What is the most beneficial, but also possibly the most negative environment you can put yourself in? Well, arguably that would be the world of video games. In the list that follows, I will provide seven reasons why video games are both positive and negative.
I have been playing video games since I was three, and in that time I have played with, talked to, and met a lot of people. Most of those people came and went, but there are a few that I still play with today. Some are my friends in the real world that I met because we had similar interests in games, and some are long distance friends that I met online not in person, but have contact with through social media. One such friend is my buddy Taimour who lives in Canada. He and I met through an online strategic FPS called Planetside 2, and we became fast friends. We still play together today, and I consider him like a brother.
There have been many times where I have had a stressful day, either because of school, work, or some other situation out of my control. Normally I would go for a drive, but living in a city this big, finding a place without slow traffic or bad drivers requires half an hour or more of driving to the middle of nowhere. This is oftentimes more infuriating than it is relaxing, so instead I hop on my Playstation and use my wheel to drive cars in the racing simulators I have. Alternatively, I can play games like Minecraft, World of Warcraft, or several others I have that are easy and give me fulfilling tasks to accomplish.
On the other hand, video games can be annoying too. Much like driving, there are times where video games become so infuriating to play, that it is better to just stop playing them and go do something else to decompress. This is especially true with games that are multiplayer or more competitive. Everyone likes a good challenge, but sometimes game creators and other gamers get overzealous in their endeavors, so they end up creating games or matches that are almost unenjoyable for the average player.
If you spend even a few minutes watching an experienced person play video games, whether it is on a console or a PC, you will observe the large amount of minute movements they constantly make. This is especially evident in games that focus on character movement and aim of something like a bow or a gun. Constant corrections are required to keep on course and hit targets at different ranges, which requires good hand eye coordination. Requires research comparisons between gamers and non-gamers.
With the rapid pace of a lot of video games, the player must take in every development and properly react in time. Making the wrong decision or reacting too slowly may lead to having to restart from a previous save or spawn point on the map. This promotes better decision making and reaction times, because no one likes to be reset and go back through parts of a game that they already played, while also not getting to experience the rest of said game. Again, requires research numbers and comparisons for support.
There are times where video games can push people to commit acts of violence. These can include but are not limited to: screaming, swearing, verbal abuse, throwing objects, hitting objects, and breaking objects. While rare, there are some cases where video games have been blamed for causing people to commit crimes. This is mainly attributed to the popularity of shooters like Call of Duty, and crime games such as Grand Theft Auto. Requires news articles and case studies.
Many games have progression systems that reward the player for putting time and effort into the game, and they will have special events that require added effort and time to acquire cool or hard to get items. In the event that someone loses progress due to something like a save error, or maybe they get kicked out of the game or their player group, then they may be overcome by feelings of sadness. Major negative events such as these can cause an unbalance in their hormones, leading to depression. This is worsened by the fact that many video games give constant satisfaction, so when they become deprived of this, they may react worse than expected of a normal downturn as they are not used to dealing with restarting. Also requires news articles and case studies, specifically from psychology journals.
To conclude, video games provide a great diaspora of experiences which will, in some manner, shape a person’s life. Whether this is for the better or worse, indulging in video games can improve or worsen the quality of someone’s day, week, month, or even year. Video games can create subtle changes in a person’s brain to improve their daily quality of life, or they can send a person into a negative mental spiral that they will struggle to recover from. Like any other activity, playing video games has its ups and downs, and it is on the player to decide whether it is worth it or not to experience.
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