The American Academy of Pediatrics believes that one or two hours a day is the right amount, but only for children between the ages of two and five, not for teenagers. The Academy believes that no numerical value should be assigned to the number of hours a day that older children should play. That's the kind of thinking we can back up. However, many studies seem to state that five is the magic number and that concern should start when people play video games for 50 or more hours a week. If your child plays to the point of interfering with other aspects of his life, he may be curious if he can do so.
Your child's video game habit can be a problem if they stay up all night playing, lose interest in other activities or friends, or if their schoolwork is affected by video games. When you let your child play video games, they are so engrossed in these games that it's hard to get them to leave the computer. If you've ever played video games, it's likely that people have told you that video games are a waste of time. Twenty years ago, parents feared that their children would be addicted to video games, but not to video games. Playing video games is a normal part of childhood and has been a household staple for nearly fifty years, when Pong was being played in the 1970s.
While there are no problems with casually enjoying games, in this section we focus on the problems that come with overdoing it. If you play video games for five hours a day, but you can leave the controller without problems when you feel like it, you're probably fine. As much as kids love to play video games, parents often don't like the amount of time some kids spend on them. Although most people believe that looking at screens impairs their eyesight, it turns out that action-packed games, such as first-person shooters, actually improve some people's eyesight.
Considering that the average workday is eight hours and that most people work five days a week, that means that today's children spend more time looking at screens than adults who work full time. Parents may worry when a child doesn't do homework to play or stays up all night playing and is too tired to go to school the next day. A study from the University of Oxford shows that video games can help improve eyesight, develop reading skills in dyslexic children and can help them receive.
