DIGITAL GAME ADDICTIONINFLUENCE ON COGNITIVE AND BEHAVIOURAL OUTCOMES OF CHILDREN (9-11 YEARS
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Date
2021-09-03
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Abstract
Childhood is a time for children to be in school and at play which helps to grow
stronger and confident with love and encouragement from their family. It is a critical
and important time in which children sought to live free from fears, safe from violence
and guarded from abuse and exploitation. Now-a-days gaming behavior is emerged as a
common habit among children. It is one of the common leisure activities among
children. World Health Organization defines gaming disorder as “a persistent or
recurrent behavior pattern of sufficient severity result in significant impairment in
personal, family, social, educational, work-related and other main areas of functioning”.
“Digital game addiction” is a condition that stems from the steady growing passion for
digital games and its excessive and uncontrolled usage, which definitely influences their
cognition and behavior (Parisod et al. 2014).In past children used to play games in
playgrounds but now children addicted to digital gadgets and playing in the mobile.
They spend more time on mobile games and it leading to addiction. Digital game
addiction shows the bad effects among the children now a days.
Addiction to the mobile games lead to consequences like falling school, behavioural
problems, health problems, effecting the social relationships and little effect on
cognitive abilities. The most often occurring outcomes reportable for digital game
addiction are behavioral, perceptual cognitive and physiological outcomes (Connolly et
al. 2012).
Digital game addiction is being studied extensively as there is a need to know about its
effects on behavioural and cognitive skills of children. Hence the present study was
taken up to study the digital game addiction- influence on cognitive and behavioural
outcomes of children (9-11 years) in Andhra Pradesh.
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The sample was drawn from the selected schools of Visakhapatnam District, to know
the digital game addiction influence on cognitive and behavioural outcomes of the
children. The total sample consists of 180 children selected from three schools. 60
children from each school who are in age group of 9-11 years. Out of 180 sample
selected, 90 children were boys and 90 were girls. The research design adopted in the
present study was Ex-Post facto research design. Data was collected through in depth
interviews and administered with the help of Standardized scales and open ended
questionnaire from the selected respondents. Digital game Addiction Scale (Altun, M.
and Atasoy, M. 2018) is used to measure the level of digital game addiction in children,
Malin’s Intelligence Scale for Indian Children (MISIC, 1973) is used to measure level
of cognitive development in children, The Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression
Scale (RCADS) (chorpit, et al. 2000) is used to measure the children anxiety and
depression level.
The results shown that majority of the children irrespective of their age had high
levels of digital game addiction where boys scored higher than girls. The children with
low extent of digital game addiction had low levels of anxiety and depression symptoms
in boys and girls. The low addicted children scored low on social phobia, panic
disorder, major depression, separation anxiety, generalized anxiety and obsessivecompulsive
disorders. The children with medium level of digital game addiction had
medium levels of anxiety and depression symptoms in boys and girls. The children with
high level of digital game addiction had high levels of anxiety and depression symptoms
in both genders and scored high on social phobia, major depression, separation anxiety
and generalized anxiety.
Interestingly nearly half of the boys with low extent of digital game addiction
performed low on cognitive skills. Girls with low level of digital game addiction scored
high on cognitive skills. Children with medium level of digital game addiction scored
average on cognitive skills and high level of digital game addiction scored average to
high on cognitive skills irrespective of gender.
There was a significance variance among the boys and girls scores on the
level of digital game addiction among all age groups. There was a significant
association between the level of digital addiction and behavioural outcomes of 9-11
years old children. There was no significant association between the level of digital
addiction and cognitive development of 9-11 years old children however children who
had high levels of digital game addiction scored high on performance skills than verbal
skills irrespective of gender. There was a positive and significant relation observed
between age of the child, digital game addiction and cognitive development and
behavioural outcomes. Majority of the children spending four hours on Mobile and
61.7 percent were playing mobile games. Nearly 60 percent of the children playing free
fire game in mobile. Majority of children playing violent and adventurous type of
games in mobile and also children are facing health problems like headache and eye
problem. Hence parents should have to check on the level of time spent on digital
games and facilitate them in balancing their academic and recreational activities.
Children need to be counselled about the ill effects of digital or mobile game addiction
and its effect on health, emotional, behavioural and psychological disorders
Description
DIGITAL GAME ADDICTIONINFLUENCE
ON COGNITIVE
AND BEHAVIOURAL
OUTCOMES OF
CHILDREN
(9-11 YEARS