Wake Up, Look Up

hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast where we

connect events happening in real time to

the Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach wck

and in today's episode we're asking the

question should I take away their video

games uh this is based on an article I

read this week in The Economist which

looked at the effects that video games

have on undergraduate students it's an

article with an eye to parents are we

paying attention to the effect that

playing video games has on a student

grades now a little bit of background

this article was based on a study that

was done over Chinese undergraduate

students who are playing one particular

game actually this has been a growing

Trend in China a communist country where

the government exerts a lot of control

over its citizens and the government is

paying attention to the amount of times

that Chinese citizens spend especially

those under the age of 18 on their

phones on average a child in China under

the age of 18 spends about 93 hours a

month on their phone China has now

limited people under the age of 18 to

three hours of phone app usage a week in

an effort to boost their Scholastic

particip participation what one academic

study did is to look at the effects that

those kinds of restrictions have

on undergraduate students who then

become adults and enter in to college

and what the study shows is it's true

video games have a negative effect on a

student's grades the study looked at the

release of one particular game and what

it found is pretty staggering students

who played this particular game for

example showed up the study hall on

average 18 minutes late and left 25

minutes early the game was actually

shaping their engagement in the

classroom and how quickly they just

wanted to get back students who played

this game regularly actually saw their

class ranking drop by 10 percentage

points and if their roommate also played

the game that number goes up to 15% in

other words Chinese students were

suffering academically because of

playing this one game the study leaves

out the fact that they could have been

playing nine other games as well meaning

that the could be much greater now this

is not a podcast on you not playing

video games or on you telling your kids

not to play video games I should make

the point that China being a communist

country wants to tell its citizens what

to do and think at wake up lookup our

goal is to make sure you're thinking

about what you do but as parents we have

to make sure we're paying attention look

tablets are just as tempting phones

tablets video game consoles for parents

as they are for for children even if

you're not the one playing the game

let's all be honest and say parenting

gets a little bit easier when the kids's

holding an iPad versus when they require

your attention but these apps and games

are shaping our children what this study

shows is that left uh unsupervised or

even uh without the boundaries that

parents would have to enforce and put in

place students do suffer their academic

prospects and of course later on their

College and Career prospects will suffer

from an inability to regulate themselves

and discipline themselves when it comes

to video games it's a real problem so

are you paying attention to how much

time your child spends on their device

of choice are you paying attention to

the effect that may be having to their

larger world Listen the Bible makes

clear that it is your responsibility to

raise your children to be healthy to to

uh look to God and to be productive

citizens that is your job that's my job

so we have to be asking these questions

and having conversations with our kids

listen we don't want to be communist

parents either taking a tablet away from

a kid isn't Last Act of desperate

Authority but sitting down with a

teenager and saying I'm worried about

how much time you're on your phone is a

step towards productive parenting kids

need boundaries boundaries need

intentional parents who are paying

attention who are looking at the data

and who are making informed decisions

and Healthy Families need collaboration

towards this goal and of course it goes

without saying that we cannot lead our

kids where we're not willing to lead

ourselves our devices are shaping Us in

more ways than we think the only

question is whether or not they're

shaping us the way we want and if we're

going to do anything about it hey thanks

so much for watching this video while

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