to establish rules with our children, when we can play games, which games we can play and when we must stop playing games. At the same time, parents can actively collect games, choose good games, try to play by themselves, play with children, interact with parents and grow up happily.
At different stages of children’s growth, their interest in games will also shift, just like at different ages, they will make friends with different interests. Therefore, parents need to understand the child’s interest transfer and need to follow up in time. While we advocate active participation in outdoor games and parent-child games, many electronic games, such as programming games, Sudoku games, painting games, word games and strategy games, can also be continuously concerned.
Of course, children’s main task is to learn. The relationship between games and learning, the application of games in education, and how to make children fall in love with learning like games are also topics of concern to many experts and primary and secondary school teachers. Applying the concept of gamification learning can enliven the classroom atmosphere, arouse students’ enthusiasm for learning and make boring teaching activities colorful. The combination of games and education is likely to promote the reform of student-centered and efficient learning methods.
Children who can play have a better future. Therefore, I suggest that the relevant departments should gradually infiltrate the game-based learning concept in the compilation of textbooks, classroom teaching, extracurricular activities, homework evaluation and other links in primary and secondary schools, infiltrate games in learning, and learn happily in games. In this way, children can "afford to play, let go, not refuse, not indulge" when facing the game.