Negative effects of electronic games on family relations

CAIRO - 3 November 2019: Electronic games have contributed in recent years to raising the rates of separation and divorce in Egypt and Arab countries as family members are preoccupied with them instead of giving time to family.

According to the 2018 report of the Cabinet's Information Center, Egypt recorded the highest divorce rate in the world, which rose from 7 to 40 percent in the last 50 years.The number of divorced women reached 3 million, according to the latest statistics.

Unfortunately, the 2018 report revealed that Playstation and Candy Crush are the main reason behind divorce,with around 17,000 cases attributed to Candy Crush and 250,000 divorce cases to Playstation.

Legal expert Mohamed Miraz told Egypt Today that electronic games are addictive and help widen the gap between spouses.

Also, legal expert Yara Ahmed Saad said that social media shook family relations,where spouses share their problems on Facebook andTwitter, which does not help and almost always leads to divorce.

Abdel-Hamid Zaid, a professor at Cairo University, said earlier that there are electronic games that contribute to the escalation of violence and crime, and therefore the government should be censored because of negative social phenomena.

For children, any parent is concerned about the impact of technology exposure on young children typically. We know that our preschoolers are acquiring new social and cognitive skills at an amazing pace, and we don't want to spend long hours on the iPad.

In fact, experts worry that social media and text messages that have become an integral part of teenagers' lives reinforce anxiety and reduce self-esteem.

According to the Facebook Q3 2017 report, 37 million people in Egypt access Facebook every month and over 22 million access it every day, with the largest age group for usage is 18-34.

Instagram and Twitter are also behind, with 1.7 million active on Twitter (Arab Social Media Report 2017) and 2.7 million on Instagram. This is a large number, considering that the youth in Egypt now represent 20.2 million people, according to a 2018 report by Egypt’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS).

Prisoner and educational counselor Iman Al-Rayes says for children to be filled their free time and give them only one hour with surveillance, and away from them Google Search and put instead Google Kids.

"Social Media is a virtual world for everyone looking for what is missing, so we must try to switch sitting on Social Media to search for other useful sites, and shut down our phones and give ourselves a rest while filling our spare time and setting an hour for social networking sites." Rayed added.