Playing video games in college is a good idea?

February 8, 2022July 15, 2022 yassin.ajanif

Playing video games in a college can be a good idea or just a waste of time?

It is effective to play video games in a college and find enough time for studying?

In this article, we are going to discover the 7 facts that the majority of students don’t know about playing games in college.

Also giving some insight to keep a good balance for students who love playing and studying effectively.

How many students are playing video games in college

According to commodorewaves 70% of college students reported playing video games which means 14 million college students playing video games in the United States. This number indicates the importance and the place that Video games have in College Student Life.

The first and the favorable tool that college students love to play with is computers with 53%, consoles like Nintendo switch or Playstation games in the second position with 40%, while the rest of players use smartphones.

We’re going to list the 8 famous video games played by college students:

Minecraft
animal Crossing

Fortnite
valorant
GTA

pub G
Wild world
League of Legends

70% of college students playing video games is not a small number that means 2 of 3 college students are playing video games. Playing video games could be good and entertaining for students or the road to addiction and Loss.

According to Therecoveryvillage 150 Million, Americans play video games. From 1 to 10% of these American users can be addicted to playing video games. This leads us to approximate that 700 000 college students have addiction behaviors toward video games.

Students represent 40% of the gaming industry, school students are playing games more than college students by 20%. So students Remain one of the bigger consumers of videos games.

You can watch in this graph below the distribution between college students and school students.

How many hours student college could safely play a game

The Specialist recommends not exceeding 2 hours a day playing video games for any user. But for a college student who has occupations and responsibilities, spending two hours a day playing video games is a big waste of time.

Especially for people or students who are working while studying, 2 hours of playing can earn them an additional $1000 a month.

80% of US students work part-time jobs, so it is hard to find enough time to play video games daily. For students who aren’t working the situation might be different. But we cannot judge and make a general rule for only 20% of students.

2 hours a week is it reasonable time to play video games not 2 hours a day. In other words, focusing to find a balance between studying and working is enough. So students don’t have to overlord themselves with irrelevant things like video games.

Playing video games in the middle of the week might be distracting for college students. In other words, is better to play video games on weekends to destress out and break the routine studies.

We’re going to list the 5 moments that college students don’t have to play video games in:

Playing in the mid-days of the week
Playing video games in the evenings

Hanging out with the console videos in homework times
Bring out console games to libraries like Nintendo switch
Playing video games in exam times preparations.

Currently, video games are so addictive even if you don’t suffer from this problem. For this reason, Students have to take all precautions and stay away from video games at these moments.

Tips to have a good balance between studying and playing

We’re going to recommend 4 principal tips to use for college students for keeping a good balance between studying and gaming:

Set up a specific environment

Use some programs that have to focus
Play Short sessions games
Celebrate your dedication

Set up specific environment

According to the study made by the University of Hawaii, which proved that environment of studying could increase the GPA of students by one degree. That is to say, students can shift their GPA from 3 to 4.0 for example.

In this study students were divided into 2 categories:

Normal category students who study under distractions

Environmental Focus category (this sample of students were asked to study in clean environment without any distraction )

The results have shown that the second category who got away from any environmental distraction. That is to say, students who had clean desktops not smartphones, pictures, or any external incentive.

As a result, they had a + 1.0 GPA as an average more than the first category.

This study proves the importance of setting up a good environment for study. Hence students should pick up a good environment to study and be away from any sort of distractions.

So for college students who love playing games is better to study in an environment that doesn’t have any sort of these encouraging things. Having a PlayStation or Xbox in front of you while studying will not going to be a good idea.

Use some programs that help to focus

The second thing is to use some programs that can help students to focus while studying. To clarify and according to our article how much Focus do I need to study math. We found that more than 70% of students are suffering from focus problems.

So the Dilemma or Focus problem for students it’s very widespread. It is not an individual problem like you might think about.

We’re going to suggest 5 famous programs that help students while studying.

Microsoft OneNote

forest
pdf element
Xmind

taskade

The video below is containing 10 apps helping students to increase their productivity. But 5 among them are helping students to concentrate and get away from any sort of distractions.

Play Short sessions games

Playing short-session games that don’t have long stages, there is a big difference between playing Super Mario and Tomb Raider. Especially for college students who play daily video games.

Also, Fortnite or PUBG are the kinds of games that’s can everyone get easily addicted to it. In the beginning, students play with the mind of spending 1 hour, but most of them fall in the trap and stick in front of a screen for more than 2 or three 3 hours.

For college students who can’t control themselves playing these kinds of games, it is recommended to let them for weekends like Saturday and Sunday.

Celebrate your dedication

Once you commit and execute your weekly tasks you have to celebrate or recompense yourself. This method helps you to increase your self-esteem and raise your confidence.

The celebration has a lot of forms you can buy a new game to play or party with your friends, you can do whatever you want.

This gives you positive energy and helps you to begin next week full of energy and good expectations for the next weekend.

Shoud students drop playing games to focus on in college

For college students who find games detrimental to them, they have a choice to quit them. But for people who are playing regularly, is not a problem. The problem can be with the student who plays until midnights or till 2 or 3 pm.

Between 1 to 10% is the rate of students who are addicted to video games according to the data that we shared above in the article. That means if we take the average between 1 to 10% that is 5%. As a result, 700 000 college students are suffering from video game behavior addictions.

for college students who find Troubles or hardship quitting video games, they have to find solutions for themselves. So if they have to quit by themselves or visit specialists to help them if they can’t.

Games that some college students should avoid playing

These 7 games that we will recommend to avoid for a college student who gets easily attracted and immersed in video games.

League of Legends
animal Crossing
diablo 2

The Elder Scrolls 5 skyrim
Candy Crush
Minecraft

PUBG

These 7 video games are not only the ones that college students should be careful about, there are a lot of others videos games to ho have attention from.

But we listed those 7 because they are the most popular ones. That is to say, any game that forces you to stay in front of a screen for long hours.

If you love these games and you can’t as a college student to drop out of these video games, it’s forbidden for you to play them out of holidays if you find yourself having low resistance against them.

It’s could be useful to play video games as a college student

It’s could be useful but not that much for college students. We won’t expect playing to enhance mental capabilities. The aspect of gaming usefulness could be adopted for school students Or kids.

For a college student who has the mind of playing with a mind that games are improving his intelligence, there is no research that proves that. It is just a kind of nonsense justification that stems from irresponsibilities and procrastination.

Games could be useful to chill out and get out of stress from studying for long hours, not playing for acquiring some new knowledge or skills.

Playing games as a college student simultaneously while studying

The research has proved that humans don’t have the capacity of focusing on multiple things at once. The maximum capacity of focus for adult persons is 20 to 25 minutes, this time range is when the human focus levels are at the top.

After that, The concentration starts decreasing and drops significantly after 90 minutes, this is what we notice above in the article.

So the response to this question is clear, doing two things at the same time doesn’t give any good results on both sides. But for studying and playing games things become detrimental and not good for students.

Students are already suffering from focus problems in math subjects without having any sort of distraction. So it is weird to think as a college student studying and playing games at the same time.

Conclusion

Playing in as a college student could be useful to chill out and get away from the stress that College Programs cause. But spending long hours a day playing video games could ruin your life as a college student.

It’s could be a useful or good idea to use a Nintendo switch it’s going to help for playing for sure. depending on the limited battery that has.