Video games stimulate curiosity and imagination. They also strengthen self-

esteem as children overcome challenges, going to a higher game level and
discovering what they are capable to achieve. Playing video games is a
distraction and also an adventure!
 
Besides, video games is one of the preferred topics of conversation with
friends. Children exchange tricks and solutions to achieve the objectives of the
games when they find difficulty doing it by themselves.
 
Dice game was created at that time as a solution to temporarily escape from
suffering and hunger. Playing games facilitated peaceful coexistence and
encouraged the search for new solutions.
 
When we play we can escape from reality, we can learn and have a good time.
A game in itself is neither good nor bad.
 

Benefits of video games:

1. Most games favor the development of logic to solve problems through
puzzles and riddles.
 
2. Video games streamline decision making because players develop long-
term ability to figure out effectively the possibilities of an option, evaluating
the best way to go. Playing games develop a better perception of what is
happening around players, according to a research conducted by scientists the
University of Rochester in New York (2010).
 
3. The interaction in video games improves fine motor skills and hand-eye
coordination of preschool children, according to a study by Deakin University
in Melbourne.
 
4. Cooperative and online games promote sociability, teamwork, ability to
solve problems together for both children and adults.  

 
5. Video games relieve physical and emotional pain, depression and
aggressive behavior. Playing video games is a distraction that changes heart
rate and channels frustrations in the virtual world, according to studies by the
University of Washington, the American Pain Society and Keele University in
the UK.
 
6. Action video games with accelerated images improve visionbecause the
required attention to it, even in people with cataracts, says Daphne Maurer,
medical Visual Development Laboratory at McMaster University Ontario.
 
7. “Games with epic achievements are powerful platforms for changebecause
together we can create whatever future we imagine
Negative effects of video games:
1. Aggressiveness: children are increasingly exposed to growing physical and
sexual violence present in all media. The violent content of these media may
cause childhood aggression (Anderson 2007).
 
2. Violence and pornography: video games such as “Grand Thief Auto” and
“Call of Duty” for over 18 years, are training children to shoot and kill in a
virtual world in which the values of life are lost.
3. Attention problems: high speed media content can contribute to attention
deficit disorder, as well as decreased concentration and memory (Christakis
2004 , Small 2008).  Elementary school children who play video games more
than two hours a day were 67 % more likely to develop attention problems,
according to a study published in Pediatrics magazine.
 
4. Impatience: “New technologies make us more impatient and decrease
frustration tolerance. They also relax a part of our brain that has to be
worked”, said Alvaro Bilbao, neuropsychologist.
 
5. Addiction: the player’s immediate response to stimuli game generates a
mini-reward in the form of release of dopamine (pleasure hormone).
 
6. Sleep Deprivation: Exceeding exposure to entertainment screens produces
sleep problems. Day and night overexposure generates (very vivid)
hypnagogic images that usually produce nightmares.
 
7. Emission of radiation: in May 2011 , the World Health Organization
classified mobile phones and other wireless devices as a class 2B risk
(possible carcinogen) due to the emission of electromagnetic radiation.