The New Nation - Internet Edition

COMPUTERS have opened up opportunities for many faceted entertainments and one of them is the video game. The games are the favourites of children and teenagers. There would be nothing wrong in the games but for their ill effects on the young ones. There are many urban homes in Bangladesh where computers are available and the young ones in such families are seen prone to playing video games for long hours at the expense of sports and academic activities.

Specialists in the developed countries warned people long ago about children spending disproportionate amount of time to watching television at the cost of academic activities, reading and sports. Now, they are saying the same about video games which are proving to be 'addictive' for the young ones and wasteful in all respects. Newspaper reports are noted about the sprouting of video game shops in the rural areas. The shops are doing good business alluring children away from schools to pass most of their time in these shops to play video games.

The children go out of homes telling their parents that they would be going to schools but go instead to these video shops. The craze has so much afflicted them that sometimes they are also found stealing money from their parents to pay the video shop operators. All these things mean good business for the video game operators but what are the costs of the same for the victims and their guardians? Considering their corrupting effects, these so-called video shops need to be strictly regulated. Video game shops need to come under strong regulation for the same reasons. Awareness should be created on the bad effects of video games on children so that their guardians play a role in making the young ones understand how an overdose of video games can be harmful for them.