Our society is concerned about prevention of drug, cigarette or alcohol addictions, as we perceive such addictions to be harmful to people and will also cause a detriment to society resulting in an increase in crimes or violence.
However, there is an addiction prevalent among the youths in our society that we have failed to address. This is the addiction to computer games.
On one level, computer games are beneficial. Games such as Battlefield 1942 will actually allow players to learn about World War 2. Other games such as Civ IV or World of Warcraft enable players to think in a strategic manner. Games are fun, they are interactive, which in a way is more appealing to young people than a book or movie since a player can control and experience the world in the game, as opposed to being an observer.
However, games are highly addictive. Some people are so addicted to their games that they will spend all their time playing the game. They will stay in their rooms all day long, ignoring their family, their friends or any vistors to their house. It is not uncommon to have people playing online games for 16 hours per day, with a small break every now and then for toilet or cup noodles. They begin to lose all social contact and their only means of contact is with other players in the game by fighting with them and helping noobs to gain XP. They are so engrossed in their game that they will wake up in the middle of the night checking their auctions and racking up kills in BG. Their aim in life is to gain as much honour points as possible. They would feel that they have learnt all golden rules in life through a game, but all they've learnt are principles such as never trusting the Spanish, aiming in front of the target when Sniping, switching between a Pistol and a Shotgun can be beneficial if used correctly, and jumping of bridges with 15 health left is not a good idea.
Moderation (not moderator) is the key! Games can be fun but the world is a big place. Addicts should go out and experience it. It is bigger than the maps or campaigns in any game. They should learn to enjoy life by enjoying the company of others. Otherwise, there will be regret when they realise that they have a total of 3650 days spent on WOW, and no time with their friends and family, most of which will no longer be there when they realise this. Or maybe when their health deteriorates from tendinitis or other illness, they will realise the impact of games on their health.
We should all pay more attention to this type of addiction!
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2 comments:
Point taken about the addiction. I think the appeal for someone like me to spend countless hours in game is that I get some of the social benefits of interacting with many different people without the social awkwardness and apprehension of actually meeting strangers in the real world. I also think that sometimes I get more social benefits from gaming with my friends than actually hanging out with them especially if they are not living close by. I'm at an age where I'm no longer young enough to play with my friends in a sandbox and so we take the virtual world as our adult sandbox. Meeting friends in the real world for me now usually centers around going to bars or going out for food. We don't actually just lounge around at each other places for reasons I can't figure out yet. I guess we're just a society of "Lonely people and Walmart" qouting a friend. Anyhow I do agree on some moderation but opinions on "moderate" is subjective. If gaming gets to a point where you can't function like a person (Keep a job/eat/some social contact with other people/school/hygiene) then that's when you have to take a big step back but gaming does take up most of my free time and I don't think it's necessarily all that bad.
Computer games allow people to imerse themselves into another reality, where it is only bound by their imagination. They can explore their sexuality (seeing what it is like to be a girl, chatting up guys), help build confidence(a nerd often picked on can be a hero in another world in the pc world) and communicate to others.
True this creates an unrealitic environment and creates false hopes and more ways to escape the personal problems of mankind but doesnt this principle of escaping apply to all addictions?
A workaholic may work hard, keep working, preventing himself from thinking about loneliess as work prevents him to have many friends or even have a family, a drug addict, given everything in life, doesnt know what to do anymore, so gets himself high on drugs.
Any addiction can be another form of escape used by humans. If we can solve those problems and have the courage to face them , maybe these things will not become important anymore.
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