Video Game Addiction Plagues Teenagers
Written by Jenny Hatch, Former Student on Tuesday, May 8, 2012
In the last few years, video games have become more and more popular to the younger generation. According to a poll taken in 2007, out of 1,178 teens in the US, eight point five percent of them were found to be addicted to video games. There are a number of possible reasons of why teens (and young adults) could be addicted. It could be that they are devoted to beating every level of every game or it could be a way to simply relieve stress.
According to Senior Joseph Luby, playing video games is “a big time investment,” whether you’re engaged in them on the weekends or are battling people right after a long day of school. No matter when or where you play things such as the Wii or XBox, you might be referred to as someone who wastes precious time.
On the plus side of being addicted, students, such as Luby, are able to beat records. Luby beat “two records for WoW (World of Warcraft);” which while some may not know what that means, others understand how impressive that is. Certain people in this day and age probably can’t even go a day without being on the computer staring blankly at the computer screen. Their goal is to beat everyone and become the best.
There are many people at Snohomish High School that play video games nonstop. Junior Madison Neusel admitted to playing “Sims [for] two to three hours, sometimes four [a day].” Spending this much time on the computer can easily cause something called RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury), which is caused by sitting in the same position for too long. Not only can you get RSI, there is also the chance of becoming short-sighted.
Medical issues are a problem when dealing with video games. You can easily get many issues like: insomnia, carpal tunnel, muscle stiffness, arthritis, and plenty more. These are things that teenagers should not have to deal with at such a young age.
Not only do people spend hours on the computer playing video games, they also spend a bunch of time on the internet searching the web. Kids are using sights such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. From a study taken out of 2,162 students, 10.8 percent of teens had an internet addiction. This may not seem like a lot, but in reality, the kids that are on the computer are on there for the majority of the day. Like Junior Erik Titterness, who said that he is on the computer about “three hours throughout the day [and maybe I check my phone] three to five times a period, except for German.” Many students admit to going online with their phones during class, this has also become an issue because students are not focusing in class, this could result to bad grades.
Internet sites, like Facebook, have become a part of students’ daily lives. When they get home from school, the first thing they want to do is check their Facebook and see if anyone poked them or left them notifications. An argument could be made that these students are simply procrastinating, but at the end of the day, these students identify themselves as addicted.
