Do Video Games Deserve the Bad Rap They Usually Get?

My first argument concerns addiction in video gaming. Providing relevant sources and research, i will explain why video games are addictive and the results (consequences) of this addiction

According to a cleveland clinic, "video game addiction, also called internet gaming disorder, is a condition characterized by severely reduced control over gaming habits, resulting in negative consequences in many aspects of your life, including self-care, relationships, school and work". Many associate video game addiction with addictions similar to gambling, in which the rush of winning becomes one of the main reasons for playing. So far, researchers think the process of playing and winning video games may trigger a release of dopamine. To provide some background information, dopamine is a brain chemical that plays a key role in numerous bodily functions, provoking things such as pleasurable reward and motivation. According to research, this problem affects between 1,7 and 10 percent of the US population. Video games are found appealing for children, teens as well as adults but the main "target market" is teenage boys

There are many causes for this problem.  Gamers often play to get rid of feelings such as stress, anxiety or to take their mind off real-life problems and any type of issue they face, an action called escapism. The problems and issues they're escaping from might include but are not limited to: parental negligence or negliged by friends, bad grades and academic performance or sometimes even inability but rather reluctance to partake in any other type of activity such as sports as they want to avoid one of two things:  excessive physical activity (if u ask me i consider it laziness) or social interactions. Another reason to fall into addiction is to acquire a sense of belonging. Through gaming, gamers have a chance at making friends, virtual ones most of the time, and connect with other communities or individuals who enjoy gaming, while inability to bond with their classmates at school for example can be a further push in the direction of addiction. Finally, gamers might be facing identity disorders. Children mainly teenagers find themselves not knowing who they are and they think an activity such as video gaming will help them find the answer to the questions. For instance, they might find certain games or characters appealing or relatable and try to form personalities around them.

Problems they face touch two main categories: physical and mental ones. I will focus on physical ones on this argument and move on with the mental ones later as they require deeper analysis.

1) Leading sedentary lives (avoiding any type of physical activity)

As briefly mentioned in the sub-title, sedentary lives are the lives in which people avoid any type of physical activity or action that might provoke physical strain which can happen both on purpose but also with no fault of the gamer, in which case i am not blaming or pointing any fingers. Sedentary lives obviously involve avoiding sports and revolve around simply sitting on a chair doing things such as watching television or playing these games but in any case finding pleasure on the internet. According to research, people who lead sedentary lives are at the highest risk of reaching obesity than anyne else. This occurs both because they avoid any physical activity that requires them to exercise, burn calories but also because sedentary lifestyles are often accompanied with terrible diets and eating habits. To explain, when playing games a person is absorbed in them, meaning that they do not care about anythig else around them and are basically not in control of themselves. As a result of this, gamers consume giant amounts of snacks containing big proportions of sugar, gluten etc. and they can't control themselves as they are too focused on beating levels and doing quests. The average person who actually completes some exercise will become obese if he/she systematcally consumes such snacks. Imagine what will happen to these guys who not only do that at dangerous levels but also refuse to get off their buts and go run on a treadmill at least (Once again, i repeat i'm not talking about people with innate issues that basically condemn to such lifestyles). Consequently, these gamers become obese and in some extreme cases morbidly obese and can't possibly recover even if they pluck up the courage to do so and ae therefore condemned to the lives they chose before obesity. And i don't mean doing strenuous activities like running multiple miles at once but basic fuctions of the human body like getting out of a chair and walking to the kitchen to drink a cup of water. If the situation worsens, these people can actually die as the human body cannot ''conform'' to this lifestyle. It is quite sad to see that thousands of people over the years have ruined their lives through becoming addicted to gaming to the point where they lose control of their body, risking to continue their lives in a wheelchair for instance or in some cases die.

2) Diseases, maladies, conditions and any type of physical blight associated with gaming

My last piece of argumentation concerns diseases and so on.

In mild cases, video gams and excessive time spent playing them often results in eye or even back pain while it is most known for headaches. There many types of headaches including migraines, cluster headaches but the most usual one(also talking throug personal experience) are migraines which are painful and cannot really be treated afterwards if you don't take the time rest and calm down.

In intermediate cases, video gaming addiction can indirectly lead to various diseases and maladies for example your typical flu or cold because after many hours of gaming, the body of a gamer weakens and becomes vulnerable to many minor yet painful problems, that cannot absolutely be treated if u don't rest and as we all know accompany many symptoms such as constant cough, high fevers, swelling in certain parts of the body and many more which i cannot think of right now.

In extreme cases, video gaming addiction can lead to major problems like certain forms of cancer. Research and studies have shown that constant eye exposure to the screen can lead to eye cancer for example. In other cases, they lead to diabetes and some cardiovascular conditions as gamers don't exercise which is necessary for the heart and other organs to properly function and keep the system going

There are many types of video games. There are harmless video games for example rocket league or in the case of mobile games clash of clans, clash royale... i can name these ones at the top of my head but there are many more that do not involve guns, drugs but in any way participating in illegal activity. Those are games like gta, call of duty could even be considered one. These games require the user to do illegal things in order to succeed and feel like a king. For example in call of duty and other survival games u try to kill everyone until you are the last one standing. On the other hand, in every gta game, both in online and singleplayer gamemodes, you have to get rich through illegal ways. I happen to have played the game and remember operating three different drug labs, arcades and casinos and after doing all that i could boast to my friends about my supposed "achievements". This is never the case in real life. In real life, crimes like the ones you are forced to commit in video games will land you decades in prison, potentially sentences that even last centuries. Now, you must be thinking: No one would be dumb enough to do what he sees in video games and actually be influenced by the behaviors of video game characters but in reality it's not that simple. Many people in the past and many more to come will commit crimes and all kinds of atrocities because of a game they enjoyed playing, usually for one of two reasons: Either because they thought it would be legal or if it wasn't they would just take a car and drive off to another country, in which case someone needs to take their console and explain to them that if u commit crimes, u go to prison and the duration of your sentence is determined by how vulgar the crime. The other reason would be because the game provided a false sense of reality, lets take gta as an example. Gta online which is the most popular gamemode forces people in order to commit crimes in order to become rich and obtain power. When the gamers actually do that, they feel empowered and happy to have done all that, yet for some reason they found it funny or joyful to see people getting killed or actually killing them themselves and that basically told them that it would be more than okay to try every thing they saw and did in a real society with real human beings. As a result, they went and committed the crime. There is a chance that they were sickened by their behavior and decided to do the prison time, yet never repeat their actions so they kinda learned their lesson, yet at the cost of someone's health or even life, which is unacceptable. However, as we all know there are certain people that will find pleasure in such actions or atleast feel okay doing them, usually categorized as sociopaths or psychopaths. So in the end, video games make vulnerable people who might already be experiencing problems in their life, find pleasure in committing crimes and use it as a way to escape reality so they are gradually creating criminals or people who don't conform to societal norms. This is very dangerous and will deteriorate should such games continue to be created. At least, in the case of fortnite(shooting people and dancing on them) or minecraft(killing animals and people in order to satisfy basic needs), crimes are committed in very childish and crude ways, that have an almost inexistent possiility of motivating their users to actualy commit them in real life.

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