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Game over

June 21, 2018   ·   0 Comments

By Jasen Obermeyer

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently classified gaming addiction as a mental health condition.

Video games are a very popular form of entertainment, from computers and consoles, to hand-held portable devices and the gaming apps on our phones.

WHO classified gaming addiction as a disease that overtakes someone’s social, physical, and working abilities, prioritizing gaming over everything else.

Studies show that gaming addiction is a serious problem in China and South Korea, while in Europe and North America it’s much less.

But still, what can be done about it? What is it about video games that make them so addictive?

Certainly recognizing that video game addiction is a disease will certainly give psychiatrists a better chance of treating it.

As with anything else that’s enjoyable, one wants to keep experiencing it. For those who seek a different form of entertainment, video games are one of them. And if they enjoy it, they’ll keep playing it.

It’s not as simple as putting a controller down and walking away. It’s like a drug, and you need to keep having that rush.

I can definitely say that I’ve been addicted to video games.

I’ve played them from a young age, around six or seven, but until I was a teenager, it wasn’t bad. When I was 13, I saved enough money to purchase an Xbox 360. After only two months that’s all I was doing.

My grades dropped, so much so a tutor needed to step in and help me. My parents also recognized my addiction and quickly took away my 360. It seemed I was going to learn the hard way.

For several months I almost never got any “special time” with my console, but eventually, once my marks were going back up, I gained it back.

Come high school, I developed a pattern, a solution to curb my gaming playtime. When it was a couple weeks before exams hit, I unplugged my Xbox, and put it and all my games, controllers and wires away in a closet. I figured that if it were out of sight, it would be out of mind.

It certainly worked. I focused completely on my studies, and came out with flying colours. I did that solution for each semester, until come Grade 12, I could keep the Xbox in the open and still not play it all during exam time.

Come University, I played video games much more again, and come mid-term time, scrambled to get caught up. So I developed another solution; I didn’t play video games at all during the entire semester. We’re talking over three months straight of no video games.

I did that for the first two years, and come the last two, I learned to balance between school, work, and video games.

Still, there were times I was consumed. Last year and the year before that I bought over two dozen games, just finishing one and finding another, always wanting that rush.

This year I seemed to have found that balance again. Unfortunately I don’t know what it is that makes me specifically want to keep playing, nor do I know how I found my solutions. I believe it was a bit of my willpower, my family forcing me to recognize and deal with my problem, and finding other things to do.

Video games help take us out of the world we live in, bringing a sense of joy and comfort. But there were times when I would get up in the morning and just go straight to the console, like a robot on autopilot.

I am glad the WHO is classifying video game addiction as a disease. They affect you mentally, physically, and psychologically.

But it’s not just the user that needs to find the solution; it’s the video game developers. Things like achievements, little gaming trophies for awarding a specific goal, down loadable content to keep the play investing, online gaming. Maybe both those who create and play games should find the solutions.

Video games have always been controversial and discussed heavily. But like everything in life, a balance must be found. There is nothing wrong with playing it sometimes, but too much and you lose control. Maybe after spending sometime outside exercising and feeling tired you can relax by sitting and playing.

If other ways can be found than society will better off. You may not see the addiction physically like a drug or a bottle, but it’s there, and that’s even scarier. Video games will constantly evolve, and with that, addiction. The first step to solving any problem is recognizing there is one, and that is the most difficult part.

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