Negatives of on-line gaming addiction
An overwhelming majority of the people in this country and others argue
that on-line gaming is a negative aspect of the internet. The addictive
properties of on-line gaming are similar to those of any other drug in that
they cause people to miss work or school in order to get their "fix" on the
game. People spend so much time on their computer that they lose touch with
the outside world which in turn greatly decreases their social skills, in other
words, they forget how to interact with real people. People that are more
vulnerable to becoming addicted to the on-line gaming world are often people who
have mental health issues such as isolation, boredom, people who are lonely or
sexually anorexic and have low self-esteem and self image issues, according to Jay
Parker, a chemical dependencey councelor and co-founder of Internet/Computer Addiction
Sevices in Redmond, Washington. These people find the on-line gaming world to be an
escape from the problems they face in the real world so they spend alot of their time
on the internet because image issues aren't an issue on the internet. This creates a
snowball effect for their already diminished socail skills. There are also critics that
claim that the violent on-line games are corrupting our nations youth. They say that
a young kid with a still developing mind plays these violent and gruesome games on-line
and learn through positive reenforcement that it may be o.k. to kill someone in real life.
The Columbine shooting for example, was blamed partially on the game Doom. Psychologists
claimed that the shooters spent so much time playing Doom that they excepted this virtual
reality as their own reality and thaught that it would be o.k. to walk into their school
and get as many kills as they could. There is also the obvious argument that with T.V. and
internet gaming combined that our nations youth isn't getting enough physical exercise which
opens up a whole other can of health issues, which I won't get into now. There was a touching
story in the Journal Sentinel in which a 21 year old man named Shawn Woolley, who was overweight
and had trouble interacting with people, found refuge in the on-line game EverQuest. Shawn quickly
became addicted to the game and shortly after quit his job to have more time to play. After a 36
hour binge on the game with no sleep he began having hallucinations and began running through the
streets trying to get away from a character in the game that was trying to "get him." He ended up
committing suicide because he couldn't get away from the character. Jay Parker say that Shawn had
a psychotic breakdown from sleep deprevation.
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