The poison deeply hidden in video games.
There are hundreds or thousands of research articles on the negative effect of violent video games on their users. They focus on the theme: violence. But I have not found one that recognizes the negative effect of nor violent video games. Here, I am going to reveal the hidden damaging impact video games have onto the young players. There is even no violence in the game.
Playing video provides the players a much higher ratio of enjoyment/excitement over the energy expenditure. The energy expenditure of game player is only limited to lifting up and pressing down or moving one or more than one finger on the keyboard/scratch pad. The ratio of energy expenditure versus enjoyment/excitement is very high. Higher than any naturally occurring recreational activities: shotting the baseball into the loop, kicking the football into the goal, climb up a mountain, paddling a canoe, catching fish, ski down the hill, ski across the countryside, snow shoeing, swimming, diving, hiking.
The video game programmers intentionally design games so the players will eventually be addicted to the games. In order to get the players addicted to the game, the payoff ratio has to be much higher than any other recreational activities.
As time goes on, some video game players will drop most of his/her recreational activities to make time for him to play video games. The video games monopolize the players’ recreational time. The problem starts when video games destroy the players’ repertoire of recreational activities. In this stage, the player will fight with his/her parents if they restrict his/her use of video games. They would rather stay home and play video games than go on a family trip. They will bring their games with them on a camping trip. This is an addiction.
Congratulations to the game developer, he/she is successful in converting a natural person into his pool of addicts.
No teacher can be more aminate than the actors in video games, no subjects in school can compete with the excitement presented in video games. A child will naturally be attention deficits in all subjects. And due to long sittings, he may compensate for his immobilization by being more active when he is not playing the video games: he might even look hyper active.
Playing video games provides the player with a safe haven from social encounters. But without the challenge of social encounters, the child may not develop the necessary social skills he/she needs.
The most damaging effect on the player is its damage on the Effort-Reward loop in our neurological system.
Two aspects of this damages:
- Children naturally experience the spontaneous reward of movement of their body parts. Children feel good to move around his/her bodies. They enjoy the sensation of movements, swirling, doing summersaults, hopping, jumping, bouncing, climbing, balancing. Just look at the school playground, children like to jump onto a moving merry go around without any incentive given by the teacher. It is because movement is intrinsically pleasant and rewarding by itself: kinesthetic sense. They enjoy the movement itself regardless of whether there is a payoff at the end. Older people who have a stiff spine do not enjoy movement as much as children.
- Movement, effort of making the movement often results in a reward: payoff. Shotting a baseball: when one gets the ball into the loop. He is happy and he might hear other cheer for him.
Addiction to video games inhibit the child to enjoy the movement, the kinesthetic senses of various movements: bouncing, jumping, hopping, skiing, skating, swimming, gliding, diving, hiking. Without a history of experiencing pleasant movements, in various postures, and recreational activities, effort of making a movement stand out. Everything is effort! Whatever requires more than lifting a finger and pressing down the finger on the video game board requires an effort! Of course, running a cross country tract requires tremendous effort in comparing with lifting a finger and pressing down a finger.
What about pay off? Everything is much less than video games. The natural neurological pathway is: some effort and get some reward, more effort and get more reward. Putting out intensive effort will get higher reward. By playing video games, this pathway was short cut. Very little effort leads to high reward. Naturally our minds choose this neurological circuit and give up all other neurological circuits. When other neurological circuits present to him/her, they feel they have no interest, nothing excited them, nothing motivates them. If they have to engaged in those low reward circuits. They will be inattentive to it. So they are, in fact, attention deficit in those circumstances. They feel boredom. And looking for alternated stimuli, so they are more distractible. It looks like ADD or ADHD. It looks like they are lazy, or they are depressed, or even more autistic liked.
With the magical experience of playing video game, they search for similar circuit in their surroundings. They search for ways to exert the least energy and get the highest payoff?
It does not take much effort to search. Of course: the answer is Fentanyl and Oxycontin. You don’t have to run a marathon to get the runner’s height, or to do meditation to feel the Tranquility, you don’t need to lift a two hundred pounds of weights over your head to beat your competitors, or before you is awarded a trophy.
All the effort one needs is just shallowing a little pill! It fits the paradigm he learned early on get the highest payoff with the least expenditure of energy. For them, expenditure of energy is a bad thing, they need to avoid with all cost.
I hope you see that: even nonviolent video games are harmful more than you realize.
Our very basic enjoyment is kinesthetic sense, a sense of movement. Through the enjoyment of Kinesthetic sense, we enjoy putting out effort, regardless of whether there is a payoff at all. When this rewarding loop is interfered with early on in life, putting out effort become a labor! They feel and act like an old man with arthritis. They often ask: “Do I have to move?” “Can I not do it?”
So, don’t allow them to be glued to a chair, nor immobilize their gross muscles by the game. let your child enjoy their kinesthetic sense fully. Do not limit your child to a screen with two dimensions, while the real world is in three dimensions. Do not disintegrate their coordinate and timing of various sensations: tactile, olfactory, gustatory, visual, and vestibular and kinesthetic sensations of various muscles. Do not interfere with their innate sensory-motor integration. Playing video games, the players receive visual stimulation, but the innate motor reactions are inhibited. The only functional reactions are the Fingers movements. Do not lead them in the world of fantasy before they have a chance to experience the real world. Do not lead them to live their lives limited by visual presentation, while they can touch, feel, smell, jump and hop. Lead them to be the doers and movers rather than the receiver of visual presentations. Drug users are those who like to feel good with minimum exertion. The very basic mental health is: exert your energy to provide for what you need. Mental health is the balance of energy exertion and need fulfillment. Video games violate this basic mental health principle. So, it is a mental poison!