Hello everyone! This article is different from the rest of my pieces. The next article we had to write was a Op-Ed article. So what I chose was my passion project research paper from last year that Iwanted to share it with you. I also wanted to make an announcement at the end of the article.
Video Games vs Mental Health
Recent studies have shown that the impact of video games on mental health is significant, with up to ninety percent of children and young adults playing video games on a daily basis. Research has indicated a correlation between video game usage and mental health outcomes, with potential implications for both short and long-term mental health. Video game addiction has impacted gamers’ mental health to the point where many reached a breaking point. For example, mental health issues can hit hard on content creators who have announced to their viewers that they have taken a hiatus from recording video games to give themselves time to focus on their mental health and enjoy their life. Video game addiction can create a negative impact on mental health by creating a higher risk for diseases, increased violent behavior, and social and psychological disorders.
Video game addiction can create a negative impact on mental health by creating a higher risk for diseases, resulting in violent behavior, and creating social and physiological disorders. One of the effects that video game addiction can lead to are mainly more common lyknown diseases. In an article from the Daily Telegraph the newspaper company writes, “We, however, also found action video game players use navigation strategies that rely on the caudate nucleus to a much greater degree than non-video game players. Past research has shown people who rely on caudate nucleus dependent strategies have lower grey matter and functional brain activity in the hippocampus…” The Telegraph newspaper company proves that playing video games for too long can damage parts of the brain, thus creating Alzheimer’s Disease. The Telegraph newspaper also states. “The Canadian research team said that if people who played action games — such as Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed — had less gray matter, then they may be more prone to mental illness.” The Telegraph newspaper makes an interesting comment by listing out a few popular games that have caused the increase in mental illness. Not only are diseases an effect from video game addiction, but the better known effect is violence. Inside an article from the New York Times, Benedict Carey supports this statement, “In a report published last summer, psychologists at Brock University in Ontario found that longer periods of violent video game playing among high school students predicted a slightly higher number of such incidents over time.” Benedict Carey proves that video game addiction when playing violent video games can result in violent behavior. The final thing video games can lead to are social and physiological disorders.
In an article from the Tribune Content Agency, Victoria Advocate states, “The study published in “Pediatrics,” the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, cites that while playing video games is not pathological when started, it can become pathological but social, occupational and familial life is affected.” Victoria Advocate states that video game addiction could have an impact mentally and on social life. Victoria Advocate also adds, “Pathological gaming doesn’t necessarily cause other mental problems, but it can make them worse, he added. “Pathological gaming already has the gamer in trouble because the gaming activity has become detrimental,” he said. Balancing the virtual reality with true reality can help.” Victoria Advocate explains that the disorders can become worse when the gamer plays for an extensively long period of time.
In conclusion, gamers are more prone to higher risks of diseases, which leads to violent behavior, and social and psychological disorders when playing video games. How people can attack this issue is by unplugging, setting a screen time off of video games for a while, or create a personal schedule for yourself when you want to play. The main thing people need is to focus more on their life as not everything is being controlled by a video game.
Works Cited
“PRO: Can Video Games Lead to Mental Illness?” Victoria Advocate (Victoria, TX), 13 Feb. 2011. Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A249036438/OVIC?u=eahs&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=6e23628e. Accessed 22 Mar. 2023.
“Teenagers Could Face Higher Risk of Alzheimer’s from Playing Video Games.” Daily Telegraph (London, England), 20 May 2015, p. 9. Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A414269433/OVIC?u=eahs&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=32b67d53. Accessed 22 Mar. 2023.
Carey, Benedict. “Shooting in the Dark.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Feb. 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/science/studying-the-effects-of-playing-violent-video-games.html?searchResultPosition=1
If you have gotten this far, congratulations! You probably came here for the announcement that I’m going to make. If you haven’t seen it yet, a lot of YouTubers are retiring from YouTube. I can see the point they are making, so I thought about taking a hiatus from The Voyager.
Am I leaving The Voyager?
Absolutely not. I want to stick around The Voyager until the day I graduate. I realized how fun it is to pursue writing as a hobby and I want to continue that until the end of my high school journey. But writing article after article takes a toll. I’m starting to feel that toll as I write. Now, I don’t know how long my hiatus is going to last. I’m still going to be apart of the new editions, but I work on three websites: the Voyager, my own blog, and the PHB. I noticed lately that I have been spending more time on The Voyager, but I’m missing out on all the fun that the other blogs that I work with have to offer. I hope you all understand and I will see you all someday. ✌️
