As young students, one of the preferred activities to distract ourselves from the pressures and stresses of school is to play video games. Students can spend hours in front of the television being immobile except when pressing small buttons on their device. Although they are one of the most popular leisure activities among students, there have been an overwhelming amount of research and studies that argue strongly against them. Despite their negative effects overpowering most of the articles and news reports we read, there are in fact some people that have successfully proven the opposite. This post will highlight that unconsidered and hidden benefits of video games in student’s writing skills and educational progress.
Arguments against video games
Most of the discussions surrounding video games focus upon their emphasis on violence. They are said to encourage thinking of violence as a way to solve problems or overcome challenges; something that can sound quite alarming to parents. Furthermore, video games have been considered to have a decentralizing effect. This means that the more a child plays video games, the less able he or she will be to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Becoming desensitized can lead to the deterioration of emotional stability, and confusion between morality and immorality. According to a research in 2016 by the University of Buffalo, the feeling of guilt in children who play video games can reduce to the point that they do not even consider it after any of their actions. As a result, children may struggle to know that for every action there is a consequence. In the case of students, some may regard that not completing tasks, skipping class or not participating in class may have no consequence whatsoever.
Benefits of video games
On the other hand, video games have been demonstrated as underestimated helpful tools for students. According to an article published by National Geographic, video games are not harmful whatsoever. The problem actually lies in the balance between work and play times.
In the field of reading and writing, an article by UKM stated that playing video games can actually be quite beneficial. For instance; the unique storylines of each game are considered to encourage imaginative skills and enhance comprehension abilities among students. At the same time, this could improve a student’s ability to narrate their own story in a school assignment. As most video games are designed and played in English, it is inevitable that students will be exposed to an impressive amount of new and elaborate vocabulary.
Especially when playing in multiplayer mode, children will be forced to communicate with others in English, something that may strengthen their speaking, reading and writing skills. Indeed, the results of this same research project by UKM revealed that 90% of the students that took part in their trial thought that video games did indeed enrich their vocabulary, and 76.5% responded positively towards video games enhancing their narrative skills. In particular, character building in video games has been proven to work wonders for children’s ability to develop characters and stories of their own. More than 80% of students in this study claimed that video games helped them generate new structure ideas in their writing tasks.
Furthermore, students that had frequent interaction with video games demonstrated an increased interest to learn more and different branches of the English language such as Literature or Creative Writing. In fact, many of them stated that thanks to video games, they wished to pursue a professional career in those degrees.
Incorporating video games in writing class
For many parents, the idea of incorporating advanced digital technologies in the classroom is a waste of time, money and are a form of additional distraction and therefore inefficient. However, it is important to remember that the children at school today are considered “digital natives”. This means that the children who attend school today were born in a time where technology is at its peak, and are more than equipped and mature to use it. In fact, using technology to enhance their education could be seen as a sign of progression. Therefore, using video games as a way to ameliorate their writing skills is a very smart and original method. The language and writing skills of students may improve at the same time as it is an entertaining and pleasurable experience for children.
Video games can thus be considered great new platforms for informal lessons rather than harmful and questionable forms of entertainment. Using video games to improve writing skills is a way of adapting to the interests and needs of today’s children, something that would be highly regarded when talking about establishing new educational methods.
Of course, the success of video games as educational material strongly depends on how it is used. Video games in education must be used carefully by a professional educator who knows how to implement them in the best way possible without there being a risk of unprofessionalism or triggering of their addictive qualities.
This article has highlighted many positive outcomes that can come from children playing video games. Instead of them being considered a nuisance for educational improvement, they can also be a good way of ameliorating student’s concentration, vocabulary, creativity, communication, narrative, and comprehension skills. Being engaged in video games, a lot of lazy students address some reliable writing services which can provide them with custom written papers for academic needs.
