Gaming addiction on mental health

 Online gaming addiction effect on mental health

Playing online games incessantly is not enough to be recognized as a disease. Instead, mental illness always arises when the players play online games for an extended period to the extent that it affects their daily lives. Therefore, gaming disorder is a “pattern of chronic or repetitive gaming activity,” which causes the players to lose control of their gaming actions; they start considering gaming as a priority over all other interests and behaviour’s, leading to continued playing even though they may suffer from its negative consequences. Such consequences may include disabilities in social life as well as in education and family relationships.

Anger or rage

If a parent interrupts a gaming session or broadband goes down, what is the reaction? If children or young people respond with anger or rage – including shouting, screaming or physical attacks, then this is something worth noting.

Compulsivity

Is there a strong sense of urgency to get back to gaming? Is it difficult to pull yourself away? With children and young people, compulsive play can manifest in playing past switch-off times, late at night or secretively.

Isolation & Loneliness

Loneliness is a global issue faced by many people to some degree in their lives. It is a negative experience that people go through. The cause of loneliness is the lack of excitement in some people’s lives, resulting from major defects in their social interaction network. If children spend long periods of time playing games by themselves, this reduces interaction with relatives and friends in real life.Though many young gamers use online chat in multiplayer games, including to talk to friends in real life – this should be balanced with interactions in the same physical space.

DEPRESSION

In regular gamers, ongoing listlessness, sadness or lethargy can be signs of problem gaming. Depressive symptoms will be most apparent when they are not playing the game – i.e. in the withdrawal phase. Video games are correlated with increased depression and anxiety. However, correlation does not necessarily imply causation — people who are unhappy or depressed are drawn to video games because they help to suppress negative emotions. They develop a gaming habit that causes them to get stuck in life. Naturally, they end up being unhappy.

In the next blog i will write about how ganing addiction can be prevented

By Latifur Rahman (latifurr768@gmail.com)