Traditional games are back… Will they save children from the evil of technology?

Mona Abu Hamour

Amman – At that moment, the child Ahmed (13 years old) raised his hand to his younger brother and hit him hard, because the latter interrupted him and stood in front of him while he was playing a game on “PlayStation”. his mother’s decision was decisive in preventing him from playing again.
She is completely convinced of this decision, despite the difficulty for her son, especially after the state of violence and harm that has become visible on him in the last periods and the many hours of sitting in the game with his “imaginary” friends, which affected the entire atmosphere of the house, so even his siblings and the way they interacted with them.
The mother says: “My son was not as hot-tempered or violent as he is now, but his obsession with video games, the way he wears them and the way he talks to those who play with him changed him a lot, and he started harming his younger brothers if he was distracted of that or interrupted his favorite game.”
After some time had passed, and during the school holidays, and after the son’s bad temper had somewhat changed, the mother allowed her son to play “PlayStation” for a certain time and returned to hide it again, at the same time she bought a set of traditional games that collect all brothers and sisters, which contributed to increasing the bonds between them in an atmosphere that is not devoid of joy and beautiful competition. Perhaps it has become a bit of a strange scene, when young people play traditional and popular games that were prevalent not so long ago. It is strange that a child can enjoy it far from smart technological devices that drain the mind, effort and time, and the pleasure can be momentary.
Many families have seen the danger of smart devices for the lives of children, who live in a world separated from the real world, completely isolated, to the point that they do not turn to anyone for a conversation as long as they are occupied with it. these devices, as if they are completely absent from reality.
Therefore, with a decisive decision, they took it upon themselves to keep these smart devices away from them, and to spend pleasant moments with traditional games in which they share the brothers, in order to avoid negative psychological and physical effects on them.
Many families now occupy their children with traditional games such as chess, dice, trivia and others, in a bid to keep them away from cyberspace, which affects minds and changes the shape of their social lives.
The ophthalmologist was taken aback when a 15-year-old child examined him and found out that the smartphone was used only in the last resort.
Doctor Ali Abdullah (15 years old), who came to check his eyesight, asked a series of questions because most of the young people who visit his clinic have visual impairment due to modern devices, which he considers positive in the parents’ decision. that their son does not spend long hours on the “PlayStation” and electronic devices like the rest of his peers Or even follow social networking sites that have occupied most of the children’s devices, while they continue to enjoy traditional games.
Isolating children from electronic games, smart devices and tablets is not easy, especially since many schools follow the e-learning method, which forces many parents to buy electronic devices and give them to their children, according to Muntaha al-Tayeb, a mother of four children in her forties.
“It’s not easy to completely wean children off electronic devices, but the balance is often gradually reducing their use of electronic devices,” says Al-Tayeb.
Regarding her children’s use of electronic devices, Al-Tayeb points out that her children’s continuous use of electronic devices during e-learning and its impact on their eye health made her take a firm decision about the need to stop using them after returning to face – facial education.
And Manar Hussein agrees with her in this, who after returning to education withdrew smart devices face to face, and forced her children to turn off these devices if necessary and use the computer in learning.
Manar points out that at first her children did not accept this decision and the state of “boredom” that gripped them due to being attached to devices during the e-learning period, but after a while they managed to adapt and only used the personal computer to do their homework.
Manar spent her children’s free time with electronic games, reading books, playing chess and drawing, but also playing football and other games that family members share together.
Educational expert Ayesh Al-Nawaisa points out that this matter has two directions. Negative and positive, since the family today lives in front of an open global environment, and therefore there is a convergence of distance and in many uses of technological means and electronic applications.
The issue of complete isolation is difficult to succeed or even for parents to succeed in completely isolating their children from the environment. Today, the child is forced to use technology in learning and learning by playing through electronic applications and electronic games, especially in the first three months in the kindergarten phase.
The issue of isolating the child and tying him only to traditional practices can affect his development, and the principle of the family is to know the child and immunize him so that he can distinguish fat from fat and things that he can use from other things. Al-Nawaisa emphasizes the need for parents to take care of the balance in the use of digital and technological technologies, especially since the child is exposed to their use at all times, and therefore “we do not close him down, but without exaggerating the use of technology that can also affect his social communication .”
Psychologist Dr. Musa Matarneh explains that the fun aspect of electronic games attracts children and creates an atmosphere of satisfaction, but these games contain an element of violence, which in turn affects family relationships within the home.
This shows that the relationship between the brothers changed somewhat as a result of those games. Where the child lacks the enjoyment of normal life and prefers to move from reality to the virtual world and unreal friends, which affects his present and future and makes him succumb to his isolation.
Matarneh points out that the child’s life is closed behind the screen, which inevitably causes a lack of concentration, a drop in academic performance, a lack of communication with the environment and immersion in the world of imagination, emphasizing the responsibility of parents that lies in rationalizing play time and finding other safer alternatives to fill the void their children.
As for the balance in the use of smart devices and the effort to reduce the hours as much as possible and limit them only for study purposes, the bishops believe that this is a very important step, and it should be highlighted because of its psychological, educational and social effects on children. Matarneh claims that returning to reading and playing intelligence games such as chess, drawing and other hobbies improves the child’s psyche, frees the child’s creativity, feeds his imagination, raises his literary and artistic taste and encourages the imaginative and literary aspect of his personality.
Numerous studies warn of excessive and addictive digital media and their harmful physical, psychological, social and neurological effects and consequences, and also show that duration, content, use after dark and type of media are factors that influence the level of damage.
A study was also conducted using brain tomography of preschool children to study the performance of their brains using screen-based media. This study found an association between increased media use and decreased microstructural integrity of the brain’s white matter pathways. These pathways, incidentally, are responsible for supporting language learning and new literacy skills in children at this stage. This use also poses neurobiological risks to children, affecting how children play, learn and form relationships.