IELTS Writing 9 Examiner Fan Wen: Are computer games good or bad?

IELTS Writing 9 Examiner Fan Wen: Computer games are good or bad for students' reference only.

Title: Some people think that video games are interesting and even a useful educational tool. However, others think that video games have a bad influence on people who play video games. In your opinion, do video games do more harm than good?

Fan Wen:

Many people, especially children, like playing computer games. Although I admit that these games sometimes have positive effects on users, I think they are more likely to have harmful effects.

On the one hand, video games can be both entertaining and educational. Users or gamers are transported to virtual worlds, which are usually more exciting and attractive than pastimes in real life. From an educational point of view, these games encourage imagination and creativity, as well as attention, logical thinking and problem-solving ability, all of which are useful skills outside the game environment. In addition, it has been shown that computer simulation games can improve users' motor skills and help them prepare for real-world tasks, such as flying airplanes.

However, I think these advantages are outweighed by disadvantages. Games can be very addictive, because users will get scores, new goals and frequent rewards to keep them playing. Nowadays, many children spend several hours every day trying to pass the game level or get higher scores than their friends. This type of addiction may have effects ranging from lack of sleep to school problems, when homework is sacrificed for hours on a computer or game machine. The increase of obesity in recent years is also partly related to the sedentary lifestyle and lack of exercise, which is usually accompanied by game addiction.

In a word, in my opinion, the potential dangers of video games are more important than the possible benefits.

(258 words, paragraph 9)