Example 2 - Cause and effect essays

Example

2. Essay on the impact of online games among children

Peer Presure

Among schoolchildren, the biggest problem is peer pressure. "If one child gets a mobile phone as a gift on her/his birthday, the entire class comes under pressure to get one The pressure on their parents is immense. Some parents try to postpone buying a phone or gaming device, connecting the purchase to their child's performance at school," Madhavan Ramakrishnan, Director Strategy, Sweans Technologies Ltd., points out.

There are several ways to curb and restrict gaming and tech addiction among children. The easiest method is to promote gaming that can actually help with the brain's development and restrict games that are violent or too competitive in nature. The paradox is that the shooting and racing games are the most popular genre among children.

"Parents can consider app locks or Internet locks on their children's devices. There are dedicated apps like 'Family Time', which will allow parents to keep track of their children's gaming and browsing habits, especially if they are addicted to their phones and tablets and laptops. In the case of gaming consoles, it's slightly tricky. It is important for the parents to be involved while the child sets up their gaming accounts on Play Station or XBox so that they can monitor their activities at a later stage," Mr. Ramakrishnan says.

K.M. Manzoor, chief medical officer and psychiatrist, District Ayurveda Hospital, Kozhikode, feels that online games with a content of aggression need not necessarily make the children aggressive, but concedes that there could be specific groups that must be under greater care.

"Vulnerable children who do not have a pleasant family atmosphere, children of separated parents and those living in contexts of family conflicts should always be monitored," he says.

A disease

Internet addiction, he says, is nowadays mot considered as a bad habit, but a disease. "For every disease, prevention is better than cure. Children should be encouraged to make more use of libraries. Reading habits should be encouraged and every house must have a small library. Newspaper reading among children is much less compared with earlier days. This is one of the area, every parent can use for these types of behaviour formation," Dr. Manzoor says.

Elders' anxieties notwithstanding, gaming is fun and relaxation for a majority of young people. "E-sports has always just encouraged me to appreciate high quality visuals, fantasy and boost my valiance as a person. I believe it has taught me to a great extent not to give up on myself. In games, one can always replay and learn to be better, which is unlike real life," Akshay Raj, student of the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, says.

An avid gamer, Mr. Raj, who started with video game consoles connected to television and then moved on to personal computers, online games and recently to Android and iPhone apps, says that there have been instances of certain games being banned in certain countries owing to their aggressive or hostile nature.

"I've played these games only to enjoy it to the core. It's important to know and keep in mind that these are games," he says.

He says that most of the gamers play seriously as if it's their job or because of high dedication to the games.

Multiplayer games

Recent advances in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), where a large number of players interact with one another within a virtual world, require this dedication from players "because you game with other players online who count on you to do your part for the next one hour or so."

Generally, gaming can be really addictive, but children tend to start observing a career in the field, which has not really been appreciated by society at large.

"E-sports might have a huge potential at the international level, but it is better not to invest time and money in online e-sports sacrificing all other possibilities. It's not worth playing ambitiously. It should rather been seen as a pastime that can make you a better solver of problems and also drive your adrenalin a notch up," Mr. Raj points out.