Media Addiction

Media Addiction can come in many forms but one of the most prominent and welll known is video game addiction, addiction is classed as something we do for more than 35 hours a week. And after looking at an average week it was found that I used different types of media for over 50 hours a week.

It is said that video game addiction have have similar effects to those of a drug addict, it can cause personal hygiene to be neglected and disrupted sleep patterns for young teens, it can also cause rapid gain or loss of weight as a result of playing, and also cause lying about the amount of time played.

Now if we read these back we can see that none of these are that out of the ordinary. Many people eould consider it normal for young teenagers (especially males) to avoid washing for long periods of time and stay up late and not sleeping, weight loss and gain is also fairly normal too.  Lastly it is also normal to lie about the amount of time playing games a week just if anything to seem like that it isn't all you do.

However there are also possible good effects of video games:

 - It has been shown that action video game players have better hand-eye coordination and visuo-motor skills, such as their resistance to distraction, their sensitivity to information in the peripheral vision and their ability to count briefly presented objects, than non-players. Video games also develop the individual's intelligence, and in social games develop the social capabilities of the individual.

 - There is a study being conducted by Dr.Cheryl Olson and her team at Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH) Center for Mental Health and Media and Harvard to prove that violent games help students deal with stress and aggression. She has found that over 49% of boys and 25% of girls use violent games such as Grand Theft Auto IV as an outlet for their anger. Dr. Olson has come to the conclusion that violent games affect students positively and not negatively because the violent crime rate is going down while the popularity of M-rated video games has increased. She suggests that instead of stopping children from playing M-rated games completely, parents should just monitor how much time their children spend playing games; parents should take responsibility.

 - Several studies have explored the possible benefits of multiplayer video games in a family setting. The most recent study found that girls 11-16 who played video games with their parents had better mental health and less aggressive behavior, with a stronger connection if they played age-appropriate games.

Some of the effects which claim to be prominent in video game addiction are:

- Increased risk of light-induced seizures, musculoskeletal disorders of the upper extremities and increased metabolic rate.
Now I personally have been playing video games for around 10 years and in all that time I have never heard suffered from any of these problems or even heard of anyone suffering from them. And I like most children have had days where I have played a game for over 5 hours at a time for instance, and yet still I have never heard of any of these problems.

 - Increased aggressive thoughts and aggressive behaviors, particularly in children under age 10.
Now in fairness there have been incidents where people hav claimed to commit certain acts of violence throuigh what they have seen in a videogame. For instance, click here to see the article on how two boys from Columbine apparently played violent video games before entering their high school with automatic weapons and killing several people.

- On November 22, 1997, thirteen-year-old Noah Wilson died when his friend Yancy stabbed him in the chest with a kitchen knife. The mother of Noah, Andrea Wilson, alleges that her son was stabbed to death because of his obsession with the Midway game Mortal Kombat. She alleges that Yancy S. was so obsessed with the game, that the child thought he was actually the character Cyrax. This character, Cyrax, used a finishing move in which the character grabs the opponent in a headlock and stabs the character's opponent in the chest. Wilson alleges that this is the maneuver in which Yancy S., killed her son. However, despite the character's other varieties of finishing moves, the character Cyrax does not actually perform this move at all.

 - In April 2000, 16-year-old Spanish teenager José Rabadán Pardo murdered his father, mother and his sister with a katana, proclaiming that he was on an "avenging mission" by Squall Leonhart, the main character of the video game Final Fantasy VIII.

 - And even more recently, On November 5th, 2011, (Four days ago!) a number of armed robbers in France raided two trucks transporting over 6,000 copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Should time on video games be legislated?

Many people beleive that time on video games should be legislated but the reasons for this are that they believe that it can cause violence and other bad behaviours in people, while this may be true, it is also a point that if people are told that they can only play a certain amount a day then it will start becoming a taboo which will do nothing for the reputation of video games which have been proven to help peoples co-ordination and on some levels social skills. 

I believe that if people wish to limit the amount of time you can play on video games then that is fine but don't simply do it because there have been incidents of violence, it should be done for other reasons so that in the future we don't become a race that doesn't leave the house for anything, we should do it so children in the future know that there is something else in the world except video games that thery can explore. If we become a nation or a world of people who just play video games then nothing else will be discovered and we could just remain at a level point in history moving neither forward nor backwards.