Brief analysis of healthy gaming on the well-being of children
This blog post has been written by our guest writer, Michael Adler, one of our candidates for the position of Marketing Associate.
The importance of games for children stems from their desire to escape the real world. This is especially true for children that are dealing with serious illnesses, either physical or mental. While many children naturally use games as a way to explore the world and challenge their understanding of its surroundings or as an apparatus to learn, it is more crucial and incumbent for the myriad of children going through difficulties to have the means to escape. While some children want to become superheroes to feel powerful or increase their ego, this sense of power is necessary for children with illnesses to overcome those illnesses without furthering their spiral into hopelessness, loneliness, anxiety, and depression, to name a few.
For example, children who are sequestered at a hospital because of a physical condition or stuck at home during Covid and cannot play with their friends may exhibit a feeling of loneliness. While this feeling is difficult on adults, through experience and trial and error, adults may gain coping mechanisms through the maturity that may come with age.
Children, however, tend not to have the mental tools necessary for these coping mechanisms. They are almost stuck within a world of “themselves,” and they feel that there is no escape because they cannot empirically deduce that there will be as they have no experience to the contrary. This feeling of loneliness will create a depressive feedback loop where they feel lonely, but not knowing how to elucidate their feelings or fix them, they ostracize themselves and spiral down the rabbit hole, so to speak.
Playing games can break this loop because it takes the minds of their issues, gives them back control, educates them, and brings them into a sense of community, where their issues are de-stigmatized, and they can share their experiences knowing that other children are also playing this game. But the true benefit of any game, especially one that focuses primarily on health and education, is that time is being spent away from the abyss of their own thoughts and towards a constructive activity where they can come to terms with their illness, condition, or ailment.
One of the unintended consequences of playing this game is a possible increased sense of hopelessness, especially when coupled with the maximum time limit. This is because children with mental health or physical conditions may feel powerful or forget their issues whilst playing the game. Still, those feelings may creep back with critical reasoning when they realize that the game is not real life and that their condition cannot get better.
The game may act as a placebo for the 30-minute limit and, of course, keeping kids busy and their minds off their issues is worthwhile, but without support from other avenues, their feeling may not dissipate and may even get worse for some with an increase in the sense of powerlessness and wishing that they were more like a character from a game.
While there may be some challenges, overall, any game that seeks to subdue harmful thought and educate children for their social and mental betterment is important. Such positive actions that occur during this early stage of life can help children overcome future mental afflictions and become efficient and well-balanced adults.
