Impact of Video Games on Academic Performance in School Children

Background: There are about two billion players of video games worldwide, making them a popular pastime. Nonetheless, experts and the media have stressed the possible risks associated with playing video games too often. The purpose of the study is to ascertain how playing video games affects academic performance. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out at two elementary secondary schools in Karbala city with 300 students, were playing video games during a parent meeting in school and data was collected using interviewer-administered questionnaires. Results: The children aged 11-13 years old have a high percent (51%), in regard to the item socio-economic status that the middle have more than two thirds the item residency, more than 50% were live in urban areas; concerning the educational level of children’ fathers more than half had (53%) primary school graduation, on the other hand nearly one third of the mothers had (34%) secondary education (27%). Less than thirty percent of the studied children had poor school achievement for children were poor. There were found highly significant association between the socio-demographical characteristics (age, socio-economic status, level education of father, level education of mother) with school achievements of children, but the number of year's failure in school shows no significant with their school achievements. Conclusion: Poor school achievement for the studied children was found highly associated with all socio-demographical characteristics with school achievements, except the number of year's failure in school. Recommendation: The study provides information through nursing education to the parents to limit play time on electronic games for their children, which had a bad effect on their basic skills and cognitive abilities. Additionally restrict the quantity and variety of games and swap them out for instructive ones.