The Positives of Online Gaming - Essay Example

The term online gaming is used to refer to the technology through which gamers connect with each other and play different kinds varieties of games over different forms of computer based networks such as the internet. Online games can be played along with other gamers throughout the world and individuals can even play these games at the individual level. For several years, stakeholders such as parents, teachers and researchers have stated that online gaming is a devil and is negatively impacting the society.

Several problems such as obesity, decrease in socialization and online gaming addiction have been associated with online games (Wilkinson 6). Online games are not really as bad as portrayed and have several benefits including: helps individuals and children create friends and relationships; cope with emotional issues and helps in expression of creativity. Body Online video games help children socialize and make more friends. Online video games are mostly criticized by parents because they believe that these video games are making their children lonely and completely removed from the society.

They believe that their children are so involved in online gaming that they tend to ignore other important activities such as socialization. The reality is that online video games are played individually as well as with players all over the world. When players from different parts of the world join together in online gaming, they tend to create friendly relationships and thus their level of socialization increases. According to Yee, online gamers do not only play online games to compete against each other, they even play games to connect with other online gamers.

Yee conducted a study on 30,000 online video game players for several years and these players were involved in playing online MMORPG games which included the game named Everquest (Yee 322). Through this research, Yee figured out that around 54% of the female online game players and 30% of the male online game players had ample amount of trust in their online gaming friends and had shared their secrets with them (Yee 327). Online video games assist children in coping with their emotional issues.

Children experience a lot of emotional issues on daily basis; they experience emotional issues as a result of hazardous conditions at their homes and problems such as child abuse. They may not be direct victims of household abuse but they may witness a loved one such as a mother being abused and they may feel the emotional stress and anger caused due to such abuses. Children even experience emotional issues as a result of being bullied or due to their failure to achieve good grades. In order to cope with these issues they use online video games to forget these issues and change their emotional state.

A study was conducted by Cheryl K. Olson and through this study; the researcher figured out that 62% of the boys and 44% of the girls who were surveyed stated that they used video games in order to gain relaxation and to fight emotional issues such as anger (Olson 182). Online videos games are of diverse nature and design and these games helps children in using their creative side of cognition. Parents are of the idea that children who are continuously involved in online video games