Online Gaming- Addiction to Affection
"The birth of video games was considered as revolution to entertaining industry. As time goes by, technology blossomed which pushed video gaming to a whole new level- online gaming, in which players will not only be entertained but also share that enjoyment with others. However, everything has its own downturn."
Declared its popularity since 2000s, online gaming proved to be a real deal. Daria J Kuss shared his thought on online gaming in which online gaming has been a blooming market in 2012. More than one billon players across the globe fuelling 8% growth of gaming industry and China alone gained more than $10 billion dollar in 2013.
As the visuals and interaction in online gaming became more interesting or we can say, more real, players seem to be more exciting and focusing on the online games rather than their real world.
Consequently, entertainment turned into addiction.
Online gaming addiction-not a so unfamiliar term recent years. Players spend at least 7-8 hours per day on average to online games and they do not care about everything else.
Chief executive Brian Dudley at Broadway Lodge, a residential rehabilitation centre, expressed the significance of online gaming to our future generation both physically and psychologically.
"Although they apply a method called 12-steps treatment organized by following order, the results are still not guaranteed." said Brian.
Take Michael Murphy for example, former game addict, who had horrible experiences with LOL (Language of Legends), one of the trending online games.
Beside his massive downturn of health such as lack of sleep, lost weight, eating issues, Michael finds himself more aggressive, less socialized and his relationships with family, friends seem to be at risk.
Furthermore, a French report shocked viewers by the accident of father accidently kill his son during confrontation of online gaming.
He could not stand that his son has always been an online game addict and when their argument reached its peak, 43-year old father unintentionally grabbed his 23-year-old son's neck and strangled him.
Another case was in Korea, where online gaming addiction transformed into crisis forcing government to publish the Gaming Shutdown Law and urgently seeking for parenting guidance. More than 50 million players per day, more than $1 billion of exporting alone in 2008 demonstrating that online gaming industry in Korea is tremendously profitable.
"The line between virtuality and reality seems to be more fragile. There are increasing number of people find virtual world is more appealing to them or what they call 'escape from reality'.
Nevertheless, impact of online gaming on Korea was considerable.
Another 28-year-old worker encountered the same issue costing him to lose his job and eventually after continuous 50-hours of gaming, he lost his life.
If that was not the worst, then take a look at the most high profile case in 2009 when a Korean married couple left their own child starved to death just because they were so addictively into taking care of a virtual infant.
It is understandable that live is complicated from working to relationships, sometimes we want to be endorsed, acknowledged by others or achieve our goals, but reality is cruel and unfair.
As a result, instead of continuing to face and suffer from it, we decide to avoid and look for our own “space”. Yet the outcomes are unexpected. Victims endure series of negative self-esteem, depressive mood, social anxiety and loneliness.
"Obviously, we gain lots of benefits from online gaming but we also lose no less than some of our privileges or even our natures. So we have to ask ourselves: is it worth it?"
