Teenagers’ Addiction to Online Game
Recent Phenomenon of Teenagers’ Addiction to Online Game
Playing online game has always been an essential part of a teenager's growing-up. There are a lot of things to learn in online game. We train our brain. We enrich our knowledge. We learn to cooperate with our partners to finish certain tasks. We also learn about time management from planning a schedule for homework and games. Yet, there are always drawbacks. Playing online games can become an addiction when time management does not go well. When one becomes addicted, his/her physical and psychological health would be in jeopardy.
In the twentieth-first century, online game is the best entertainment for today’s children and teenagers, or maybe even for the adults. There are lots of gimmicks to attract players, such as animation effects, convenient interaction with other players, frequent updates, endless levels (challenges) etc. As a result, addiction is common, especially among children and young adults.
According to Dictionary.com, addiction refers to
“the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to
something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming,
as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma”
It shows that addiction is a kind of negative behavior which turns to be one’s daily life habit, and it is dangerous in a way that it is very hard to get rid of.
Causes of Online Game Addiction
There are many reasons why teenagers are hooked to online gaming. But generally, it all comes down to the psychological needs of the youngsters. One shallowest and simplest cause for teenagers to indulge in online games is simply the entertainment and leisure the games provide. The vivid graphics, along with the exciting gaming experience, become a perfect getaway from the teenagers’ pressured reality lives. However, as the situation gets more serious, some of these ‘gameaholics’ may seek more than mere entertainment from these online games. They see the virtual online world as a platform to fill the void in their lives in different aspects. Some common examples are the need for achievement and power, interpersonal and social needs. To them, the online world may as well be a diversion from loneliness, isolation and boredom. However, they are caught up in the virtual world so much that they cannot distinguish the reality and online world.
Symptoms of Online Game Addiction
Most of the gamer getting hooked to online games seldom realize the situation they are in. They spend more and more time on online game. However, in fact there are some symptoms to give us hints whether a person is addicted to online games. Here is a list of basic symptoms:
Case Studies of Online Game Addiction
Click here to learn about the story of a sixteen-year-old boy who was a hacker in the online world and a Korean teenager who committed suicide due to an online game.
Measures for Online Game Addiction
In order to solve the problem of online game addiction, Hong Kong Government and other associations implement some methods or suggestions. Hong Kong Christian Service, as a social organization, provides some services for helping people who addicted to online game. It provided different services for teenagers which can promote the correct internet message for citizens, offer the hot line for the need. During the office time, there are many social workers in the organization for consultation and enquiries every Tuesdays to Fridays from 2 pm to 6 pm afternoon and from 7pm to 10pm night. On Saturdays, the office time is from 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 6pm. There is individual consultation service for the need.
Conclusion
Firstly, the causes of adolescent online game addiction are teenagers’ psychological needs. These include entertainment and leisure, vivid graphics, along with the exciting gaming experience are the gateways for the teenagers to escape from their pressured lives. Therefore, the games serve as a platform to fill the void in different aspects such as achievement and power, in their lives. The causes are the characteristics of role-playing online games. For example, they can create a character that is different from their real lives .In addition, the addicts spend a long time playing online games. As a consequence, they have poor hygiene, weight loss, poor sleep and interpersonal relationships, and loss in their concentration on work. Worse, they may have improper acts such as stealing and suicide. This is mainly because of the violent messages in the games, and the situation that characters can rebirth after being killed. As a result, they cannot distinguish the virtual world and their lives. To control this problem, the government and organizations cooperated to provide helps to addicts such as consultation and hotline services. The addicts can receive correct Internet messages from these services.
In conclusion, in order to survive in the Internet Age, we should remember that the virtual world we often refer to is an activity in our lives. It is crucial to choose what type of online game we play in leisure times. Once addicted to violence role-playing online games, it is difficult to detach from the virtual characters we created. On the other hand, everyone can be a real hero if he chooses to think of solutions to future world crisis. What type of online game we choose, which depends on the characters we have developed, determines whether we have a good self-image in daily life. If we keep our personality right, this would make us maintain a balance between what we do in the virtual life and the real life. Because of this, we will treasure our lives.
Reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_addiction
http://us.norton.com/library/familyresource/article.jsp?aid=fr_onlinegaming_addiction
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~jenchan/OnlineGamingAddiction.html