Video Game Addiction
Video game addiction is a condition that often has roots in a person’s psyche. Just like with any other addiction, video game usage is often a substitute for real life interaction with real people. Addicted players instead choose to exist in the fake world presented by the video game where a person can be faster, stronger, more talented, or in the case of online video games, more well liked by his or her peers. Often times, people carry their online video game existence even farther and develop relationships with other players that begin to supersede ones in their real life.
Those folks most likely to develop an addiction often suffer from significant self-esteem problems and are searching for a substance or an object that they can fixate on to help create an alternate reality where the rules and images of the current reality don’t exist. Video games, just like any addictive drug or behavior, accomplish this goal perfectly. As technology has improved, realistic game play has become commonplace and online gaming has become widely accepted. Video games are even easier to disappear into than ever before. Many people believe that teenagers who find their gangly reality to be uncomfortable are the most likely to develop a video game addiction, but this condition is just as likely, if not more likely, to appear in maladjusted adults who find it difficult to make friends, forge healthy relationships, and develop healthy love interests. What can start as a simple hobby or exploration into an exciting new world can soon develop into an unhealthy obsession that completely envelops someone’s life. This condition has received a huge amount of main stream attention over the last few years due to the complexity and likelihood of addiction in many of today’s top video games.
As is the case with any kind of addiction, if left untreated for a long period of time, video game addiction can alienate everyone in your life and even result in you being homeless. Serious cases of video game addiction can be all-encompassing to the point where people stop talking to their family, spouses, and even stop going to work. If caught early enough, only minor damage to relationships and to your life is possible, but a person must be able to recognize that significant issues exist and that major changes need to occur. Many people underestimate the impact of video game addiction since playing video games is legal and an addiction like this isn’t given the same kind of respect that drug addictions or even food addictions can cause. This is unfortunate and only serves to make recovery even more difficult. For someone lacking in self-confidence and social skills, the insulated world of a video game can provide just the cover a person needs to begin a new life. Video games provide a linear world where the path to progress, and respect, is clear and never changes. It is significantly easier for a person to dedicate time to improve themselves in this world than it is in the real world.
A person can descend down the slippery slope of video game addiction very quickly. Often times, the person who is the most likely to develop a video game addiction is a person who is new to video games and wants to try them out for the first time, due to the fact that real world interactions have become too painful or too awkward. A person will almost immediately sequester themselves from society and completely obsess about the game they are playing entirely.
As was stated above, many people don’t give the same kind of credence to the consequences of video game addiction since it is missing an illegal component, but an addiction to something like video games can completely destroy a person’s life if not treated properly. If work, relationships, and all other important aspects of life are ignored in favor of game playing, life begins to deteriorate at a rapid rate. Depending on how responsive a person is to the requests from loved ones to get help, an addiction like this can last until the means of accessing the addiction are no longer present.
