My psychiatrist gave me this homework. He asked me to write down pros and cons of playing video games and compares that if it's worth to play games? My psychiatrist suggested me to read this comparison everytime I have urge to play games. The fact that playing games are not worth will make you rethink about your time invesment. I will write mine and I want to hear about yours also !
Pros
-Feel like having a goal (achievement in games)
-Having motivation to live ( feels lively when playes )
-Self-medicate for my depression ( In short term but more depressed in long term)
Cons
-time wasting
-reduces mental toughness
-reduce physical toughness
-losing social skills
-losing concentration (easily distracted)
-grades dropping
-eye irritation
-depressed when can not play
-mood swing
-more selfishness
From the comparison above. It is definitely not worth to invest our time in to games. what we gets from gaming doesn't make our life better. Moreover, it can make our life worse from overview!
I think with more people doing this comparison. It will be more powerful because we will acknowledge the fact of playing videogames. We will be more concious before we decide to play.
Thank you, Tan
P.s. Sorry for my bad grammar. Thanks for reading : )
Game free since 19th October 2015 !!!!
"Once you addict to something, you lose freedom to everything"
-Pros-
#Instant joy.
#Huge world to explore.
#Imagination and being creative.
#Challanges, which most can be done, and have instant reward for them.
#Ability to be the best at something.
#Competive, can challenge other players.
#Strategy.
#Instant depression relive and forgetting about the world.
#Community.
Most of the pros are instant. You are able to achieve and improve lots of skills in games. But the problem is, that there are more disadvantages then pros in the long run.
-Cons-
#Many games have many addictive contents in them, such as login reward, daily renewal quests, events and more.
#Ilusion of friends. Most online friends won't be there forever, and when they will stop playing, they will disappear.
#Lack of knowing time. You can play games without noticing that hours have past.
#Health problems. Sitting all the time in front of the screen isn't realy healthy.
#Wasting time and ruins plans. Instead of doing some extra work, we play games and forget important chores.
#Non of the achievements help in real life.
#waste of money on games and equipment to play.
#When we do not play we learn more about our selfs.
#Playing games mostly help ourselves only, and not the people around us.
Thia disadvantages are realy bad, even when I haven't mentioned what happens when you get addicted to it.
I relate a lot to the pros that RealName mentioned and the distinction that they are very much short term advantages, while the disadvantages last.
There's a trick that works for some people when they have urges to play called playing the tape to the end. Instead of just thinking about the short term positives, play forward in your mind to what it'll be like the next day and the day after and so on and what it does for your life. This tends to backfire for me at this point, so if it does that for anyone else, don't use this strategy. But it does seem to be helpful for a lot of people.
Some of the negatives of gaming for me...
- inability to stop playing once I start (losing track of several hours or more when I think I'll just play for 30 minutes)
- poor sefl-care (not eating, sleeping, showering, etc)
- losing track of who I am and what matters to me. All the things that make my life worthwhile seem to disappear and stop mattering. I don't pursue meaningful goals or friendships or have passion about anything.
- stuck in depression and hopelessness (I get instant relief when I play, but I never get out of it in the long run)
- back pain, sciatica
- minimal employment and no motivation to seek more
- losing (or treating poorly) real life friends
- constant obsession with gaming
I can’t see any advantage. Hiding from real life pressure and false enjoyment are not advantages for me.
Disadvantages: I forget who I am when I game and this is really bad: it is important for human to try to find themselves in this universe, otherwise we will be as dead souls in a physical body. My brain stop working well (I feel stupid) It is repetitive so doesn’t matter how big this virtual world is. I lose trust in myself: don’t underestimate this, it could lead to a suicide! I feel I am in a prison and I can’t do anything unless game mechanics allow me (this is opposite to what people assume that there is more freedom in games). I ignore my family: is this or other cons are just added numbers to the list? No, I am behaving as a bad person when I game! And I still game :) how crazy is this !!
EDIT: well, there are great advantages but you can’t see them till you stop gaming. I learned not to judge people for mistakes they do. the most majority of unacceptable behaviours are not meant to be acted. People behave in aggressive way because they are tired, under pressure, or addicted to something like gaming, smoke, money, or anything that controls them. i feel now that they need help more than others. Another thing to mention is only sick people can see how health is a great thing to have and we addicts can now see and appreciate serenity because lots of chaos was going on inside our brains when we were gaming. one more thing, we are able now to see the beauty of connecting to our souls in our recovery.
"Recovery is not about dealing with gaming. Recovery is about dealing with Life"
"I forget who I am when I game" ...Planner that is exactly THE reason I game.
Even when I don't play I just think about the game and what is going to happen next. Everything in comparaison seems bland and uninteresting. For me, it removes the joy and the color from all the other aspects of my life. That is the main disadvantage.
For the advantages: Instant gratification. When I start to feel sad-angry-frudtrated , I game, it erases everything I feel. It is my magic pill.