Youth of the present time grew up with the presence and proliferation of various online PC games in the country. Aside from its entertainment value, PC games affect the students’ habit where students currently affect their academic performance. At present times, people are highly engaged in internet and this includes computer games. Computer games are video games played on a general purpose personal computer rather than a dedicated video game console ar arcade machine. Their defining characteristics include a lack of any centralized controlling authority and greater capacity in input, processing and output.
PC games reached widespread popularity following the video game crash of 1983, particularly in Europe, leading to the era of the “bedroom coder”. From the mid-90s onward they lost mass-market traction to console games before enjoying resurgence in the mid-2000s through digital distribution. The uncoordinated nature of the PC game market and its lack of physical media make precisely assessing its size difficult. As computer games become more popular at home and in schools, parents and educators are concerned about the possible effects on young students.
Exploring computer games damage students’ study habit. Many teenagers who use the computers don’t seem to realize that sitting in front of the computer is harmful at all. The electromagnetic waves from the computer-screen make our brain cells get stiffen every second. Human eyes can also lose its focus and get dehydrated easily because the ELF, VLF, RF and MICROWAVE (types of injurious electromagnetic waves).
These harmful waves can cause headache, drop in eyesight, a brain tumor and leucosis in the worst case.
Moreover, sitting in front of computer without exercising makes the teenager unhealthy. But this is not the only harmful cause of computer addiction. When it comes to computer game addiction, the situation gets worse. Violent computer graphic games such as Star Craft, War Craft or Counter Strike that are also connected with internet make teenager – especially boys – think aggresive towards the real word. They spend most of their time figuring out another way to win the battle inside the computer, and think that it is worth spending time into.
The generation of the students today is more demanding in acquiring technologies that will suit their needs, especially when it applied to their studies. Sometimes they use their school activities as an excuse to use the computer and play games as much as they want. As a result they will disregard their studies. For example; students tend to play games first rather than studying. There are lots of students develop bad habits in their computer use that cause many problems in their studies.
According to Manila City Ordinace, an ordinance regulating the operation of online PC game and over the internet shops within the City of Manila and for other purposes states in Section 1- It is hereby declared the policy of the City Governmennt of Manila to bring order to the operation of commercial establishments involved in certain computer-aided and electronic endevours in the course of affirming the general welfare under Section 16 and 458(a) of Republic act number 7160, otherwise known as the Local Government Code, by guiding them away from certain forms of entertainment, which are potentially detrimental to their intellectual and moral well-being that may lead to truancy. Section 2 letter B states that “Online PC Game” shall refer to video games, web browsing, and over-the-internet communication. Thus, this study is an effort to bring out information, which can be utilized by students, researchers in assessing the effect of online PC games to students’ study habit in their academic performance.