GAMING

CO-EDITOR LOUISA SADLER

GAMING ADDICTION

BY JOSHUA MANGOUSTE

Nowadays, a lot of people play video games (2.5 billion people in 2016). To many, this might seems like a harmless pastime. However, developers have become experts at making you spend hours sitting in front of your screen without you even realising it.

The culprit? Dopamine.

The feel-good hormone that rewards you whenever you achieve something. On its own, it’s a super biological instrument that motivates us to put effort into activities where the reward might not be immediate (e.g. going to the gym). However, video games use this mechanic at the perfection with the use of goals. By constantly rewarding the player and giving them something to achieve next, video games make the player fall into a vicious cycle. You play the game: dopamine excites you and motivates you to play more. Then, whenever you think of the game later, your brain remembers the happiness felt and reinforces the connection that video games lead to happiness, leading to a desire to play again.

It is so effective that your brain secretes almost the same amount of dopamine when you play video games as when you have sex. However, video games demand

a small investment of time and effort compared to other activities. Therefore, if you are going through difficult times in your life – which sometimes happen as you grow up – video games become the perfect escape. That is how I fell into addiction seven years ago after my family had just moved house. I had arrived in an unknown environment, where I struggled to make new friends. That drove me to play more and more to that game I had recently bought until I would spend my days in front of the computer.

Perversely, the deeper you fall into addiction, the less effort you put into outside activities, diminishing your range of possible activities other than gaming. After a while, you begin to consider other activities a waste of your time. At that point, you will try to abbreviate the time you spend on anything that is not related to video games. I remember once when my family and I went on a holiday to Italy for a week. I was so addicted at the time that I found an excuse to stay at home and play video games the whole week instead of going out and exploring Rome. What do I remember about that trip today? Nothing. Looking back, I regret spending that week in front of my screen.

We only have one life on Earth, and there is so much to experience and discover, so we should strive to enjoy it to its fullest.

join a Karate club. Since I had nothing to do apart from gaming, I accepted. Today I consider this as the most important decision I took in my life. Beyond the physical benefits and techniques I learnt, I began to discover the philosophy of Karate. Perseverance, discipline and selfimprovement are the main virtues of most martial arts, and I quickly began absorbing them as I practised this art. That widened my view of the world and made me realise how poisonous video games had been in my life. I think this was what motivated me to quit video games once and for all.

Although some might believe that gradually reducing the time spent playing video games is how to do it, it’s wrong. In my opinion, if you give yourself the opportunity to experience the satisfaction you obtain from video games, you will naturally fall back into addiction. Therefore, you should find one activity that you can do at least once a week. That will allow you to start widening your scope of possibility and reduce your dependence on gaming. In the beginning, it was difficult; gaming had taken so much time in my life that I didn’t know what to do with all my free time. However, this allowed me to find new hobbies like drawing, cycling and reading. To conclude, even though gaming is a great pastime, don’t underestimate the impact it can have on your life. Don’t be scared to face your flaws and make changes in your life to improve yourself.

I believe there is only one way to get out of that cycle, which is an outside stimulus. For me, it was my parents that saved me from my addiction when they proposed me to Playing video games is only an escape and shouldn’t restrict you to achieve your dreams.