Influences of the Gaming Culture in Education

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Influences of the Gaming Culture in Education
Students are spending most of their time in gaming, especially video games on their computers. These gaming activities have led to game addiction, making students forget about their academic works (Eshrat & Maliheh 98). Barry et. al. study indicates that “frequent gamers (measured as those who spend, on average, more than two hours per day playing games) are less likely to obtain higher marks across all subject disciplines than non- or infrequent gamers (result significant at the 99% level)” (Barry, Jacobs and Watkins 367). Students from different cultural backgrounds meet in the school environment where others who have never experienced any of the video games get to try them out for the first time. At the end they become addicted to the games and lack the power to balance between their academics and games (Kurt, Idit and Caperton 10). Academic excellence goes hand in hand with learners accomplishing various obligations such as group discussions, personal consultations with their trainers and individual studies. However, games have been identified as key learning and mind refreshing activities for learners. Despite this, gaming activities are becoming a serious cultural problem affecting the learners psychologically and their health, result to development of negative behavior, and are addictive which hinders their academic achievements.
The gaming culture brings about psychological and health problems to the learners. With the internet, many leaners have been subjected to gambling games. Consequently, when one loses while playing, they tend to develop stress which if not well-managed results in psychological problems such as trauma and depression (Barry, Jacobs and Watkins 356). Barry et. al. further stated that gambling has adverse effects such that in every 20 students involved at least one of them has been diagnosed to have mental disorders. Zamani et. al. carried out a study in city of Isfahan in the educational year of 2009-2010 with a sample of 564 students with the aim of studying the computer games effect on male and female students’ physical and mental health. They concluded that “there was a direct relationship between addiction to computer games and physical disorder, anxiety, sleep disorder and depression” (Zamani et. al 102). Computer games utilized by most students lead to the development of disorders such as obesity as these games do not engage the body physically. Various studies show that playing too much computer games causes physical disorders that lead to the anxiety of the players (Zamani et. al 98). Zamani et. al, in addition, revealed that those learners who are addicted to computer games have higher heartbeat and blood pressure on the grounds that they are subjected to too much stress and excitement. Many of them do not understand how time elapses and even some forget to eat which affects their body health.
Gaming culture results to other associated negative behaviors being developed by the students. Students watching and playing various games that are so violent such as wrestling, tend to emulate such behaviors in schools. Barry et. al. in their research posit that, “The parents of ...