The Cause and Effect of Video Games on Teen Psychology and Academics

This report investigates the impact of video games on the psychology and academic performance of teenagers, drawing on a study of 500 students from an Australian secondary school. The research, employing questionnaires administered to parents and behavioral observations, explores the relationship between video game exposure and various aspects of teen behavior and cognitive function. The findings reveal that while video games are popular among teenagers, with a significant portion engaging with them, there is no direct correlation between game playing and academic performance. The study also notes gender-specific patterns, such as increased aggression among male teenagers whose mothers are homemakers, and potential behavioral changes in both genders. The research highlights the influence of social determinants of health on teenagers' gaming habits. The literature review traces the evolution of the video game industry, the increasing prevalence of violent content, and the growing time teenagers spend gaming, discussing the challenges of parental control and the mixed findings of previous research on the effects of video games on teen behavior. The methodology section details the research process, including the research questions, objectives, and data collection methods, encompassing observations, questionnaires, and interviews. The study aims to bridge the knowledge gap by providing an empirical study on the relationship between video games and teenagers' school performance, considering gender-based differences.

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The cause and effect of video game on psychology and academic
performance of teenagers
Author Name(s), First M. Last, Omit Titles and Degrees
Institutional Affiliation(s)
Author Note
Include any grant/funding information and a complete correspondence address.

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Abstract
The advent of electronics and computers have made the emergence of electronic games
more popular in some decades which has attracted many teenagers to this lucrative source of
entertainment. This paper was conducted to determine the effects these emerging video games
have on the children in terms of their behavior and cognitive performance in schools and some in
some settings. The research took an empirical approach and sampled a total of 500 males and
female students who were a teenager. This was done in a random manner in Federation
secondary school in Australia. The questioned designed by the team was filled by the parents of
the students at the end of the month. The performance of the students and their general behavior
was monitored using the patterns created by video games. The data was analyzed in SPSS by
using the descriptive statistics formulae to get the contingency coefficient for the data analysis.
The results show very stranges insights as it shows that all the student somehow are interested in
video games and 80% of the sample population have somehow interacted with video games
before once in a while. The data also shows that female teenagers enjoyed the games more often
especially those whose mothers were a bit older compared to their counterparts whose mothers
are a bit young. The data also shows those males whose mother are housewives and in
possession of some handheld device played more games and was more aggressive compared to
others. The females who often played these video games registered a strange result in their
normal behavior and mental status. The data shows that both genders has symptoms of always
overshooting and overreacting in situations. The video games thus form the research has some
significant effects on the behavior of the teenager but has no direct correlation on their
performance in school. The social determinant of health playa a significant effect on teens
playing games ability.

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Keyword: Education status; Students; Adolescents; Video Games
Introduction
The lucrative business of video games has seen a surge of companies devoted to the
creation of these innovative games. Some companies have specific personnel who are tasked
with the innovation and creation of these video games (Holley, 2019). In their research,
(Ferguson et al., 2016) asserted that even though the companies have been proactive in the
creation of this games, it is evident that these companies have also been on the forefront in
warning the parents of the potential harms these video games may have on the kid's behavior.
The public has been put on alert of the potential health hazards that the video games may have on
the safety of the public. The companies have also raised red flags on the alarming number of
people who subscribed to these video games especially teenager who are clearly supposed to be
guided on the effects these games may have on their well being.
The very first computer game to hit the electronic market was the Tennis games which
were very popular among the geek's community. With the advent of the PC revolution, there was
an increase in the number of families who could own computers. The breakthrough of the first
PC games made the content creator have dedicated teams tasked with coming up with new
hardware and software designed to make the whole user experience of playing these games more
quality(Brown, 2018).
(Cunningham, 2018) in his paper reveals the target population the content creator shifted
from the adults to the adolescents being more research indicating the teenager played video
games more often than the adults. These companies devoted to research and development team
to dedicate their efforts to coming with innovative games both in software and hardware that

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appeal .to the new market. Companies, therefore, spend more time and money innovating on
video games. This explains the surge in the number of games tagged video games on the Internet.
According to (Gabbiadini & Riva, 2018), the video games have been reported to have
attracted the teenager due to great multimedia used in these games. The features of these games
are not only amusing but also astonishing, to say the least. The effects of these video games have
according to research have shown some mixed effects. In his paper, (Moyer, 2019) confirmed
that these video games consume a lot of time of this teenager, time which if put well into
constructive efforts of schoolwork can improve their performance exponentially. (Giancotti,
Fusco, Rodio, Capranica, & Cortis, 2018) in their research paper have revealed that these video
games have the potential to cause disorder to the teens. They further asserted that more
pathological signs are witnessed among teens who play a lot of video games, with 8%-15% of
the video game player estimated to suffer from pathological disorders. There is however less
evidence to make the conclusion more objective.
According to (Jin Ha Lee, Clarke, Hyerim Cho, & Windleharth, 2017), provide a rather
twisting finding as they have asserted that these video games have contributed to the positive
development since teenager who played a lot of video games improve in their confidence levels
and became more aggressive in different situations.
Little work has been done to find any correlation between playing these games and their
effect on the general school performance of the teenager under questions. The aim of this
research was to bridge the knowledge gap and provide a rather empirical study on the
relationship between video games and the school performance of the teenager who play the
games.

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Literature Review
The industry of gaming started in the humble beginning back in the year 1972 when the
first ever games became mainstream. It was a simple game named Pong, where the player is
given the challenge to hit an electronic ball using the electronic paddles. This simple concept
opened the doors to the industry which is now valued as multi-billion. In a less time frame of 30
years, the industry has grown with numerous injuries have been established in the idea of making
games. Content creators have also mushroomed with new innovation hitting the market very
frequently (Scharper, 2018).
The general increase in computing powers enabled the computer ability to process
graphics to increase exponentially. This made graphics involving violate graphics to have their
way into the business of video games. This era of microprocessor saw more desktop based video
games and those handled on the devices to mushroom. Manufactured continued to innovate on
the more violate games as research shown that such violence based games sold very well
(O’Dwyer, Carson, & Gilmore, 2009).
The number of video games with some level of violence in them increased as about 80%
of the game has some violence in them with 45% of them have very serious violence in them.
According to (Markey & Ferguson, 2017), the teenager had more preference for games that had
more violence in them as opposed to those with less violence. This has made violence as the
most prevalent theme among these video games. The companies behind these video games have
been on the frontline marketing these games to the teenager. The industry has no clear crossfade
between what is defined as violent and opposed to those defined as public (Griffiths, Kuss, & de
Gortari, 2013). The regulatory body in the film and entertainment industry have not been able to

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identify any violence in the game hence more companies continue to get licenses (Verheijen,
Burk, Stoltz, van den Berg, & Cillessen, 2018).
Research has shown that as the financial aspect of the games increases, so as the time
spent on them. In the early ‘80s, the teenager spent averagely 5 hours per week playing video
games. The number has doubled since in the late ’90s with an average of 7 hours is spent by the
teenager to play video games (Dhiaa & Tawfeeq, 2016).
According to (Hodge, Taylor, & McAlaney, 2019), the average teenager in 2019 spend
averagely 12 hours a week on the contents from various video games both using their desktop
computer and using their smartphones. The smartphone revolution has made the games more
accessible to the teenager. The processing power of the handheld devices has also doubled every
year making them more capable to present 3D based games onto the handled devices(Fitzpatrick,
2018).
On the matter of supervision and parental control, it is evident from the paper (Zhong,
2019) has shown that very little parental control has been practiced in limiting them. A survey by
(Bąska, Pondel, & Dudycz, 2019) has revealed that about 80% of the parent surveyed don’t put
any restriction of the kind of media and application have accessed to when they use their phones,
which they often do (Wu, Lei, & Ku, 2013)
The effect of these video on teens have so robust researcher dedicating their time and
effort to find any correlation the video games have on the distorted teenager’s behavior.
(Chuang, Lee, & Chen, 2010) revealed in their paper that video games have some effects on the
teenager aggressive and those teenager who had much exposure to video games of varying
content exhibited high aggression in situations and majorly overreact to situations as compared
to their counterparts with less exposure to the video games.(O’Dwyer et al., 2009) further

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asserted that some teenager has issues with disorder such as mental issues due to their prolonged
exposure to the violent video games. This is majorly attributed to the male in this category. It is,
however, important to note there is an insignificant empirical study done to confirm their
hypothesis (Simons et al., 2015).
Despite the numerous research devoted to the subject of video games and their general
effects on the teenager, less research has been made more specifically on the effect of the video
games on the performance of the teenager. This has led to the team to conduct the research to
find any correlations that exist between the teenager performance and the exposure to video
games based on gender.

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Methodology
Research process
The research followed the following process as shown below
Research questions
To fully conduct the research, the following questions were introduced at the initial phases of the
research
1) What are the mental effects of video games on a teenager?
2) Is there a correlation between teenager school performance and video games exposure?
3) How do video games contribute to violence in society?
To assure the above questions, the researcher formulated the following objectives to guide the
study.

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General Objective: To find out the relationship between school performance and video games
among teenager
Specific objectives
1) To find out the effects of video games on teenagers
2) To review the literature on the current video games violence effects on teenagers
3) To observe the behavior of kids understudy for any anomalies in behavior
Participants
This research involved the study of the student in Federation secondary school where 500
teenagers were observed and their data from their academics analyzed. The following data
collection methods were used in the study
Data collection methods
Collection of data is a was conducted using the following methods
Observations
The teenager under study was keenly observed for any anomalies in their behavior before and
after exposure to video games materials
Questionnaire
Close end questions were designed to aid in gathering data from the parents of the teenager and
from the teacher of the teenager under the sample.
Interview

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The interview was used to gather extra information which could not be captured by the closed
end questions. The interview was designed for use to sample 10 teacher and 10 parents who are
selected randomly.
Literature review
Currently scholarly article and paper was s secondary source of data as it enabled the researcher
to gather enough data from what the scholar has so far done in relations to the subject.

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Results and analysis
The response rate stood at 98%( 47 out of the 50 parents). The table below shows the average
age of the teenager with their parents. The number of siblings and their grades and BMI. It is
evident from the result that 80% of the parents from the sample at least had a college diploma.
Most of the wives under study were housewives with 50% of the time father being in non-
governmental carriers. The data also shows a majority of the teenager under study was the
firstborns in their families as shown below
The occupation of his parents was distributed as shown below

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The data show that a good number of the teens had their own personal room with a computer,
television, and PlayStation and handled devices apart from the video games. From the data, only
0.5 never used video games. The statistical analysis of those using video games was at 3 hours
(SD=1.8) within the male gender and female stood at 1.7 hours ( SD=1.2). The table below
shows the results obtained.

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From the data analyses, about 60% of the teenager posses good communication skills and often
conveys their problems to their parents and teachers. The mental wellbeing of the teenager was
noted to be statistically in control. It is, however, important to note that 2 % of the parents
sampled have generally agreed the video games have some effects on their child behavior

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Discussion and implication
From the finding of the research, the female teenagers who had elderly mother registered
more time spent on video games than their male counterparts. Again, it is evident that the
majority of the teenagers under study were able to effectively communicate problems they may
be facing mentally, intellectually or physically. The study has also shown that the majority of the
teenager under study had normal behavioral and mental status.
It is of great importance to note the presence of aggressive behavior among teenagers
under study and exhibit violence while playing with their colleagues. It, therefore, implies that
the usage of video games can lead to aggressive behavior later on in the player life. The research
implies that teenager uses video games more often than adults or those in the adolescent's age.
The results from the research further imply that the majority of the gamers had violent behavior
based on the violence exhibited by the contents in the video games

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Appendix A: Research Plan Gantt Chart