Gamers Anonymous

I’d say all of this started around middle school to early high school. It all began with RuneScape. RuneScape is what’s called a MMORPG, which is a massive multiplayer online role playing game. You create an avatar tailored to your liking and your avatar is one of thousands in this vast world. You can do a lot in these virtual worlds – complete quests or tackle dungeons or beef up whichever skills you so choose for your character. The biggest thing about these kinds of games is that in this world and can interact with hundreds of thousands of others. Behind each avatar (besides NPCs of course) is another human. I remember sitting at the home computer spending hours just chopping down wood to level my woodworking skill up. And soon afterward I came across a new MMORPG, called MapleStory. The concept was the same, only that this was a two dimensional side-scrolling RPG. My life was consumed by it. I would literally be on the computer I would say 18 hours a day on the weekends and around 6 or so hours after school on the weekdays. I even spent hundreds of dollars in order to obtain more of the virtual currency. It was my getaway.  The people I interacted online with felt more like friends than the ones I saw everyday in class. I felt more comfortable when I played Maplestory. I felt that it was okay to be myself. With time, I was eventually able to wean myself off due to my schedule getting busier and me preparing for college and life after, but for a lot of people it’s not as easy. Gaming addiction is a serious issue, and needs to be addressed better.

A website on gaming addiction states that gaming addiction occurs when gaming begins to interfere with a person’s relationships or their pursuit of goals. Most of the time, teens and adults can healthily balance video and Internet games with life, but when it becomes an addiction, real life takes a back seat to the virtual life. Symptoms include having more non-school or work hours spent playing these games, lying about game use, worsening grades, and falling behind in assignments or dropping things all together. Physical symptoms include carpal tunnel, sleep disturbances, headaches, dry eyes, and failure to ear regularly or neglecting personal hygiene. It has been shown that health professionals feel that video games are similar to gambling as an addictive process, yet has only recently been proposed as a disorder in 2013. Even then, there is still debate as to if there is enough evidence to deem it as an official mental disorder, or if it is caused by gaming itself or is the effect of other disorders.  

From what I have seen, there isn't much in terms of support groups or treatment programs for gaming addiction. I also feel like it isn't perceived as serious a mental disorder as others, such as gambling. Many often brush it off, saying it’s just a phase or that just turning the game off is easier that one thinks. I know for me, I felt a sense of belonging on those games, unlike in real life. I didn't want to deal with the struggle of life, because I knew any struggle was much easier to grasp in those games. In real life I needed to worry about SATs and getting admitted into college and finding a job, all extremely daunting tasks. In my virtual world, the only thing I really needed to worry about was how much I needed to train to level up. Whether it is a mental disorder itself or a culmination of others, it should be brought to attention more. With every year more of our world is becoming digitized, as if we didn't live online enough.  Though it was in fact “just a phase” for me, it’s quite the opposite for a lot of others, and getting a taste of how they feel is enough for me to want for gaming addiction to be taken more seriously.