A more academic post compared to the previous ones, where I express my opinion on the dangers and concerns of gaming
Playing video games is an activity that is becoming more practiced especially nowadays with the outbreak of COVID-19. As of March 2020 there has been a 63% total increase in video game sales worldwide (Gough, 2020). Hence, considering this fact and all the other rises related with that such as amount of people playing videogames, time and money spent on them, it is necessary to make a few considerations about the dangers and concerns of gaming.
There are numerous risks related to online gaming, which can be distinguished into technological and social. Among the technological risks, enter the problems of receiving Viruses, if playing with a PC, insecure and instable servers and insecurely implemented protocols. But the most significant issues regard the social aspects. Some of them are identity theft, cyber prostitution and organized crime withing the gaming community (Hayes, 2008). Unfortunately this is just a small amount of them. Other issues related with gaming have been discussed in this blog, such as addiction. This problem is very delicate and important as it regards the mental health of the gamers, who do put less effort in the other areas of life, especially studying, which has a really fundamental role in the development of young people. In addition to that, excessive gaming and escape motives are associated with increased probability of ill health among young adolescents, who result showing muskuloskeletal, psychosomatic and depressive symptoms (Hellstrom, Nilsson, Leppert & Aslund, 2015). Besides these issues, there is also the problem concerning money expenditure. Even if it does not seem so, at first, but the gaming industry is a huge business, where do circulate billions of dollars. In 2018 Americans spent 43 billion dollars on video game content, hardware and accessories, a really huge sum (Richter, 2019). What is more shocking is that the numbers are growing nowadays and are parents do not often realize how much money, when counting all expenses done, have spent in video games for their children.
On the other hand, there are also positive aspects of gaming. I am playing video games too, even though spending less amount of time than previously. I used to play on average for 3 hours a day, which is perhaps below average compared to the numbers of gamers nowadays. While having played diverse games throughout my life, from FPS games like Call of Duty to sport games such as Fifa I came to know many gamers online. Some of them are still very close friends of mine after years, since we first met in a lobby. Therefore I can say, based on my experience, that thanks to video games you can meet people from all the globe, who do have different cultural backgrounds and maybe similar interests. It is possible to conversate with them and in some cases even establish a friendship with them. Moreover these people could become really important in our life and available to help or discuss about anything in case of need, such as now with the outbreak of COVID-19. If someone would have told me that I could encounter some of my best friends thanks to video games, I would not bet even a cent on it. Hence my final consideration is that gaming does not necessarily bring negative outcomes if very few hours a day are spent on it.
References:
Gough, C. (2020). Increase in video games sold due to coronavirus worldwide 2020 | Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109977/video-game-sales-covid/
Hayes, E. (2008).Playing it Safe: Avoiding Online Gaming Risks[Ebook]. US-CERT. Retrieved from https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/gaming.pdf
Hellström, C., Nilsson, K. W., Leppert, J., & Åslund, C. (2015). Effects of adolescent online gaming time and motives on depressive, musculoskeletal, and psychosomatic symptoms.Upsala journal of medical sciences,120(4), 263–275. https://doi.org/10.3109/03009734.2015.1049724
Richter, F. (2019). Infographic: Americans Spent $43 Billion on Video Games in 2018. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/chart/9838/consumer-spending-on-video-games/on-video-games/
Hi Emil,
Thank you ery much for your comment and question. I have said that in general, but some games actually can be even better than books. Definitely video games can and should be considered as a form of art, since they do combine video, audio and narration. In particular I remember playing the game The Last Of Us some years ago, an action-adventure game so successful that now a Tv series based on its story is being developed and will start to be released in 2021. The graphics, visual quality, audio effects and plot have really amazed me while playing, making me consider the game as a real form of art than a simple game made for entertainment, like…
Hello, you have an interesting and well-structured blog. I also used to play from childhood, actually, and understand some concerns about gaming. And in your introductory post you said that gaming is worse than reading books, for example. However, do you think all books are better than all games? In my opinion, they both can be considered as art and there can be masterpieces and stupid projects in both. It will be interesting to see your point about it.