Evaluating the effects of digital games on young pre-schoolers social behaviours / Nur Adila Omar

Digital games have advanced so rapidly and studies have shown a high degree of engagement with children. This can give major influence to the children social behaviours. Nowadays, young children are in contact with a wide range of digital tools. Young pre-schoolers children aged three to five play a wide range of digital games, which are now available on large screens, handheld screens, electronic learning systems, electronic toys, and their time spent with games is growing. There has been many reported effects of digital games on children social behaviours. Therefore there is a need to understand how children between three to five years old engage with digital games and how it would influence the children social behaviours within Malaysian context. A qualitative study was conducted involving parents and children between three to five years old. The qualitative methods help to determine how the children engage with the digital games, and how it influences their social behaviours. Interview with parents and video recording were used as a tool to capture the children's behaviours while playing with the digital games. Findings from the studies show that the influence of digital games towards young pre-schoolers social behaviours can have many potential effects. We can see that most of the children were able to give response to the parents when the activity of playing took place. They demonstrated enthusiasm while playing with the digital games. During the playing activity, most of the children were able to speak up and interact with the parents. This shows that the activity of playing create a family bonding between the children and parents. A good social development can arise during this family bonding time, which can be seen as a positive social value that digital games are able to give.