The Impact of Video Games on the Psychological Development of Children

One of the most widely deliberated topics when it comes video games with children is the violence factor. Psychologists Saleem, Anderson, and Gentile show that the impact on the children has to do with the content of the game. They assessed 177 children from ages 9–14 years old play a prosocial, neutral, or violent video game, and assessed helpful and hurtful behaviors simultaneously through a new tangram measure. Participants were told that they would play a video game by themselves, work together with a partner on a puzzle task, and that they would choose 11 tangrams for their partner to complete (there was no actual partner). If their partner completed 10/11 tangrams within 10 minutes, their partner would win a $10 gift certificate. They were told that they would also receive 11 tangrams from their partner, and that performance would be scored but they were not eligible to win a gift certificate. Participants were told that one of the study’s goals was to determine whether a potential prize influences performance. In their conclusion, given the genre of game played, children can be influenced by the “helpful” or “hurtful” intentions of the actual game. Prosocial games increased helpful and decreased hurtful behaviors in a short-term experimental context with children. In contrast, children’s games with violent content increased hurtful and decreased helpful behavior.
With violent gaming content in perspective, Polman, Castro and Aken explore the deferential effects of actually playing these style of games versus passively watching the same game. They assessed 56 children from four different schools, ages 10-13 (50/50 males to female), during watching/playing a violent video game to playing a non-violent game and analyzed any ...

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... games do have an important and distinct impact on the psychological development of children. Some of the positive effects of social, educational, cognitive, and physical uptake are substantial and far outweigh the occasional negative showing of aggression and lethargic behavior. As with all things, the situation and content should always be considered, especially in the developing stages of young minds. With the landscape of the video game industry changing year-by-year, there are constantly more dimensions of this puzzle needing to be assessed. However, there has already been a shift in their potential effects even as recently as the past 10 years. With more research in this field, we can start to note trends (relative to sex and age) and begin to create and environment where children enjoy the process of growing up while developing good health and social habits.