Student Opinion: Negative Effects of Online Gaming
Launch the media gallery 1 playerThe average American lives for approximately 78.7 years. That means we are alive an average of 689412 hours.
The average teenage boy spends 16+ hours playing online games a week. If the teenage boy continued to do this for about one third of their life they would spend 21,691.36 hours of their life staring at a device playing an online game.
This is obviously a ridiculous amount of time to be playing an online video game, but in today’s world, it is not uncommon for individuals spend more than one third of their lives online gaming. So, 21,691.36 hours is being generous.
I find this statistic very alarming. Not only does online gaming take away time that people could be spending with family and friends, it is also very harmful to an individual’s brain. According to research, people who are addicted to online gaming have lower grades in school than people who don’t participate in online gaming.
Online gaming can also become extremely stressful, especially for a person who is addicted. Often times the game they are playing is intense, and the gamer is making their best efforts to avoid “dying”.
In most cases, the gamer is so worried about winning the game that they become overly stressed, experience anxiety, or even develop aggressive behavior.
In my opinion, spending time with loved ones or just talking to people and enjoying everyday life is much more important than getting caught up in a video game. Spending time with people and building strong relationships is what life is all about, and those types of real relationships just can’t be found in an online game.