Gaming
Playing games online is becoming ever popular with young people and older people alike. Games can be played with any device which is connected to the internet (and some which do not need an internet connection). This could be done on your computer, phone, tablet, or a Playstation or Xbox. It is a source of personal entertainment and can be played on your own or by connecting with others – some of whom you do not know.
Connecting to the internet to play games can come with dangers:
1. You do not necessarily know who you are playing against, and they may not be who they say they are.
2. Some games have ‘in
– game purchases’. You may not necessarily know that by downloading certain game accessories will cost money.
3. If you become carried away with your games, you may give out personal information by accident.
4. Downloading ‘cheats’ in your games which may contain viruses or spyware which could affect your computer badly.
5. You may be bullied over the online chat room, which go along with the games, and make you feel uncomfortable or unhappy.
6. You run the risk of becoming addicted to playing online games and will isolate you from the real world.
It is important to limit the time which you spend playing online games, so if your parents set you a time limit, then it is for a reason – they care about you and are not trying to stop you having fun!
Most games which you play will also have a minimum age limit. It is against the law for anybody to sell a game to someone who is under age – so it is taken very seriously by the government. Age restrictions are there to protect you from scenes of inappropriate content and to make sure that you have fun while you play and not make you scared. The games will have a sign on the box which looks like these:
This means that the game is not suitable for anyone under this age to play.
Also, there are indictors on the game boxes which show the reason for the minimum age. They look like this:
This game will contain bad language
This game contains violence
This games contains an element of fear