Negative consequences of gaming?

[Deleted]

Hey, I’m writing a thesis and doing research on excessive gaming and the negative consequences of it. I’m wondering if any of you have ever felt that your gaming has had a negative impact on your lives? I’m talking about instances where you have chosen games over responsibilities concerning school, jobs, friends, relationships, family, health, etc. I’m also interested to hear your thoughts on the subject of gaming addiction. Do you think it is possible to get addicted to gaming and is it comparable to other forms of addiction?

I think it would be interesting to have some sort of discussion about this and hear your opinion about video game “addiction” and also get your personal experiences on the matter. Thanks!

[-aiko-]

It is possible to get addicted to any activity, really. So yes I do think it is possible to get addicted to gaming. The problem imo is defining addiction. Alcoholic addiction and nicotine addiction both have underlying chemical reasons for the addiction, whereas being addicted to gaming does not. It's an entirely mental problem, which I think should absolutely be distinguished in this kind of discussion. Alcoholism and 'gaming addiction' are not comparable.

For the most part I think that 'gaming addiction' is a social construct anyway. For some reason being 'addicted' to playing video games is seen as a more negative thing than, say, being addicted to watching television shows. Or even being addicted to reading. I've had times where I've been so absorbed into a series of novels (recently the Witcher saga) that I've had short-term, negative impacts on my social life. I've like-wise been so into a video game series that the same occurred. So why is one worse than the other?

[Rabblexthree]

Addiction is a hard thing to break. One can become addicted to almost anything. Every addiction has a chemical response that it triggers. The act of doing something you enjoy will release Dopamine which will make you happy and feel good. The easiest way to beat addiction is to find something else that can give the same chemical response but is better for you. Working out or Religion are usually substituted for whatever someone is addicted to.

[Cattleya]

Gaming addiction absolutely has negative consequences. A true gaming addiction will quite possibly ruin your health, social contacts/relationships, and/or your career/school performance.

That said, people are generally just quick to judge when it comes to gaming (although less so these days).
Watch TV every evening and you're a regular person, play games every evening and suddenly you're a shut-in who needs to get out (slight exaggeration, but my point is people judge gaming more harshly than watching TV, for example, even if it's the same amount of time)

Basically, my opinion: If you put tons of hours into gaming (like, i don't know, 5 hours on working days, every day) yet still manage to keep a healthy body, career, relationships etc, then all the more power to you. Once you start neglecting other aspects of your life, it becomes a problem.

[Deleted]

Addiction is the most negative consequence. I would say that i am addicted to gaming, and to World of Warcrafts pop culture. Even if i just play the game very casually nowadays, and dont let it influence my career. At the end, a game should be what it is: To have something to do in your spare time. Not something that replaces your life, but something you do for fun.

[Vespian]

..

Word!

I've been severely addicted for a large part of my life. Between my 12th and 20th at least. At some point, interest started becoming just that, interest. Before my ~22nd, I definitely chose games over social activities. When I went to visit people's birthdays, my mind was basically still playing the game. I was constantly making up excuses to get out of the party and go game. Quite sad, when you look at it now.

The only conclusion is, that (indeed) the chemical reaction that forces your body to keep smoking, or doing drugs, is absent when it concerns gaming. Theres a trigger that makes you feel good for year on end, but at some point boredom kicks in and boredom simply wins.

Now, I still game, but I have different priorities. And gaming is no longer on my mind all the time. I can go out, enjoy a beer, no pressure. I'm happy I never started smoking or doing drugs. To get rid of gaming, all I had to do was grow old.

[May90]

Gaming immerses you in a fictional world, in which you can literally live your dream, in which you can get what real life cannot offer. So it is definitely possible to get lost in virtual reality and lose all interest to your real life. I'd say, I was like this between 13 and 16 y/o and, to some extent, between 22 and 24 y/o. I definitely skipped some boring high school classes or university lectures to game instead. I even faked illness a couple of times and got some weeks off, which I spent mostly playing games. I felt guilt for it, thought something was wrong with me.

Now I don't think there is anything bad in it. We all have our different preferences. I tried giving up gaming, lasted as long as 1.5 years without playing a single game once. Guess what - I instead did other meaningless stuff, such as watching random TV shows and movies, reading random pointless websites. I did read some books though, including books on physics, so there was some use of it - but I just didn't feel much joy living without my favorite activity.

Ultimately, it is possible to lose yourself in any activity you like: playing video games, playing piano, watching TV series, writing stories, boxing, physics... The question is: what do you want from your life? I want to live the way I like, otherwise I don't see much point living at all. So yeah, I am addicted to gaming, and I'm not going to get rid of my addiction, since this addiction is, like playing piano for Herbie Hancock, what grants me the most joy in this life. Although I did become interested in some other things as well, such as physics or playing jazz piano, so gaming doesn't take like 100% of my free time, but, maybe, 50% instead.

[Deleted]

From personal experience.

*isolation from social interactions. Since your need to socialize can be met online and even diluted by occupying your time with gaming as a pleasurable activity, you will no longer feel the need to meet people in person, and eventually you will become a recluse that is found days after death, still sitting in a chair in front of WoW 3.

*visual acuity dropping. As you spend most of the time staring at a screen, your eyes will gradually lose depth perception, meaning you will see great at close range, like at computer screen, but your vision will become blurry at medium and long range, and you will need permanent glasses to compensate. Unfortunately this process does not stop and your distance vision will continue to degrade throughout your life.

*you will always have a stock of headache medicine. Some games have fast moving objects on the screen and your eyes will struggle to keep focus, straining your eye muscles. This will lead to headaches.

*unhealthy life style. Since you're always too "busy" to make or buy proper food, you will mostly live on junk food, which may eventually lead to health problems not necesarily related to weight.

*ADD. You will gradually lose some your ability to focus and concentrate. You will discover you misplace things all the time and forget to do other things, if they are not related to gaming, as well as making quite a lot of mistakes related to lack of attention. You will always focus and remember the game things, though.

*addiction is debatable. As a "basement dweller" myself, I'd say addiction is only possible as long as you enjoy video games. I find myself enjoying fewer and fewer video games, up to the point where I can only consider great a few games every year, the rest being junk. I truly envy people who can play lots of games and think they are great games, I know I can't.
I believe I could drop this..."addiction" if I got something else to be interested in, which right now doesn't seem to exist.

I know all this awaits me and I'm fine with it. I crave adventure and the only way to have that in our times is in computer games.

[Deleted]

Thanks for all the input! The consensus seems to be that gaming “addiction” isn’t comparable to addiction to for instance alcohol or hard drugs, where there is a chemical dependency involved, but is comparable to addiction to food, gambling, sex, etc.

From what I’ve read and from what people have told me, their excessive gaming seems to be a thing that passes as other activities are introduced to life. I’m interested in hearing from you who spend a lot of time gaming, how do you handle other responsibilities in life? Do you feel like you have an even balance between gaming and other aspects of life?

If there are any other thought or experiences on the subject out there, please let me know!

[Shinzai]

Negative consequence: Not enough spare time to play all the indie bundles I purchase and as I buy more, without even finishing half the games in the last bundle, I realise that time is my greatest enemy. There is literally not enough time to have so much fun. Truly, this is the most harrowing addiction.

[Simulacrum]

I don't think doing something a lot necessarily means you are addicted.

Personally, I definitely don't have an "even balance" when it comes to gaming vs the other aspects in my life, but I don't think I'd describe myself as "addicted" to gaming in spite of it. I definitely spend a lot of time on it, though, but that's more because of my personality type. If I'm not gaming on a computer (or console or whatever), I'm playing a board game, or I'm doing pen & paper, or I'm reading, or I'm drawing, or I'm writing, or I'm watching TV, or whatever.

Only when all other similar distractions are removed do I find different-type activities to do. Well, I also have a dog, which I walk 2-3 times a day, and I work out 2-3 times a week, but I only do these things because I don't want to turn into a living tub of lard (don't want to turn into one of those fat, emotionally stunted, neckbearded recluses), or because I'd feel bad if I didn't walk the dog, not because I enjoy them more than the aforement. In the same vein, I only handle my social responsibilities because I have to (though I suppose I'm far from alone in this).

Probably, the only major negative consequences I'd say gaming has introduced to my life has been the opportunity cost. If I invested as much time in some other, more profitable or useful activity, could I have been better off? Maybe. Or maybe I'd have been worse off, a complete social retard who didn't even get the benefit of interacting with enough people through my gaming habit.

[Pony Soldier]

I never felt that gaming negatively impacted my life. In fact if anything it improved my life. Video games gave me the dream of becoming a game designer which I currently don't want to do anymore, sadly, given how much the video game industry changed, mostly for the worst, over the years. But it has branched off into another more open career path which is becoming a writer. I could see myself making stories either my own book, anime, maybe even as big as TV shows and movies or who knows maybe I might get pulled in to write a story for a video game which would be awesome. I've actually already made a couple little stories of my own a while ago that I never got back to but hey, it's a start. Anyway video games gave me something to look forward to, a direction, or a purpose I guess you can say. If it weren't for video games I'd be another drone of society who just does whatever anyone else does and not really having a passion for something.

My love for video games also branched off to other things like gaining interest in reading books, comic book heroes, collecting cool figurines of video game characters. I'm never bored and haven't been bored since I was a small lad before I really got into gaming. It keeps you going, there's always something to do, instead of just sitting there watching reality shows and melting your brain.

I don't think I believe in the whole "addiction" nonsense either. Like I said video games can be a passionate hobby for people. It can be said for any other hobby such as playing sports, reading, watching movies, drawing, hell even something like knitting. Just because you do it a lot doesn't mean you're addicted to it it's just something you really enjoy doing. Is it really so bad to take an interest in something and spending hours and hours doing that thing? It's like as if you can only take an interest in things that are socially acceptable like like watching the news or watching sports channels or going outside to play. If you're not doing something like that then it's considered a bad thing and "you're addicted". People tend to spend lots of time doing what they enjoy doing, it's called hobbies.

That was a lot but hopefully it was helpful.

[Thermor]

From personal experience.

*visual acuity dropping. As you spend most of the time staring at a screen, your eyes will gradually lose depth perception, meaning you will see great at close range, like at computer screen, but your vision will become blurry at medium and long range, and you will need permanent glasses to compensate. Unfortunately this process does not stop and your distance vision will continue to degrade throughout your life.
[Citation needed]

*you MAY always have a stock of headache medicine. Some games have fast moving objects on the screen and your eyes MAY struggle to keep focus, straining your eye muscles. This MAY lead to headaches.

*ADD. You will gradually lose some your ability to focus and concentrate. You will discover you misplace things all the time and forget to do other things, if they are not related to gaming, as well as making quite a lot of mistakes related to lack of attention. You will always focus and remember the game things, though.
[Citation needed]

Edits for OP.

The way you structure the language in a Thesis is very important. Whenever a statement of fact is made, a source is needed.

[Thelxi]

Well a lot of games are very time consuming, so that alone is quite the consequence.

[WarpedAcorn]

One distinction to make is the difference between a gaming addiction and a gaming habit. We are, by nature, creatures of habit. Once a routine has been established its difficult to adjust without exterior factors.

A habit might be a guy who logs onto WoW most nights of the week around 7pm and plays for 4 hours or so. Is he addicted or is he just set in a routine?

[-aiko-]

The only conclusion is, that (indeed) the chemical reaction that forces your body to keep smoking, or doing drugs, is absent when it concerns gaming. Theres a trigger that makes you feel good for year on end, but at some point boredom kicks in and boredom simply wins.

Exactly. I mean there are chemical reactions in a lot of things - even in something as simple as eating. However alcoholics build up a deep, chemical dependence that can cause actual physical health problems when they try to 'break the habit'. This just isn't the case for something like gaming.

Now, I still game, but I have different priorities. And gaming is no longer on my mind all the time. I can go out, enjoy a beer, no pressure. I'm happy I never started smoking or doing drugs. To get rid of gaming, all I had to do was grow old.

Pretty much my story exactly.

[Kryctos]

But what if gaming addiction is a tool to mask depression? Or at least stall its effects like "I cant off my self today while I still haven't played X".

[CJack14dt]

Just an odd perspective for you here I guess. I have Asperger's (real Asperger's, not self-diagnosed WebMD Asperger's) and we are very vulnerable to video game addiction. However, I have long had a steadfast rule that I will never turn down a social event to play a game. I have never actually broken this rule in 20 years of play. Though I keep to this rule religiously I know that for every hour I spend in-game there is a real life experience or social skills practice that I am passing up. Also, sitting this long really is not good for the body. I use video games as my "reset" (people with Asperger's have to "reset" themselves after prolonged social involvement, kind of like going to sleep does for your body) but I know the length of my play is far beyond what I probably need to "reset".

Because I have never known any other way to spend my free time that also gives the same "high" of a game as well as being prolonged enough to "reset" I often struggle when I stop playing video games for periods of time all together. I start playing again because I can't seem time find another avenue to clear my head that is as effective as video games and I always relapse into long play periods because eventually without a reset I become very unenjoyable to be around. I would LOVE to find one. So those are my negatives to answer your question.

[DiscoGhost]

low point was when i was basing my college class schedule around my wow raid schedule.