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Disclaimer: Any people, persons, or parties mentioned in this blog post are fictional.
With League of Legends at the height of it's popularity, there is a lot of talk of gaming in mainstream media. "What does it do to people?", "Who is gaming?", and, "Is this a good thing?"
While they do their due diligence as writers and content producers to tell the whole story (gamers aren't getting quite as bad of a rap as they used to), there is still a lot of negative talk about what gaming can do to a person. You see, like drugs and alcohol, gaming is a potential addiction for some people.
In response to "Is this a good thing?": I would have to say that it can be seen a number of ways at different times. Anything in excess can be bad for you, and while time wasters are certainly not going to cost you anything in the short term, they could change your habits, which will directly influence the decisions you make in your everyday life. Before we get to the conclusion of "why gaming is bad for you" vs. "why gaming is not bad for you" I would like to share the stories of three highschool kids:
1. Tom plays games whenever he can. After school, he's often playing games until he passes out. Before school, however, he wakes up an extra hour early each day to make sure all of his chores are done, so there is extra time for gaming. Tom doesn't know it, but he's addicted to games.
Addiction is a very scary thing. If you've ever known anyone addicted to ANYTHING, they don't always have a good idea about what's happening (Tom), nor do they necessarily think that anything is wrong. In fact, addicted people will usually tend towards erratic behavior in defense of their favorite hobby. I will assume Tom is utterly and completely addicted to video games for the sake of this dissertation. He has very few friends and blames other people for his shortcomings. He sometimes says things like "How can I get a girlfriend if I can't even get any friends?", or "I'm just going to sit here and play games, at least they understand me."
This puts things in a rather dangerous position when you consider quote # 2 from our friend, Tom. You see, if you start to equate time you spend on games to real life enjoyment, you may start to stop seeking real world enjoyment altogether. This is a slipperly slope to go down, and while we may not all be social butterflies, the negative stigmas that go along with gamers are easily attributed to Tom as well. This effects the way that he thinks about life and the people around him are perceiving him differently because of it as well. He's now fighting for his life with every 1up. It has now become serious, as Tom is contemplating suicide.
2. Brad is the backup quarterback for his highschool's varsity football team. He's a big fan of gaming, but he doesn't tell anyone about it. God forbid his friends on the football team find out about it. He has a mild addiction to gaming, but because of the embarassment he believes it will cause him, he keeps this a secret to all, but his closest friends. We can safely assume that Brad's mild addiction to gaming is safe and not at all going to damage him in any way.
3. Sarah, like Tom, doesn't have many friends in life. She has very few that she can depend on and even they let her down sometimes. Sarah's family isn't well off, but they have more than enough money at times. Sarah has all of the latest gaming gear and can tell you some of the finer details about League of Legends, a popular online game.
Sarah, once again like Tom, is utterly and hopelessly addicted to video games. She is pretty open about it, though, to anyone that would want to listen. Sarah keeps to herself as a choice, not because she couldn't have more friends. Sarah has a healthy addiction. She knows what her limits are and doesn't do anything to make her parents worry, so for the sake of this dissertation, (once again) we shall assume Sarah's addiction is "healthy."
Let's hit the pause button for a second: Out of our three afflictions, it's quite obvious the most dire situation is with Tom.
When you try to imagine what gaming is and what it does to people, you have to first consider, what alternative behavior is available to these people. You see, Tom isn't really that capable as a person, and gaming isn't making him any better off. All it's doing is preventing him from acquiring real life tools he will need to live a happy and successful life. It's not about what the game offers him, it's about what it's keeping from him. If you never accept responsibility for your own life, you will never succeed emotionally or physically. Try to think less "why me?" and more "what can I do to fix this?"
By the time you are a teenager, you probably know all too well how cruel the world can be. It is a very crucial point in your life where you start to learn a bit about the rest of the world. The last thing you should be doing is refusing to introspect.
Conclusion
While gaming can sometimes be seen as bad, oftentimes it can be very beneficial to a person. Examine their entire life, not just their gaming.
Don't let gaming be a way to "escape reality." Let it be an extension of your real life and embrace who you are. What you have, what you want, and how you are going to get there are all things you need to be accept. If you're not introspecting, hiding from your feelings in a neverending sea of titles will not save your soul.
Updates
2-Brad recently came out to his friends about his mild gaming addiction,"You know how I always say games are gay, guys? Well, I actually really enjoy games sometimes and I play them when I can."
He even told some of his football teammates about his gaming, but none of them seemed to care.
3-Sarah is still gaming. It's not making her life unnecessarily hard, and she has meaningful relationships. Her new boyfriend is pretty "in" to games as well. While she and Tom shared the most character traits, Sarah has succeeded where Tom has allowed himself to fail. She straight up CARES. It's not about the games, it's about the person.
1-Without someone there to remind him to dream big, because You Only Live Once, Tom got himself into a deep depression, and the only way out was through therapy and eventually removing himself from gaming entirely. He now has a moderately healthy relationship with gaming and it now serves as an outlet for him, instead of sapping all of his character. He has since joined the track team, the debate team, and the chess club. Tom doesn't worry about having extra time for games now and spends his after school hours doing mostly extracurricular activities. He still gets up an hour early to do his chores.
If you know someone suffering from gaming addiction, and it's ruining their life, get help. Talk to a teacher or guidance counselor or find some alternative. Your friend may not talk to you for a while, but you can rest easy knowing you did the right thing.
On-Line Gamers Anonymous (taken from their mission statement) is a fellowship of people sharing their experience, strengths and hope to help each other recover and heal from the problems caused by video game addiction:
http://www.olganon.org/
Videogameaddiction.org has a 1-866 number for treatment programs for addicted people and also a ton of information
Suicide Prevention Lifeline
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
1-800-273-TALK (8255)
With League of Legends at the height of it's popularity, there is a lot of talk of gaming in mainstream media. "What does it do to people?", "Who is gaming?", and, "Is this a good thing?"
While they do their due diligence as writers and content producers to tell the whole story (gamers aren't getting quite as bad of a rap as they used to), there is still a lot of negative talk about what gaming can do to a person. You see, like drugs and alcohol, gaming is a potential addiction for some people.
In response to "Is this a good thing?": I would have to say that it can be seen a number of ways at different times. Anything in excess can be bad for you, and while time wasters are certainly not going to cost you anything in the short term, they could change your habits, which will directly influence the decisions you make in your everyday life. Before we get to the conclusion of "why gaming is bad for you" vs. "why gaming is not bad for you" I would like to share the stories of three highschool kids:
1. Tom plays games whenever he can. After school, he's often playing games until he passes out. Before school, however, he wakes up an extra hour early each day to make sure all of his chores are done, so there is extra time for gaming. Tom doesn't know it, but he's addicted to games.
Addiction is a very scary thing. If you've ever known anyone addicted to ANYTHING, they don't always have a good idea about what's happening (Tom), nor do they necessarily think that anything is wrong. In fact, addicted people will usually tend towards erratic behavior in defense of their favorite hobby. I will assume Tom is utterly and completely addicted to video games for the sake of this dissertation. He has very few friends and blames other people for his shortcomings. He sometimes says things like "How can I get a girlfriend if I can't even get any friends?", or "I'm just going to sit here and play games, at least they understand me."
This puts things in a rather dangerous position when you consider quote # 2 from our friend, Tom. You see, if you start to equate time you spend on games to real life enjoyment, you may start to stop seeking real world enjoyment altogether. This is a slipperly slope to go down, and while we may not all be social butterflies, the negative stigmas that go along with gamers are easily attributed to Tom as well. This effects the way that he thinks about life and the people around him are perceiving him differently because of it as well. He's now fighting for his life with every 1up. It has now become serious, as Tom is contemplating suicide.
2. Brad is the backup quarterback for his highschool's varsity football team. He's a big fan of gaming, but he doesn't tell anyone about it. God forbid his friends on the football team find out about it. He has a mild addiction to gaming, but because of the embarassment he believes it will cause him, he keeps this a secret to all, but his closest friends. We can safely assume that Brad's mild addiction to gaming is safe and not at all going to damage him in any way.
3. Sarah, like Tom, doesn't have many friends in life. She has very few that she can depend on and even they let her down sometimes. Sarah's family isn't well off, but they have more than enough money at times. Sarah has all of the latest gaming gear and can tell you some of the finer details about League of Legends, a popular online game.
Sarah, once again like Tom, is utterly and hopelessly addicted to video games. She is pretty open about it, though, to anyone that would want to listen. Sarah keeps to herself as a choice, not because she couldn't have more friends. Sarah has a healthy addiction. She knows what her limits are and doesn't do anything to make her parents worry, so for the sake of this dissertation, (once again) we shall assume Sarah's addiction is "healthy."
Let's hit the pause button for a second: Out of our three afflictions, it's quite obvious the most dire situation is with Tom.
When you try to imagine what gaming is and what it does to people, you have to first consider, what alternative behavior is available to these people. You see, Tom isn't really that capable as a person, and gaming isn't making him any better off. All it's doing is preventing him from acquiring real life tools he will need to live a happy and successful life. It's not about what the game offers him, it's about what it's keeping from him. If you never accept responsibility for your own life, you will never succeed emotionally or physically. Try to think less "why me?" and more "what can I do to fix this?"
By the time you are a teenager, you probably know all too well how cruel the world can be. It is a very crucial point in your life where you start to learn a bit about the rest of the world. The last thing you should be doing is refusing to introspect.
Conclusion
While gaming can sometimes be seen as bad, oftentimes it can be very beneficial to a person. Examine their entire life, not just their gaming.
Don't let gaming be a way to "escape reality." Let it be an extension of your real life and embrace who you are. What you have, what you want, and how you are going to get there are all things you need to be accept. If you're not introspecting, hiding from your feelings in a neverending sea of titles will not save your soul.
Updates
2-Brad recently came out to his friends about his mild gaming addiction,"You know how I always say games are gay, guys? Well, I actually really enjoy games sometimes and I play them when I can."
He even told some of his football teammates about his gaming, but none of them seemed to care.
3-Sarah is still gaming. It's not making her life unnecessarily hard, and she has meaningful relationships. Her new boyfriend is pretty "in" to games as well. While she and Tom shared the most character traits, Sarah has succeeded where Tom has allowed himself to fail. She straight up CARES. It's not about the games, it's about the person.
1-Without someone there to remind him to dream big, because You Only Live Once, Tom got himself into a deep depression, and the only way out was through therapy and eventually removing himself from gaming entirely. He now has a moderately healthy relationship with gaming and it now serves as an outlet for him, instead of sapping all of his character. He has since joined the track team, the debate team, and the chess club. Tom doesn't worry about having extra time for games now and spends his after school hours doing mostly extracurricular activities. He still gets up an hour early to do his chores.
If you know someone suffering from gaming addiction, and it's ruining their life, get help. Talk to a teacher or guidance counselor or find some alternative. Your friend may not talk to you for a while, but you can rest easy knowing you did the right thing.
On-Line Gamers Anonymous (taken from their mission statement) is a fellowship of people sharing their experience, strengths and hope to help each other recover and heal from the problems caused by video game addiction:
http://www.olganon.org/
Videogameaddiction.org has a 1-866 number for treatment programs for addicted people and also a ton of information
Suicide Prevention Lifeline
http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
1-800-273-TALK (8255)
I keep a running blog on my gaming, kinda helps me keep in check.
Games like LoL take time and we all like investing in them. Priorities are the things you need to watch to keep your games from becoming more than a fun activity.
Hope your friend learns to play in a way that doesn't mess with his priorities.
Amyway here is the rest of my take on the issue - Blog
True and yet, not true at the same time. It's true that the game is not the problem, but in a certain sense, it is helping, even if it is a rather perverse form of help.
It's a well known fact in therapy practice to avoid the symptoms and treat the actual cause of psychological problems. As others have said, VGs are just symptoms of the problem. Taking away video games may in fact cause his problems to worsen, because despite the damage that video games can do, they are dependent on games in a sense, or rather, it is supporting their reason to live. You can't (or rather, it is ill advised to) take away a 'cornerstone' of their life, as it were, without replacing it with something else.
At that time and place, VGs are essentially what is keeping said person alive. It is the coping mechanism that they have used for life.
Okay, so the dissertation was largely just descriptive, which makes it quite unhelpful. You never truly accurately pinpoint Tom's real problem nor really evaluate his actual situation. In fact, you give us woefully little to go on other than two measly quotes. I'd even go on to say that the first of Tom's quotes is actually more telling of his character than the second one. The first actually touches on one of the core aspects of the human passion and probably reveals more about what he's depressed about, whereas the second one is only an observation of how he is coping with that depression (which you can easily see without him having to actually say it anyway...).
This is by no means anywhere even remotely near a real reason Tom fell into a depression. No one ever reminded me to dream big, nor reminded me that I only live once and I'm not depressed by any means. In addition, I can certainly imagine cases of people who may be reminded to dream big and that they only live once, but this becomes a cause for concern for them instead and also lead to depression. For example, it could be that given I only have one life and it's all about dreaming big, having failed to do anything worthwhile that might be considered 'big', I could easily see it as a cause for depression.
But of course, I accept that due to the nature of how short your dissertation here is, you couldn't really go into any specifics as to why Tom really became depressed, however, as a teacher told me in secondary school: 'If you don't write it down on the paper, the examiner won't know that you know it, even if it may be the case that I know you know it'.
I had more to say, but my tired mind prevents me from focusing any further, so I'll have to leave it as it is for now.
Whilst I do concede that what you are doing is well-intentioned, I must certainly question whether posting something so... well, naive is actually beneficial at all.
I am pleased that you are so passionate about this subject so much that you would read what I wrote out and also draft such detailed responses. I would just like to say, in my defense, that the misinformation was meant to make the story more presentable, not to be misinforming. It's not like the game is the problem, but it's definitely not helping. Sometimes people forget that, and while I don't claim video games are bad or that everyone is addicted, for the sake of this story, I made an attempt to make this applicable to as many people as possible at the cost of a better story.
Either way, I can't really fault your opinion, but suffice it to say that I intentionally wrote it that way for a reason.
Nope. If you're going to that extreme, then literally any other hobby could take gaming's place and result in the same conclusion.
Video games are not the cause of the issue. You are the cause of the issue, and you need to have your mental instabilities diagnosed by a professional source so that they can be properly treated.
Do you understand the point I'm making? These kinds of posts are a load of bull because they completely and entirely circumvent the issue of there being anything else possibly wrong with the individual in question. You're dragging a harmless, chemical free, recreational hobby into your own pool of misery because of issues you need either medication or counseling for. When we start pinning video games as the source of the issue, we completely miss the target and leave a potentially serious underlying condition unchecked for the sake of singling out a very non-threatening middle man for someone's fragile state.
I mean, hell. Why not look at Columbine? Those boys listened to Marilyn Manson - does that mean Marilyn Manson acted as a conductor for their unacceptable behavior? Absolutely not. Was he demonized for it? Sure. Plenty of normal people listen to Marilyn Manson on a day-to-day basis, so it safe to say that these two boys needed help for the underlying issue that resulted in a tragedy?
A million times this.
I want to add to add that an addiction is usually the cause of an underlying problem rather than it being the problem itself. I'm a good example of that. Sometimes people start doing things as a distraction. Examples would include drinking because they lost someone close to them or playing videogames to escape reality. Eventually they break down and slowly their lives fall apart. Is that because of the alcoholism or the video game addiction? Yes but those resulted from the person's mental state so technically that caused their lives to break down and fall apart, not the addiction.
regardless of the points you make in regards to the root cause of addiction encross....gaming addiction does exist and can have a number of negative effects on a person's life. while it might not be as destructive as heroine (or nearly as addictive), gaming addiction should still be recognized as an addiction and treated appropriately.
Sure, but it's safe to say that addiction as a definition can be applied to just about any hobby relevant in today's society. It's ultimately on the individual to control their hobbies and exert some responsibility over their own past times.
While it can have negative side effects, I think it's a complete waste of time to single out video games as the source of the issue when something far more menacing is leading to extremes laid out in OP's post like suicide, depression, and other very serious mental concerns.
Video games are not the cause of the issue. You are the cause of the issue
Spot on.
People that solve their (gaming) addictions are more likely to jump to other addictions anyway, doesn't necessarily have something to do with the addiction in itself, in this case, video games.
If I play games excessively, and I start contemplating suicide because I've secluded myself, then the games are the cause of the issue.
Nope. If you're going to that extreme, then literally any other hobby could take gaming's place and result in the same conclusion.
Video games are not the cause of the issue. You are the cause of the issue, and you need to have your mental instabilities diagnosed by a professional source so that they can be properly treated.
Do you understand the point I'm making? These kinds of posts are a load of bull because they completely and entirely circumvent the issue of there being anything else possibly wrong with the individual in question. You're dragging a harmless, chemical free, recreational hobby into your own pool of misery because of issues you need either medication or counseling for. When we start pinning video games as the source of the issue, we completely miss the target and leave a potentially serious underlying condition unchecked for the sake of singling out a very non-threatening middle man for someone's fragile state.
I mean, hell. Why not look at Columbine? Those boys listened to Marilyn Manson - does that mean Marilyn Manson acted as a conductor for their unacceptable behavior? Absolutely not. Was he demonized for it? Sure. Plenty of normal people listen to Marilyn Manson on a day-to-day basis, so is it safe to say that these two boys needed help for the underlying issue that resulted in a tragedy?
going to rescind everything I was going to say, I'll simply answer the core issue you have. You are right, gaming itself is only a catalyst for the problem.
However, it is quite often because of some sort of addiction, gaming in this instance, that the problem begins.
If a dad beats a child, and he contemplates suicide because of that, then the dad is the cause of the issue.
If I play games excessively, and I start contemplating suicide because I've secluded myself, then the games are the cause of the issue.
Okay. I'd like to make some points here, because this is littered with misinformation and assumption.
This is a tired and cliched image of your typical gaming nerd. You took an extreme and laid it out in a manner that makes it impossible to view as anything but damaging, leaving nothing but a helpless shell of a human sitting in the wake of his own poor time management to discuss. Your entire post seems centered around Tom and how irresponsible he is with his recreational hobbies.
Look, addictions are real. Sure. Can they be toxic? Absolutely. But video games themselves will not ruin your life. This is the major flaw in all of these gaming addiction awareness arguments. Unless you've suddenly lost the ability to go to the bathroom, eat, or sometimes sleep, then you're not actually killing yourself by playing a video game. Are you addicted in the sense that all of your free time (and then some) is being allocated into a video game? You absolutely can be. But it isn't going to kill you, and it never will. Ever.
Know what will kill you? Cigarettes. Heroin. Fast food. Things that have very real chemical and nutritional additives that literally make you crave your addiction regardless of how awful it is for your body's well-being. Video games have neither, and at worst will lead to very non lethal consequences like a loss of job or poor time management.
It's very important that the actual issue is being discussed here. Things like depression, lack of diet or exercise, social anxiety - these are all real things that can very much affect someone that spends most of their time in front of a game. But that isn't the fault of the video game, nor is it an addiction to the video game itself. The game is just a catalyst for an underlying issue, and I would bet my entire life's savings that replacing the video game with anything else mildly stimulating would result in the exact same obsession repeating itself in a cycle.
Because that's how addictions work. You either have the willpower to say no and cut off the intake of additives, or you don't, and that's that. Help lines for "video gaming addiction" are ****, and instead of mis-labeling someone as a damaged video game addict, how about you look to the source of the issue and identify the mental (or physical) reason they spend so much time on them. You're going to accomplish a lot more by pinning down the actual issue than you are by demonizing a ******* video game.
You understood what I was trying to highlight. Thanks for the detailed response.
Addiction is a very real thing. Just bringing awareness to this issue, however small, is always worthwhile.
I don't necessarily agree that having control over an addiction makes it any less of an addiction, however, I do see how you could think that. It's honestly semantics at that point. If you are "addicted," it may not kill you, but you're still going to have to deal with certain things as a direct result of that addiction.