Gaming Addiction as a Serious Threat to Humanity

In recent times, the gaming industry has seen a boom in it’s users and off course it’s buisness too, everywhere you go, people play games, enjoy it and have thier boring times passed, but the real problem starts when gamers get so much used to gaming that they can’t live outside that virtual world, in other words they get gaming addiction. This indeed is a serious matter, more and more people are getting gaming addiction just like drugs and we are unable to do something or even take some precautionary steps against it.

What gaming addiction really is? Gaming addiction, or in some people’s opinion gaming disorder is a serious and problematic addiction for the over use and over play of games. Playing vedio games can be a hobby, almost everyone love to play games and have thier bad times passed but if one gets addicted to gaming, it can lead to serious mental and physical issues.

What causes gaming addiction? When you play games for too long, or very frequently, one of the two things occur to you, either you don’t enjoy it anymore, find it boring and stop play. Or in the worst case scenario, you find it more interesting each time you play it, and keep playing until you get so much deep into it that you can’t find your way back out.

What kind of games are addictive? There are many genres of vedio games, such as action games, the role play games, stimulation games, sports games, idle, racing and puzzle games but usually the most addictive games are the level up games, in other words the addictive games are those which keep the gamer in suspense, new stages, levels and grades unlock one after another and never ends up. Researchers say that the most addictive games ever are the multiplayer online games, they are played massively around the globe and so are known as (MMO's) these games are not only highly addictive but players are also prone to online abuse, which isn’t our topic today, but that factor of Vedio games can also lead amateur gamers to depression which can have serious effects on life.

Why does gaming causes addiction? The world’s population is growing up each day, which is creating a big mass of problems, one of that is gaming addiction too. Everywhere around themselves, gamers see desperation, joblessness, social problems, inequality, injustice and much more, most of them don’t have any way so they seek refuge inside the virtual world of gaming. Addicted gamers feel more like they are characters of the virtual world than the real world.

What games are more likely to addict a gamer? After much research, I have come up with a list of games which are more likely to addict a gamer or these games have addicted more users than others, in the history of gaming.

1. Fortnite. This game was launched back then in 2017 and it was an instant hit! This game has gained almost 130 million users around the globe and a huge number of addicts too. This game has effected lives of numerous people, most of which are amateur children, but mature users have also got the addiction. There are almost a thousand reported cases of divorce linked to this game with some cases of suicide.
2. Call of duty is another virtual game which has been making people violent since it’s release. Researchs reveal that this game is directly linked to the release of adrenaline harmone in the body which is known as anger harmone.
3. Candy Crush saga is another game played on mobile devices more often which is known for its high addiction specially in minors and youngsters.

These games described are just a tip of the iceberg, there are dozens of perhaps hundreds of other games which have been bringing nightmares to the gamers since ages.

Personal Experience With Gaming Addiction

Last year, after my annual exams I had almost half of that year free at my home, most of which was leisure time for me, after a few days I got bored and was looking for some escape, and I got to know about a ludo games, which I started playing, this was an important phase of my life, where I was being getting promotion from school to life, that stage is a turning point of life for many people, but there was me, playing ludo at such time.

After 2 weeks of continuously playing the game, I started to dream about it, I was even playing it in dreams, and after about 3 weeks I would see dice turning around and tokens running on the board. I was overthinking and getting into the worst situation, but I controlled myself, deleted the game and started concentrating on my life.

I feel that, that game has given me nothing except wasting my time. Still I feel that I haven’t fulfilled the space of time wasted at that stage, nor I can ever, because passed time never comes back. I could have read books in that time, learned music, or driving or something else fruitful. So what are syptoms of gaming disorder? According to psychologists gaming disorder is a serious matter and a more grave threat to the addicted persons mental and physical health. Gaming disorder is known to have cause:

• Depression
• Loss in interest in social activities
• Playing games for excessively long periods

These problems are further know to cause more complexities such as:

• Suicidal tendencies
• Social fear
• Physical stress
• Mood Swings
• Unusual sleep periods or sleeplessness
• Drug abuse
• Health issues, specially gastrointestinal problems.

How often gamers get addiction? According to different surveys and researches, the statistics say that there were almost 2.5 billion gamers in the world in 2019, which is a very huge figure, almost equal to the population of India and China combined. Other researches reveal that 1-3% of these gamers suffer from gaming addiction which makes about 25-75 million users. Well that’s a high figure, and this matter needs attention.

It isn’t like that people are only getting addicted to games, people also over use mobile, social media, drugs, alcohol, watch movies excessively, or even read books more than a limit. All of them are bad at thier own place to humans if used, consumed or read more than a certain limit. A person can also be addicted to more than one things at at time, the real victory isn’t to win a trophy in a virtual world but the real victory is to control oneself from getting so much used to gaming that the person can’t live without it.

Well, when we are done talking about the cons of gaming, let’s discuss a few pros of the gaming too. Gaming has numerous benifts too, gaming isn’t a small field but a huge industry with revenue and net worth in billions of dollars. In the year of 2017, the net worth of gaming was 18.5 billion which is expected to rise upto 230 billion in the next 2 years which is a huge amount. Only in America, about 220,000 workers were attached to the gaming industry in 2017. According to market analyst Tom Wijman, globally gaming will generate a revenue of about 160 billion dollars this year, which is almost the half of the GDP of Pakistan. Gaming is a source of income for the gamers too, gamers can also earn huge sum of money through gaming, ie by online streaming of thier games on different channels, social media or YouTube, they can also make some profit by giving lectures, making tutorials or pointing out some week points in the games. Some gamers are even to have earning almost half million or even more in dollars. Think of earning money from addictions, sounds strange.

Besides that gaming also improves the coordination skills, enhances memory, improve social skills and boosts the spead of thinking. Even the surgeons who grew up playing games are know to have made less mistakes as compared to other surgeons. Well, this was an essay about gaming addiction, so I don’t want to change the topic, I guess I can write on the pros and cons of gaming in other essay.