THE PLEASURE...
If you visited the amusement arcades in the 1980s, you would have seen row upon row of Atari coin-operated machines with students waiting in line for a chance to play “Space Invaders”. This very early form of gaming (and primitive by todays standards), paved the way for what was to become a phenomenon.The late 1970s in heralded the arrival what was to be called the Home Computer. Brands such as Apple and Commodore hit the market and this paved the way for the first real attempt at computer gaming (although in fact the first game to be written on a computer was in way back in 1962 called “Space War”). Thus students now had at their fingertips their first real ‘hands-on’ computer. The dream had come true.
Since then, the home computer with between 8K and 60K of memory, was transformed into the modern day Personal Computer (PC) with up to 4GB of memory and rising. This, together with the accessibility of the internet in the home, allows the student of today not only play very complex and intricate games by himself, but with others from around the globe.
There are other issues arising from this and what is a worry to parents and society in general is that computer gaming at this global level can quickly become an addiction and where there is addiction of any kind, health problems inevitably arise.