Why are children easily addicted to playing games but not to studying?

Recently, a shocking news spread on Weibo that some children even stayed up for 5 days and 5 nights because of playing games...

"If you could focus your attention on studying instead of playing games, you would have been top of the class!" I believe many parents have said this to their children.

Due to busy work schedules, parents often give their children their mobile phones to pass the time, and this problem has become increasingly prominent. For children, they still need a lot of extracurricular activities besides studying, which is not only to fill their spare time, but also an important way for children to grow and develop. However, many parents cannot spare so much time to accompany their children after work, so mobile games have become the main means of play for children. As a result, children gradually become addicted to games, seize every opportunity to play mobile games, and study becomes increasingly boring.

So, why is it so easy to get addicted to playing games, but not to studying? How can parents make their children interested in learning?

There are undoubtedly many reasons that lead to game addiction. For many families, there may be their own specific problems, which are difficult to cover here and will not be too harsh. This article will only analyze the phenomenon of children's addiction to games from a psychological perspective and put forward suggestions.

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Games, the gateway to flow

Many parents may think that their children don’t like to study because they don’t like to use their brains or are not smart. However, if parents observe their children’s performance when playing games, they will find that this is not the case. When playing games, children will try every means to find the tricks to pass the levels, and sometimes even find some very clever ways. Even we adults may not be able to play games so smartly.

This is because the design of the game can easily allow children to enter the so-called "flow state", which is a theory proposed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow refers to a feeling that people are fully focused on an activity. At this time, they will have a high sense of excitement and fulfillment, and people will want to invest in the activity again and continue to enter the flow state.

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The game is designed to allow players to concentrate and use their imagination for as long as possible, so as to enter and maintain the flow state. To this end, the game always allows players to keep the task challenge and skill proficiency requirements appropriate.

However, this is not the case with learning. The difficulty of the courses is relatively fixed and gradually increases. Every child learns at a different speed, but the school often requires students to master knowledge at the same level. This makes it easy for children to become anxious during the learning process because the learning content is too challenging and they cannot keep up with everyone's progress. Children will no longer have any interest in learning.

Games are about shortening delayed gratification

Delayed gratification is a choice orientation of giving up immediate gratification for more valuable long-term results, and it is also a reflection of a person's self-control ability. However, self-control requires the consumption of psychological resources, and the game design chooses to avoid this consumption, giving players rewards of all sizes quickly, so that players do not have to choose between long-term value and immediate gratification.

Learning is a very typical thing that requires delayed gratification. Because the learning effect is not immediate, children need to constantly exercise self-control to resist immediate pleasure and spend their attention and energy on learning in order to achieve good academic results.

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Psychological research has found that delayed gratification can well predict children's future achievements. The stronger the delayed gratification, the higher the achievements that children can achieve in the future. From this point of view, playing games is indeed harmful and is not conducive to children's cultivation of a good delayed gratification. Because in real life, many times we need to endure and work hard for a period of time before we can get relatively satisfactory results. This process requires us to have a certain degree of delayed gratification.

The game is designed with clear objectives and detailed guides

There are often very clear and easy-to-understand goals in the game, as well as highly instructive guides that tell players what steps they need to take to achieve their goals. For example, if the game goal is to get items from high places, the game will guide players to jump or fly and smash obstacles to achieve their goals.

Learning can also be said to have clear goals, but there is no such detailed guide. Parents and teachers can only tell children that as long as they study hard, they can achieve their goals. However, it is difficult to give detailed guidance on how to work hard and how to overcome obstacles. Children keep hitting walls in their attempts, and their sense of frustration becomes stronger and stronger over time. Even if they are playing games, if they always lose, children will give up playing the game, let alone studying.

How to cultivate children's interest in learning

Swiss psychologist Piaget believes that games are a form of thinking that can reflect the stage of children's thinking development. The more mature the thinking development, the more structured and regular the games they play. At the same time, games are also an important way to develop thinking. Games provide some virtual environments for children to practice, thereby consolidating and expanding their original knowledge and skills. The same is true for learning. As children grow older, their thinking develops more maturely, the knowledge they need to learn becomes more complex, and the problems provided to children to solve become more complex, which in turn consolidates and expands children's knowledge.

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In other words, playing games, like classroom learning, is a form of learning. For example, in competitive games, we need to understand the rules of winning the game, master the characteristics and skills of the characters, and ultimately use these knowledge and skills to win the game. In mathematics, we learn to master a series of calculation rules, and use these calculation rules to solve math problems. In Chinese, we learn to master language rules, and use language rules to understand the main idea of ​​the article, and so on.

Therefore, the characteristics of game design can also be applied in classroom learning to help children develop an interest in learning.

1

Help your child set specific and small goals

One of the important reasons why games always attract players to keep playing is that they set many small goals for players, such as dividing the game into many small levels.

However, learning lacks these small levels, so parents can help their children set small levels in learning. This can be achieved through the "zone of proximal development" proposed by Soviet educator Vygotsky, which refers to the gap between students' current level and the level that can be obtained through teaching. The focus of education is to transcend each zone of proximal development.

In this process, it is important to note that parents must negotiate and decide with their children based on their children's own circumstances, and define the zone of proximal development as small as possible so that children can surpass it more easily and gradually build up their self-confidence.

2

Not only should there be rewards, but also the right way to reward them

Both playing games and studying can get some rewards. There are points rewards in games, and players will work hard to pursue game rankings. There are also rankings in studying, and they can also get rewards from parents. But the difference is that children will fall in love with the game itself, but not with studying. Because the process of passing the game is also very interesting, but the learning process is not necessarily that interesting. If the pain of the learning process is greater than the difficulty of obtaining rewards, children will easily resist learning.

Rewards are indeed an effective means of motivation, but in many cases the reward method is not necessarily correct. For example, many parents like to say to their children: "If you can get XX points in the final exam, I will reward you XX!"

If parents always reward their children for their hard work, they are actually ignoring their efforts and inner emotions. This will give the children a hint: "Mom and Dad only care about whether I can do well in the exam, but not my feelings and efforts."

On the other hand, children are not encouraged for their learning attitude and behavior. When there are no more rewards or when they fail to meet the requirements, they will give up learning. In the final analysis, parents want their children to study hard because they want them to have good knowledge and skills to cope with social life in adulthood, but it is difficult for children to truly understand this and they are satisfied with the rewards they get at the moment.

Therefore, parents should emphasize the attitude and behavior of learning to their children. Even if the child does not get the ideal results, but the child still makes efforts, parents can say to the child: "I will give you a reward, but it has little to do with your grades, because I see that you have made efforts, and everyone's efforts are worthy of praise."

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3

Pay attention to children's hidden anxiety

It is difficult to force children to enter a flow state in learning, just like playing games, because the level of knowledge required and the child's learning ability may not always match. Most of the time, children are more likely to fall into a state of anxiety.

When children encounter difficulties in learning, their grades drop, or they show resistance, many parents will just ask their children to work harder and find ways to improve quickly. But this is actually wrong. Behind these situations, what is hidden is the anxiety of the children.

Children are not good at expressing their anxiety directly, so they often express it in other ways. As parents, the most important thing is to pay attention to children's anxiety and express love to them. For example, ask your child: "I see that you seem to have some troubles in your studies recently. It doesn't matter. Everyone will have troubles with some things. Would you like to tell me what difficulties you feel?"

Then, we can discuss solutions and improvement methods with our children. When children can always feel the attention of their parents, they can quickly get rid of anxiety and build up good anti-anxiety ability over time.

In short, simply restricting children from playing games and requiring them to study hard is a superficial approach that does not address the root cause. As parents, it is more important to pay unconditional attention to and accept children, to work together with them, and to use the right methods to guide them. Children will naturally develop good adaptability and will be more likely to develop an interest in learning.

References:

[1] Zhang Jianhong. (2022). Teenagers addicted to games? A new perspective for parents to understand their children. Popular Psychology (06), 25-26.

[2] Xi Wan & Hu Yuzheng. (2022). Research status and prospects of adolescent online game addiction. Applied Psychology (01), 3-19.

[3] Zhang Mengrou, Zhang Wenhua, Guo Ying & Suo Tao. (2022). The impact of family education style on online game addiction among secondary vocational students: the mediating role of self-control. Chinese Journal of Health Psychology (07), 1111-1117.

[4] Huang Shaohua & Zhu Danhong. (2021). The relationship between adolescent online game flow experience and game addiction. Chinese Youth Social Sciences (01), 79-89.

[5] Deng Linyuan, Liu Xiaotong, Tang Yuanqiong, Yang Mengqian & Li Beilei. (2021). Parental psychological control, autonomy support and adolescent online game addiction: The mediating role of impulsivity. Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology (02), 316-322.

Author｜ACC Psychology Popular Science

Review | Tang Yicheng, member of the Science Popularization Committee of the Chinese Psychological Society, Executive Deputy Director of the Beijing China Science Popularization Mental Health Promotion Center

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