Whether a teen or adult play video games on television, the Internet or a portable unit, excessive gaming can affect their life. Video games can be addictive as the gambling games to a child as young as nine years. With the new technology, video games are played by people of all ages and are played at home, school, work among other places. Most of the players spend a lot of time playing the video games nonstop (Melissinos & O'Rourke 45). While most people think some people are using video games in a positive way, a big percentage thinks the opposite. Video games are the most played games online as most teens have moved to digital games abandoning the old games. Therefore, the paper will focus on the negative effect of playing video games among youths, teens, and even adults.
A video game addiction can be harmful to a person's social life. First, the players spend most time indoors playing the games thus abandoning the outdoor activities. Since a single individual can play the games, they tend to isolate themselves from other people. The child or the teen become socially isolated because they are used to playing the games alone. Moreover, the video games can be addictive and harmful to a person thus become unable and unwilling to participate in extracurricular activities or other interesting activities with their peers than gaming. The On-line Gamers Anonymous site says that it may be a sign of addiction if a person is constantly thinking of what which video game is next, therefore, devising ways to get back to playing the game (Christopher 1). One may also abandon their former hobbies especially if they do not relate to the video games or they may also decline social events just to play the video games. He lacks social interaction and prefers discussion with video games all the day. Therefore, playing video games reduces personal interaction and social interaction with other people thus leading to social isolation.
Video games also cause health problems to the players. If your child, adult or a teen spends most of the time playing videos games, they are likely to skip meals, loses to sleep due to excessive game play. The video game addiction may cause adverse health effects. Research show gameplay consumes three-quarter of a person's life in a day. The player prefers to sit in front of a television or a computer for hours without a single move or rest. A person can play for hours continuously without rest, their mind numb and stuck on the television. Therefore, excessive game play denies a person time for other activities like physical activities to strengthen the bones. Just as the saying that "too much work with play makes Jack a dull boy" even video players need a little play and exercises (Cogburn & Silcox 111). Lack of physical exercises may lead to obesity among the players, that's is why most research show that more than quarter of video game players suffers from obesity and one develop laziness due to lack of activities because they do not engage in activities to keep them fit. Most of the video games involve their hands and hand muscles. The University of Texas at Dallas noted that game players feel pain in their elbows, shoulders, hands and wrist because those are the parts mostly used to play the games and move remotes and computer cursor. Also, other medical issues include headaches, and the back pains, numbness in the hands, skeletal and postural disorders. Also sitting for an extended period in uncomfortable seats can cause physical problems like the carpal tunnel syndrome and eyestrain. The eye problems come due to excessive straining on the screens for hours thus causing vision problems and may lead to loss of eyesight in future if the problem is not managed.
Also, people who spend the most time in playing video games suffer in their relationships with families, friend, and even the society. The reason is that the players spend the most time playing games than the time they spend with their loved ones. Some end up losing social ties with close friends. For example, a teen whose parents are working class that means the only time they meet is during the night. The teen will spend the whole day playing games and even extend at night such that he or she lack time to meet with the parents. According to the Online Gamers Anonymous sites, "video gaming set back a person's life, and they only want to talk about the video games" thus his or her argument are only based on the video games they have been playing (Christopher 1). Also, the person lacks the sense of speech development and poor communication because they no nothing else apart from the games. The parents cannot sit with their children and talk useful thing rather they only base debates on video games thus bringing a distance with parents and friends.
Long hours spent playing video games may negatively affect the child's performance at school and adult performance at work. First, a child in school whose life is preoccupied with video games usually has poor performance. They fail to work at their optimum level because they are exhausted from the late night of video games playing. Other children and teens have games on their phones, therefore, while at school they play games instead of concentrate in their studies (Cogburn & Silcox 71). For example, during the breaks between lessons, instead of a person to reflect on what they learned the previous lesson, they are busy playing video games thus stealing their understanding and concentration.
Also, most teen after school they spend hours playing games on late nights until some are unable to sleep (Cogburn & Silcox 56). Therefore, in school, they will pay no attention to teachers, and they end up with lower grades than the students who do not spend time playing games. With adults playing games at work may have poor concentration and therefore, they end up not meeting deadlines and are always absent minded at work. Therefore, at all levels, video games negatively affect the performance either school or at work.
Besides, players of video games may lead to increased aggressive behaviors among the teens and other layers. The video games especially those used to playing violence games can desensitize the players to violence. Some studies show that people engaged in playing the first person shooter games, they are likely to adapt to the detached view of the society. Therefore, they end up developing aggressive tendencies and thoughts. Also, the players of this violence games tend to demonstrate many lessened reactions to the acts of the real world violence that may lower their motivation to stop or intervene in violence situations (Melissinos & O'Rourke 1). The violence games also cause a person become less sensitive to the acts of violence. Finally, if one is used to playing video games, they experience the reduced inhibitions for themselves behaving violently. Therefore, the video games cause increased aggressiveness among players and can become violent to people around them.
Finally, the playing of video games teaches wrong values to the players. Besides violent among players, the video games also teach teens and adults incorrect values if they are not careful. Some of these values are irresistible as the player spends the most time playing these games. Therefore, they will have to learn them with time. For example, most video games portray women as the weaker characters in the games and bearing that most of the game players are men, they will always view women as weak. The games also depict women as sexually provocative and with helpless personalities. Therefore, it leads to moral decay among players and they may end up disrespecting women and view them as an inferior person in the society. Some games depict women naked and as a sex object and therefore, when men see women, they view them as an object without value in the society (Melissinos & O'Rourke 78). Also, apart from wrong morals and values, teens and other adults pick up bad behaviors and abusive languages while playing with other people mainly online. Therefore, the games contribute to ninety-nine percent of moral decay to our society and learn bad behaviors they should not learn them.
In conclusion, the video games have a lot of negative impact to the users and the society at large. Some of the discussed effects are health problems, increased aggressiveness, the teaching of wrong values, poor performance, social isolation and suffering relationships. Also discussed the disadvantages of playing video game outweigh the advantages. It is obvious that people will not stop playing video games, and therefore, the society should put measures to ensure that games are played in a constructive manner. The games should not bring moral decay to the society rather it should promote moral values in the society
Works Cited
Chriss Melissinos & Patrick O'Rourke. The Art of Video Games: From Pac-Man to Mass Effect. New York: Welcome Books, 2012. Print
Christopher, Drea. "The Negative Effects of Video Game Addiction." 28 January 2015. Livestrong.com. http://www.livestrong.com/article/48504-negative-effects-computer-games-children/. 30 January 2016. Web
Jon Cogburn & Mark Silcox. Philosophy Through Video Games (1st Edition). California: Routledge, 2008. Print
