February 7th 2022
Gaming4Good for Safer Internet Day – Tuesday, February 8th is Safer Internet Day, an event which is celebrated annually in some 170 countries around the world in an effort to make the internet a safe place for children and young people.
For 2022, which marks the 19th Safer Internet Day, the theme is All fun and games?, which focuses on how young people are shaping the interactive entertainment spaces they are a part of, from gaming and chat to streaming and video. As a Safer Internet Day supporter of long standing, Get Safe Online has organised a live, hour-long free-to-attend webinar starting at 7pm (GMT) under its ‘Gaming4Good’ banner.
Like many other things children do online, gaming has undergone a massive increase in popularity since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a result of more time spent at home and restrictions on physical social contact.
Also in common with many other online activities, there are both positive and negative aspects to gaming. But the commonly held traditional view that children’s gaming is largely a negative thing, is becoming rapidly overturned as more people appreciate its many positive aspects. Depending on the games in question, these include:
- Supporting development of a wide range of cognitive and motor skills
- Developing qualities such as strategic thinking, rationalising, problem solving and persistence
- Encouraging creativity
- Teaching teamwork, in the case of many Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs or MMOs)
- Teaching competitiveness, again in the case of multiplayer games
- Socialising with friends, especially when doing so in person is challenging owing to various restrictions.
- Learning the value of money and spending it wisely.
All of these are qualities are vital not only in gaming, but also in equipping our young people for life ahead of them.
In this Safer Internet Day webinar, parents can hear from a panel of experts in family gaming, psychology, gaming risk and finance, about how to approach their child’s gaming to help them get the most out of it … and avoid the pitfalls.
We’ll also be welcoming questions in a Q&A session at the end of the panel discussion.
Full details on the panellists – and a link to the registration form – can be found here.
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