Consumo de videojuegos y su influencia en adolescentes

Resumo

Immersion into new technologies is an irreversible phenomenon. We both use and frequently depend on them in almost every aspect of daily life. It is difficult to conceive one day in our lives without using some type of technology. This also can be appreciated -we dare to say more naturally and force- on children and adolescents who, without a proper education and prevention, may be exposed to numerous dangers to their physical and psychosocial health. In this sense, video games play a fundamental role in the lives of children and adolescents, radically modifying the way they entertain, relate, interact, etc. The attraction and, in many cases, the fascination that this age group has for that entertainment seems limitless and occurs at increasingly younger ages. Thus, video games go beyond a simple form of entertainment and have become an important socializing agent, through whom children learn behavior patterns and behavior models that, depending on the type of the game consumed, can be positive or negative. This paper analyzes the consumption of video games on teenagers, focusing on violent video games because they are one of the modes of entertainment most consumed by children, despite being inappropriate for their age due to a high content of explicit violence (often discriminated towards the weakest and most vulnerable) and negative stereotypes and prejudices (racism, xenophobia, sexism, etc.). For this, we have performed a quantitative research consisting of the distribution of a questionnaire to a sample of 102 children, aged between 10 and 14 years. The studied items respond to the type of game consumed, time spent, involvement and parental control over this activity, feelings evoked, etc.