Video games against cyberbullying: what are they?
Bullying is a thorny issue that worries parents, students and teachers in the classroom. Unfortunately, in recent years, there has been an increase in cases of bullying, also known as cyberbullying or cyberbullying, fostered by new technologies that allow bullying from a distance and ensure the anonymity of those who do it. However, the world of these electronic devices can also be the key to raising awareness among minors about the danger that this violence entails towards their schoolmates.
Role of victim or stalker
The idea is to use video games as an educational tool against bullying. What really draws attention to this idea is that it offers schoolchildren the possibility of choosing between the role of stalker or victim in order to understand this problem from both perspectives.
The player choose between the role of harassed, a student who will have to face 25 daily conflicts both at school and in the family, problems that he will have to solve in a certain way.
O wellthe player can adopt the role of stalker, that can help those who exercise this violence in school learn to act differently in these conflicts. In the same way, the victims will also know how to react when they are affected since in the majority of the occasions the not knowing to whom to go or how to act helps that these events do not come to light.
In the same way, players will have the opportunity to experience bullying from the point of view of the spectator, that is, show the youngest the steps to take in case of witnessing one of these episodes. These video games are designed to children between 8 and 16 years old and it is divided into two titles according to the ages of the schoolchildren since the problems that a 10-year-old boy can face are different from those of one of 15 and vice versa.
Based on a study of emotional behavior
The videogames take as a reference for their operation the investigations that have been carried out during the last years by the Research Group in Psychopedagogical Orientation, GROP, of the University of Lleida. These works have focused on determining the neurological and emotional relationships of children before certain events as in this case is school bullying.
Knowing that new generations make use of videogames, the La Caixa Foundation has decided to create two to prevent bullying in the classroom. Happy 8-12 and Happy 12-16 are the names of these two titles that are intended to raise awareness among the students of the schools to highlight the absurdity of the bullying. At the same time the idea of these two games is to teach to solve these conflicts that any child can face in school.
Success in the pilot tests
Both video games were tested in a pilot test with 574 primary school students and 903 high school students. The quantitative results of this test indicated that the video games had positive effects on the students' emotional competencies, the environment within the center and the academic performance of the academics. In addition, it was also demonstrated that these games helped alleviate the anxiety felt by schoolchildren.
The teachers of the centers where these video games were tested valued the experience positively. These teachers expressed an efficient weapon for students to learn to resolve conflicts. For their part, the students unanimously assured that these video games had taught them to solve problems with their classmates as well as having provided emotional regulation strategies.
Damián Montero
