Gaming: Addiction? Escape? A problem?

GAMING!!! DANGER, DANGER!

Video games, one of the most popular things for kids to spend their time playing nowadays. 65% of households in the USA play video games. 18 Hours a week if the average time spent playing games for gamers. In millions, 154 game consoles are sold compared to 36.4 computers. Videogames are getting more and more popular. It's kind of scary...

I have noticed that 'most' males nowadays (though girls play games, usually that not their topic of conversation) either base their conversations off of gaming, or girls, and sadly, its usually gaming. It's becoming the hot topic everywhere you go. Pokemon, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil, Mario, Zelda, Halo, Gears of War, etc.. I hear talk about ga

mes all the time, and these are just some. Don't get me wrong, I'm a gamer myself, and its a really fun thing t

o do, to a point. I have seen all sides to this fun 'activity'. You see that word in there? 'Active'. Well, most games, are the opposite of this. I've seen people get highly addicted to playing games, and I keep seeing it, every day. It's unhealthy to sit and do nothing but play games all day, so I'd just like to adress the issues, and the positives to playing in fantasy worlds.

As said, gaming is great to a point, its really fun, and a great way to spend time with friends for a little while, but many are getting addicted. Even my friends, some of them have gaming addictions. My boyfriend even plays them a little too much, but he kn

ows when to stop. Gaming is a distraction to every day life, and school. You wont do your homework, you wont study, and you wont pass, if you don't take a break from

gaming once in a while. I've even hea

rd of some people getting some of these side effects due to gaming for hours and hours each day: developing eating disorders (see last post), getting really sick, having a strange withdrawal, migraines, lack of sleep, weight gain, heart attacks, having seizures and much more. Personality and mood change is common, and it can effect you in ways, physically, and mentally. Addiction is a very serious thing, no matter what you're addicted to. It can always harm you. Maybe there should be a danger label on game cases, haha! :) No, really... I love horror games. They are amazing...

FLIP THE PAGE, some people, like me, play video games to escape the stress around you. As long as you limit your game play time, and don't take it too seriously, its fine to play games for an hour or two. There are many types of games you can p

lay, and one of the most played, are RPG games, and some others are; Action games, shooter games, Action-adventure games, adventure games, Simulation ga

mes, strategy games, and more. Shooter games have become a lot more popular nowadays, though I don't have too much interest. I

enjoy RPG, some action/adventure, simulation, etc. Anyway, games can be used as an escape from our world, and we can put ourselves into another world, that we can control. Its actually a big stress reliever, though play too much, and you'll just add more stress to your days. Playing RPG games are fun, because you can be another character, and live someone else's life. Its actually very interesting to play games sometimes, its a great feeling. Everyone has different taste in games, and that is fine, but I enjoy RPG. Personally, I play weird RPG games with romance, because I'm a girl, I like that kind of thing, but it helps me relieve stress. Its fun when I have nothing else to do. I use to be highly addicted to video games, though. Now I hardly play, because I realised I was being too lazy. Now I'm on the computer a lot... but I'm not addicted. I have learned the consequences. Even computer games can be addicting.

Now, back to the addiction topic for a moment. Time to bring up ADVERTISING! Along with other types of ads, you find video game ads around a lot, too. There are a lot of ads online for games, and in stores, magazines, an

d even in television commercials nowadays. I remember when I was younger, and I thought hey you Pikachu and Pacman was cool... now its shooter games, horror, and the quality of everything is amazing. There is a much larger variety of games to choose from, its like a little kid in a toy store, trying to decide which toy to buy. Due to advertising, even more games are being sold nowadays. The media usually doesn't talk about the problems in gaming, and the addiction, and health problems. They just advertise, so of course games will be a po

pular product to buy. Someone has to bring up the negatives, so I wanted to write about it! Also, did I mention how much money you waste on games? Good games can go up to around 60$ per game! Its outrageous. I know when I walk into a game store, and buy 4 games, I've blown over $2oo dollars in about 5 minutes, its stupid. So, I limit myself, and don't buy many games.

Next thing I want to address, is the number of new game systems. Recently, the Xbox 360 has come out, PlayStation 3, the 3DS, and now new game systems are planned to be coming out, and one pretty soon. Game systems can cost around $300 dollars, and the price range can go from $200-$500. If you don't have the latest game system, your not 'cool'. The Nintendo Wii is the latest game system I have, and as much as I want to play certain games for Xbox360 or PlayStation 3, I doubt I will ever buy them, because its a waste of money, and then, you'll want to buy games for your system, and that will cost another 50$-60$ dollars per game, and then BAM, you've lost your pay check, or, all of your pay checks for the next year. The amount spent on video games is horrifying. If I was to add the prices up on all of my games, I know for a fact my house has spent over $1000 dollars on games, probably over $2000, because we have a lot of them. Buying games could make you go broke very fast, so we don't buy many games any more. We focus on bills, food, and clothes. I recommend any gamers to think about the issue of MONEY when they want to buy the latest game that just came out. Please, just be aware of how much you are spending on games. Advertisements for gaming are a little too successful nowadays. They are making more and more games and systems to make even MORE games. It just keeps moving forward, and the game companies are very successful.

Now, I will list some of the negatives I've mentioned already:

• Many Health Concerns
• Waste of money
• Distraction to everyday life
• Distraction to SCHOOL
• Addiction
• Effects you Physically and Mentally (negative)
• much more!!!
• 
  

The positives would be:

• Escape from stress
• Something to do with friends or when bored
• Experience new things that you aren't able to do
• ITS FUN!

Please, remember, if you are a gamer, set limits for yourself, please do not develop a game addiction, and if you have one, please get some help. :) Or just GO DO SOMETHING ACTIVE!! BE HEALTHY OR NEMESIS WILL COME EAT YOU. >:(

Black Ops... haha. :)