I was going to post another let’s play, but I started writing this and thought that this might be a better post, at least for this evening.
We often hear it, most times after an incident like a mass shooting. "X person also liked to play video games.” Video games have been used as a scapegoat for horrendous actions almost since they were made. The most notable of these incidents was the columbine shooting when it was found out that the two shooters were fond of shooter video games. Almost anytime something like this happens, I know that video games are going to get mentioned one way or another. The truth is video games don’t make people violent. There isn’t some magic wand that dangles out of the tv when you boot a game up that casts a spell on you to become violent. People with violent tendencies are still going to have those tendencies after playing a game, just as a person without them will still be without them after gaming. In this article I’m going to do something a little bit different, and talk about a subject that is close to my heart. And that is video games and their impact on people’s mental health.
Image Source
If anyone has read some of my previous post, you might already know that I suffer from G.A.D(Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and Depression. I was diagnosed with these pretty early in my life and it affects me almost every day of my life. Video games to me have been a godsend. They helped me out of some of the darkest pits I’ve ever been in, and have always been there to help me escape reality when I needed to. So to say I’m passionate about them is an understatement. I followed that passion when I went to college. Before dropping out, I was taking Video Game Development and Design. I’m very opened about my mental health so everyone in the class knew what I was dealing with, but what I didn’t expect to find out was that the majority of my classmates also had some sort of mental health problem. So it got me thinking, what exactly draws people like us towards video games?
Image Source
The answer I came up with was that we were all trying to escape from something. Video games offered us a sense of normality that we usually wouldn’t have. There have been studies done that show that people who play video games are less likely to experience depressive symptoms . Research also shows it helps combat other mental disorders such as anxiety, dementia, ADHD, and even PTSD. In fact, there is something called VRET (Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy) that is used specifically to help a variety of anxiety disorders. What interests me about it is that they are actually using it to help treat PTSD, by putting the subject into a VR recreation of the situation that caused their PTSD, and showing them that they can deal with it.
Image Source
All this is good and all, but if I didn’t explore both sides (the good and the bad) of gaming, what kind of article would this be? It would be easy for me to say video games are great, and are never the root of anything bad, but that’s just not true. Like I said, I don’t believe video games cause people to be violent and that they get a HUGELY undeserved wrap by the media. But, I do think that they can increase those urges just like if an alcoholic walked into a liquor story. And like most things, video games are good if they’re not over consumed. But unfortunately some people do over-consuming, and I was one of them.
Image Source
2012-2013 was the start to a series of the worse years of my life. My depression was at an all-time high because my anxiety wouldn’t let me go to highschool. It got that bad that I would take anxiety attacks just thinking about school the next day. During this time, I found a game called Mass effect and fell in love with it. Because of this, I went searching for other BioWare games and found the Dragon Age series and later Star Wars: The Old Republic. Now my problem was with SWTOR. I became obsessed with that game. The moment I woke up, I would play it, up until the moment I fell asleep. It made me forget about the world outside. In SWTOR I was a powerful Force User without a worry in a world. The real world didn’t exist, only SWTOR did.
Image Source
If I was away from SWTOR for any length of time, I started to get angry, anxious, and generally an asshole to be around. At the start of the darkest time in my life, I latched onto SWTOR like it was a life raft and I was adrift in an ocean of depression, trying desperately not to drown. But it became a problem. Now I could tell you that I overcame this and stopped on my own accord, but that would be a lie. I got banned for an entire month for some reason I can’t remember. And that finally broke the grip the game had on me. But things didn’t get better, at least not until around 2014. But that’s a story for another day. You may ask why I just told you this about myself, well it’s simple. The next part of this article is going to talk about Video Game Addiction.
Image Source
I’m a firm believer that anything we can get enjoyment out of can become addictive. In 2018 W.H.O listed ‘Gaming Disorder’ in the book ‘International Classification of Diseases.’ (Source: https://www.webmd.com/ Is Video Game Addiction a real thing?) In fact, there is even a list of symptoms to watch out for, and all of them mimic the symptoms of other addiction disorders. I talked about the benefits that gaming could have on mental health, but on the other end of the spectrum, it can do the exact opposite. It can increase things like depression and anxiety disorders, and it’s clear to see why.
Image Source
Gamers often forget that when they play a multiplayer game, that they are playing with real people and not NPC’s, and with the sense of security anonymity offers them (And the fear of not getting punched in the face) they feel like they can say whatever they want to. I live in the country, and as a result there aren’t a lot of activities that happen that people my age (24) attend. So I love being able to interact with people online when I play games, but the ironic thing is, is that it takes a lot for me to do that. So when I have an unpleasant experience with a player in terms of being social, it stings and it does make me a bit sad and makes me think twice about my next interaction. I have a cousin who plays games a lot, and also suffers from anxiety and depression, and an incident like the one I just described would stay with him for days and could send him into a depressive episode. In fact, they would fit all the symptoms for ‘Gaming Disorder’. So I can understand why it can increase the symptoms of these things.
Image Source
"But Gamergeek, what about video games being blamed for violence,” you might be asking? Well, the answer is simple. The media does this because they know it will get people riled up. Parents who know nothing about video games will believe this. It’s just what the media does. Does anyone else remembered when fox news claimed the Mass effect showed full frontal nudity? I trust Fox News as much as I trust CNN, and that’s to say I don’t. In fact, contrary to what the news would have us believe, studies have shown that there are no direct links to violence in individuals and video games. Despite this, the media runs with the narrative that Video Games are the devil to strum up those views.
Image Link
When I was a kid, I used to read true crime books that had pictures of bloodied crime scenes in them, and no one batted an eye. But if I so much as mentioned a violent video game in school, the teachers would chew me out (it’s along story that involves bullying and the teachers disliking me). Any kid can go into a bookstore and pick up one of these books, but they can’t go into a Gamestop and buy a rated M game legally.
Image Source
I may have gotten a bit off track there, but let me finish by saying this. I am the prime example of the narrative that ‘video games cause violence’ is wrong. I’ve been playing rated M games since I was around 5. I remember playing a game called Whacked, playing Ninja Gaiden, GTA 3, Kane and Lynch, and a bunch more. When I was younger, I had a policy that if that case didn’t have an M on it, it wasn’t worth my time. And you know what happened? Well, you probably don’t unless you can read minds, and if you can then STOP IT! What happened was that my parents always got compliments about how good of a young man I was. And want to know why that is? Because, along with the morales my parents instilled in me, I adopted sets that I learned from video games. And the most important one was to never give up. And that is why, I’ll never leave this depression win. Thanks for reading!
Image Source
Note: Sorry about the spelling mistakes, the editor I use is going a bit nuts.
It's weird how video games have been scrutinized over the years. Like, people telling someone they're wasting their time playing video games every day when they themselves watch tv the whole day. I guess all new things have to go through a phase like that. When the last generation dies off and the gamers take over we'll be crying over something new our kids start with as well.
It's one of the things I found to always be hypocritical. Someone binges a netflix series in a day and no one bats an eye, they play games for the day and they lose their crap.
The whole deal about "boo video games cause violent children" is something that people on the news have sticked too much with since the 90s, and its up there along with "game journalists" that don't even play games deriding perfectly fine games only because of their personal tastes or difficulty on what's supposed to be an objective review on a professional website (and well...the deal with news blaming video games for everything wrong is actually worse than the latter, but it is too easy to hear nowadays a bad/misinformed take over an old or new game from someone that outright admits to not wanting to give it any further time on social media).
That said, while children shouldn't be exposed to violent stuff because of, you know, common sense, there's a difference between knowing how to raise your children properly and moderate whatever content they see until they grow up...and that someonethat had serious issues protagonizing an unfortunate incident having coincidentally played violent games and having that last fact being adjudicated solely to the game itself. But adding to what you said (and what I just mentioned), practically everybody in most Latin American countries have grown up with stuff like Counter-Strike and GTA (I've seen my small cousins playing then on Canaimas)...and they are perfectly fine.
The deal about addiction though is also a truth however, and I think that what you expressed through your story does speak enough about that. The closest thing I can say about something serious with gaming addiction at least on my experience or eyes, is that one of my brothers had to uninstall an MMO because of falling grades in the University (EDIT: I also just remembered him playing League of Legends a lot years ago...seeing him glued to 30 minute games on his seat while my parents called him to do stuff was another reason for me to never want to touch that game). As someone that also can get easily distracted, it is important to be aware about using your time properly and being able to control any impulses to just y e e t your important work to do over playing something.
(and yes, I said y e e t because that just came up on my head and thought that couldn't waste it. In that light-hearted mood from a joke, I have to say that this is a great post!!)
I agree 100% and growing up being allowed to play rated M games, I might have a different perspective then most people. Personally, back when I was growing up there wasn't really a lot of 'bad' rated M games. Maybe some light swearing, a bit of blood, stuff like that. It's nothing like it is nowadays. I mean look at GTA V and how much the N word is used in it. My parents also had a strict set of rules when it came to rated M games, such as if I was caught cursing then they were gone.
I'm glad you enjoyed the read! I think I'll be posting something else exploring VRET as, tbh, I know very little of it and I think that might be a fun subject to dive into next week!
That's true, games influence our mind even if we do not believe it, I have seen cases of people who become madly addicted to the game, and soon after they can leave that addiction, but that will always remain. I think it depends on us to know how to treat a game and not to abuse any game, because it can bring bad consequences, as the saying goes: "everything in excess is bad".
I used to be addicted to the most silliest of games... a little MMO called Puzzle Pirates. I would be in it all day, all night, sleep for maybe 2-3 hours, and do it all again. I would fret when I was away from it. I was terrible.
But now that I'm older, I realise that I wasn't addicted to the actual game... I was addicted to the social aspect of the game. I loved the people. As someone who also suffers from anxiety and whatnot, to the stage of being afraid to leave the house at one point, I was addicted to the only friends I thought I had. 🙂
Not even sure how I got out of that... that was a good 15-16years ago now... but I've always been very careful since then.
I was kind of in the same boat with SWTOR. Like I can go back and play it now and I'm perfectly fine. I think in that time of my life I just really needed something to distract me from the outside world and SWTOR fit that role.
This was a really good read, thanks for sharing this!
Thank you! And no problem. I enjoyed writing it!
All things in life require balance.
There is lots to do in the Country. Depending what Country and area, Skidoo, 4-wheeling, dirtbike driving, biking, hiking, fishing & hunting, bomb fires, beach parties, the list goes on and on.
I don't believe in the "video games cause violence" line but we should always keep in mind that we are all different individuals with different feelings and triggers. So while you are a prime example that goes against the line "video games cause violence" someone else out there might be a prime example of why videos games are influential to violent tendacies.
Good post, keep up the good work!
!BEER
!PIZZA
I don't believe that they can create violent tendencies in someone who would otherwise not experience any, but I do believe that they can exasperate( I believe that is the word) violent tendencies that are already there.
And thanks!
The above describes violent tendacies. Violence isn't always physical. Video games are great for escaping reality and can be lots of fun to play so I can see how they can help those who need such an escape.
I believe everyone experiences all human emotion in existance at various points in their life. In other words, everyone at some point will feel voilent tendecies.
It's an interesting line of thinking and at the end of the day we all have different opinions! It's one of those fun things that makes us humans :P
Congratulations @gamergeek56! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s):
Your next target is to reach 300 replies.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
Support the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!