Children play Angry Birds and Pacman in real life in Almaty

Children and teenagers of Almaty city had a chance to play Angry Birds and Pacman in real life, Tengrinews.kz reports. The event was dedicated to the celebration of the Teenager’s Day and held at the square in front of the Republic Palace. The event’s main goal was to promote healthy lifestyle among teenagers and draw them away from their computers. To do this the organizers created realistic copies of the popular computer games. Children were offered to catapult toy birds at gift boxes at the Angry Birds amusement site. The ones who scored got candies. Some of the smaller children were assisted by their parents. Participants of the Pacman amusement were competing in speed. The fastest gatherers of Pacman fruits in the labyrinth became winners. There were also several pools for teenagers to hold water battles. The children also played table tennis, fought in a bouncy castle and played Gorodki game. Board games were also very popular at the event. Children gathered to play Jenga, where players take turns to remove a block from their tower and balance it on top. Professionals working with children and aggregates were also involved in the event. Psychologist Anastasia Steblyanko says that an urge to communicate prevails over all the rest of the needs at the age of 10 to 17. That is why it is very important to create comfortable conditions for children's development and prevent computer addiction. "Interaction through a computer can't be considered a full and sound way of communication. When using a computer to communicate a teenager doesn't learn to resolve difficulties, as the device makes it easy to change one subject to another and quit a dialog. And this is a wrong way to communicate with people. As a result the children who are overly obsessed with computers often find it hard to make friends in real life and contact with other kids. As the virtual environment replaces the real one for them," the psychologist said. By Alisher Akhmetov