Computer games have been around since the late seventies. They have gained immediate success, especially among the younger generation. At the same time, older generations have started raising their concerns about the negative impacts of gaming and their children’s unhealthy attachments to virtual worlds. Their concerns focused on students’ physical and mental health, as well as on their social skills and school performances.
Now, it’s been over 50 years. Yet, not much has changed about adults’ concerns and young people’s love of gaming. So, who is right in the end? Is gaming actually bad for students? Does it have any positive effects on young people’s lives and minds? Let’s find out!
Emotional release
Gaming can also help students process their feelings and emotions. This is because games require high engagement and emotional involvement. In other words, you have no choice but to live through the experience you see on the screen. Sometimes those experiences can be scary, sometimes funny. In other cases, you may get angry, tense, or sad. All the emotions that happen on the screen also happen with players. Hence, they experience a range of feelings and mental states.
Now, why is such an emotional roller coaster a good thing for students? For one, it’s just fun. However, we will get to the fun element of gaming later in the article. Secondly, processing and expressing emotions is harder than it appears at first. Many people carry long bottled-up feelings inside. These oppressed emotions didn’t find a release when they occurred.
Now, with days or months inside people’s minds, these thoughts can cause a lot of harm, especially to one’s mental health. So, finding a healthy way to process negative emotions, especially anger or grief, is a gift to those students. Games will help them to release those oppressed feelings and start anew. Besides, constantly boiling in negative emotions and pushing down your emotions serves as a big distraction.
In fact, sometimes, it may even be a better idea to entrust some of your assignments to professional services like Write my papers and have a day off for gaming and letting some steam out. Also, if you wonder, “is writemypapers reliable?” read their reviews online. It’s a sure way to learn more about the service.
Escapism
All students experience certain stresses in school, so having a break from negative emotions, school pressure, and anxieties of the real one can be a good thing. But, of course, as usual, moderation is the key here. The virtual world won’t solve all your problems or help you deal with real-life situations. It’s just a controlled escape that can become quite a joyful, sometimes even productive, experience. Yet, it is dangerous to treat games as a constant escape from problems. Such a tendency can lead to negative consequences, such as falling out of social circles and being behind in studies.
When approached wisely, though, gaming can really help students cope with school stress. It can charge young people with positive emotions, fun experiences, and confidence. Succeeding at one thing is likely to inspire you to try your strengths in the other. So, just like that, a desire to escape from the real world for a few hours can motivate students to work harder in the real world. Maybe now, instead of just reading a paperwriter.com review and ordering an essay online, they will dare tackle it all alone! Isn’t it a good thing?
When is gaming a bad thing?
As it turns out, gaming can greatly impact students’ lives and even their school performance. So, why are adults, particularly parents and teachers, so against it? In other words, when can gaming turn into a bad thing? A simple answer will lie in how big of a habit gaming has become for students. Thus, when such a pastime exceeds the reasonable amount of hours per day or week, gaming can turn into a problem. Then, it will start to affect one’s productivity, school performance, social connections, and other spheres of life.
A young person needs to have a well-rounded life. It means experiencing enough of everything over certain time periods. They should be physically active and eat well to stay healthy. They need to have real-life communication and relationships to fulfill their social needs. They should also work on their school progress and reputation to achieve their dreams in real life. However, gaming addiction can take away all those elements from one’s life, replacing them with the virtual world. At this point, one’s love of gaming is unhealthy and requires changes and possible interventions from outside parties. Playing a quick game of free slots every now and again won’t harm any studying, however, playing games late into the night at all hours could lead to you putting more effort into your games rather than studying.
Final thoughts
Gaming can be a great, fun hobby for a student. It can give them a temporary escape from their daily stresses and troubles while helping them build motivation and courage to face their real-life fears. Of course, gaming will remain a harmless hobby as long as young people treat it that way, stay responsible with their time, and know the difference between the virtual and the real world.
