Some internet filter software lets you block children’s access to PC games. But what could be wrong with games? Children should play games. Right? Of course there are many benefits from gaming. Game playing is fun and children learn spatial awareness, the ability to read images and diagrams and the ability to keep track of multiple objects simultaneously. If a child has a short attention span, gaming can increase concentration. Nevertheless, there are good reasons that some parental control software lets you block PC games.

PC gaming is not a physical activity so it might be healthier to pursue an actual sport that builds physical stamina. PC games cannot determine the age of the person playing them, so they can contain age-inappropriate content. Prolonged exposure to the violence of many popular games might have the effect of desensitizing people of any age to the point where we lose our natural abhorrence of senseless gore. The best internet filter software products that block PC games are: Net Nanny Parental Controls, McAfee Safe Eyes and McAfee Family Protection. At TopTenREVIEWS We Do the Research So You Don't Have To.™

Consider using internet filter software to set time limits on children’s access to PC games for the good of their physical health. The fact that gaming is sedentary as opposed to active is reason enough to place limits on gaming. Marathon PC gaming sessions have produced health risks such as obesity, eyestrain, and muscle and joint problems. Gaming in moderation is usually beneficial. Gaming to excess might be harmful.

The potential harm from excessive PC gaming might not be restricted to the physical. It is possible to become psychologically addicted to computer games to the point that it interferes with the addict’s daily life. The danger of such an addiction is isolation from normal social contact and the channeling of energy into gaming; energy that might have gone toward more real-life achievements. Research findings of mental health professionals are inconclusive and contradictory. But one correlation that is not in dispute is that children who are already antisocial or biologically predisposed to violence are more likely to act aggressively under the influence of violent games.

Even though there is no consensus that gaming is harmful to mental health, perhaps a review of three anecdotal accounts is useful even if these isolated incidents do not establish a statistically valid correlation. In 2011, in the Netherlands, a 24-year-old male used firearms to kill six people in a shopping mall. He had been playing a violent video game beforehand, a game that contained a section quite similar to the scenario that the murderer played out in real life. In France, a year prior to the Netherlands shopping mall slaughter, a player who had been stabbed virtually in a computer game tracked down his opponent and stabbed him in real life. A year before the stabbing in France, a 17-year-old schizophrenic imitated behavior from a violent video game that he used to play. He attacked some teenagers with an axe and then killed an elderly woman by stabbing her.

Were these aggressors violent because they were influenced by violent games? Or were they attracted to violent games because they were predisposed to fascination with violence? We do not know and we should not oversimplify what caused these atrocities. But if you decide for yourself that it might not be the best thing for a child to have unrestricted access to these types of games, you can enlist the help of internet filter software to enforce your parenting decisions when you are not at home.