Close your eyes and think of the happiest moments of your childhood. You’re smiling right now, aren’t you? In case you’re wondering how I know so, it’s because I’m smiling too. It’s funny to think about all the goofy things I did when I was a child, many of which involve hours at the local gaming café, not so much of “preparing for my future” like how all our parents wanted us to do.
If you’ve never been to a gaming café or not knowing what it is, I’ll give you a brief breakdown since it plays a significant part to my childhood. A gaming café is basically a coffee shop that also rents out personal computers with multiple games and applications on them. During my childhood, this is the place where most teenagers hangout, play games or do group assignments, whether with friends or siblings. Yes, it sounds fun until a government decides to set rules for young gamers for these two main reasons, and I am 100% against them. (Who likes rules, especially when we were young?!)
1. Playing video games causes poor eyesight.
This statement relates to an argument I have always had with my parents since my teenage years. I have always had poor eyesight since the age of 8, and guess what my parents blame it on? Of course, it was because I spent ALL MY TIME playing video games. Even though most of the time I spent in front of a computer was for school projects and class presentations. Fun fact, on the contrary to the common perception, two studies from Switzerland and Canada finds that “certain video games can actually improve vision”.
2. Video games addiction.
They all say that video games are addictive, but are they really? Because I have spent years playing video games and know many people who are the same but none of us are “addicted”. Even if it does exist, what kind of addiction is it? Is it like drugs, alcohol or is it like how you’re just obsessed over a favorite food? Playing video games is not addictive in any sense, and the New York Times did an amazing job explaining this matter very thoroughly with explanations on both mental and physical effects.
Let children be children!
Childhood plays a vital role to the development and completion of a child’s brain as well as body. I can’t even imagine what my childhood would have been and who I would have turned into if I were to grow up with all those regulations. If parents are worried, they can teach and lead their children to level their usage to a healthy amount of time on their own. Also, Daniel Ahmad was right: “There are always going to be loopholes”.
Comments