Online Video Games and Young People

Abstract

The availability of new information and communication technologies to an increasingly younger population, the constant availability of the Internet and the opportunity to search information, to create new types and models of communication, types of acceptance and ways of accepting and coping with the infinite amount of  information, the velocity and choice of well-designed marketing products, especially video games, in particular in the last decade, caused a real "gaming boom" among almost all age groups. Addictions are a well-known problem of the human kind, and they are as well a challenge for professionals and scientists from different fields of interest. Considering the large amount of addictions, one of the new types is the addiction to videogames affecting a younger and younger population. Smartphones and tablets are available to a growing number of children and youngsters. It is almost incomprehensible and "unacceptable" that a child in the first grade of primary school does not have its own mobile phone, PDA, game console, laptop, desktop or similar. By playing video games for several hours a day, either at school, during school hours or after, they enter a world exit from which sometimes requires seeking the help of experts. Are we facilitating the creation of new types of addictions among the new generation of youngsters? In the paper we present the results of the research conducted with children of the seventh and eighth grades of the primary schools of Pula on the time they spend playing online videogames during and after the lessons, on playing videogames to get to know new people, for fun, to be part of a clan, not performing daily activities to play online videogames, their sleeping problems and other things.