Virtually Addicted

Who doesn't love video games? It's not a bad thing necessarily. Whether played on a hand-held device, a computer, or a TV, the games can actually provide hours of fun. The games can boost PC skills and better eye-hand coordination. One field of study demonstrated that surgeons who play video games perpetrate fewer surgical mistakes than do their non-game-playing counterparts. Imagine that!

Video games are also emotionally "secure." When a person makes an error, no one else recognizes (contrary to the public abasement of, say, striking out in a real world ball game). And as each mistake made in a video game helps the player determine the particular action required to advance the next time, the player acquires the satisfaction of steadily bettering and finally winning.

Bad downsides…

Video games unfortunately bear some adult downsides. Besides being really expensive, a lot of popular games involve graphic sex and violence. But even more distressful is that they may be exceedingly addictive. Any person may become "addicted" to video games, and people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder appear to be at particular risk.

A lot of them have poor social or athletic skills, and this doesn't matter in the domain of video games. Such games level the field for people with AD/HD. And people annoyed by distractibility in real life are capable of acute focus (hyper focus) while playing. The video game "spell" is frequently so deep that the only way to acquire the player's attention is to literally shake them or "go straight in their face."

Do you discover yourself supervising how much time someone in your life or you yourself spends on the XBox or PlayStation? Do you perpetually recommend them to switch off the console? Does the want to play video games dominate his/her or your life? Once the set has to be switched off, do you or they get angry? If so, the time has come to help this person or yourself.