Level Up, Relationship Down

Reading this essay has caused me to do more research on this specific topic and the things I have found are disturbing. Video games change your mind set, your way of thinking and can affect you for the rest of your life, so when it comes to the violent video games we are turning into a more violent society. It has been studied that playing video games can affect your dreams, and your dreams affect how you feel and treat people, it’s a never ending circle. Through playing video games we are spending less and less time with one another and I think it’s a crying shame. We as a society are naturally social people and the fact that with our recent technology we have become more and more independent.

Human relationships are a fundamental part of life. Studying relationship development is key to understanding why people interact the way they do. To figure this out, it is important to understand how relationships change as we grow older, how the internet affects our relationships, how we remember important points in a relationship, and how rituals affect the quality of a relationship. Learning how these aspects of relationship development work together to build and maintain relationships between couples and friends are important in understanding where these relationships go wrong or why they last.

The videogame addiction may seem funny or ridiculous, but in reality it is a dangerous obsession that truly exposes several needs that have yet to be addressed within the afflicted. Addiction is a damaging problem, and the impact of varying sorts of addictions, such as illegal and

The use of video games has become a norm for many people and families. They may be used to relax after a long day of work, or as a way for the family to all participate in something together. Many people view video games as just another form of entertainment, but could they actually be more?

In today’s culture, people who regularly play video games have been stereotypically viewed as overweight, lazy, slobs, who can’t keep a job and never leave their homes. However, a majority of the population plays video games or owns a console. These stereotypes mostly apply to PC gamers, and MMO players in particular. While most people don’t develop such severe addictions to the game, there is a group of people who suffer. These people are usually imagined as overweight men in their parent’s basements, sporting acne and greasy hair. There are most definitely people that fit this profile, however, video game addiction can claim many different people from many different walks of life. It is most definitely a serious issue, but some people don’t see the degree to which it affects everyday life. Personally, I feel that I can elaborate on the matter with a different perspective, as I have been closeup and personal to video game addiction.

Are video games harmful? Are they poisoning society and corrupting the minds of the youth? The evidence would certainly make it seem that way, but what are the real effects that video games have on people? Video games have been the subject of controversy ever since their creation. Yes that’s right, ever since the creation of Pong, video games have been a concern. In fact C. Everett Koop stated that “There is nothing constructive in the games. Everything is eliminate, kill, destroy and do it fast” (Marcovitz 12). As video games grow more and more like real life concern grows as well. However, as video games grow, they also grow in providing a safe outlet for negative emotions, teaching player’s life lessons, and any research proving otherwise is too flawed to be reliable, the media also twists the subject of video games to fit their viewpoint instead of reporting what video games actually do.

Video game opposition also includes the theory that violent video games have a more negative impact on relationships that players of such games form with others. Exposure to violence in media--particularly video games--is also believed to be related to “decreases in pro-social behavior, empathy, and sensitivity to aggression” (Albanese). It is believed that violent video games can lead to behavior issues and detachment from others, leading to possible aggression. This can be viewed as the truth, but it has its shortcomings. This argument solely focuses on the negative and has no method of measurement as to how the behavior is negatively impacted. There is no authentic support that video games lead to negative relationships with

From the past till now, video game never loses its popularity, from Gameboy to Wii, and from NDS to LOL, millions and billions of people are obsessed with this imaginary world. Some of the video games are created for educational purpose, however, most are created for the people who wants to escape from reality. “In a national Harris Poll survey of 1,178 American youths (ages 8-18), ISU Assistant Professor of Psychology Douglas Gentile found nearly one in 10 of the gamers (8.5 percent) to be pathological players.” ("Figure 2f from: Irimia R, Gottschling M (2016) ") Not only the statistic shows the high rate of addiction towards video games, terrible consequences of the addictions are more than enough to be served. For example, an extreme case of an Chinese kid called Xioyi suicide because he lose in one of his game on December 27, 2004; where he left a note that said he wanted “to join the heroes of the game he worshiped.” Video game has the potential to ruin a person’s life, as well as their family, or even the

Advances in technology have forever changed the way that children play, communicate, and view the world. Have you ever told your child that it was time to turn the video game off, or to put away the cell phone? Of course you have. Did they become upset, aggressive, or even depressed? These are warning signs indicating a potentially dangerous addiction. Addiction is characterized by the intense need for a substance and the experience of withdrawal symptoms when that substance is taken away (Rauh). Video games fill the player with strong feelings of pleasure and fulfillment. When considering the effects that video games have on your social, academic, and financial life; when do these fun technologies morph into a dangerous addiction?

Video Games cause social isolation, for example a 15 year old boy in Sweden pass out after playing World of Warcraft for 24 hours straight, he passed out because he started experiencing social withdrawal, the kid was lacking contact with other humans, and his body’s response to the problem was to pass out. On an extreme level, Ruya Cunningham, a college student spent twenty hours a week playing video games, she eventually “dropped out of school, stopped exercising, and even stopped bathing” (Marcovitz 70). Later on, Ruya Cunningham developed depression, but she kept playing video games because she was addicted to the game. When people are addicted to a game, there is a spiraling vortex sucking the gamer away from society and from sanity. As a consequence of playing violent video games, many teen gamers struggle with real world relationships, this is because they form close virtual relationships with people they meet online. A man in Wisconsin has formed a tremendously close relationship with a group of guys he plays online with, he discusses politics with them and they send each other Christmas gifts even though they do not know each other (Marcovitz 70-72). Video games can also affect the players mental and their physiological state.

The following is an analysis of the idea of “video game obsession disorder”. This will bring to light three variations of video game obsession as well as whether or not it’s actually commonplace. Video game obsession can be somewhat related to that of drug addiction, with cases of withdrawal symptoms and/or dangerous actions to keep up on their “fix”, rather than giving it up, or of cases where video games have driven people to some pretty dark places. Now before we continue any further into the subject, I must note that my opinion of this is that a large proportion of the cases I will list will be of people who have severe psychological problems, not necessarily an average person who plays Candy Crush too much. As well as my passion for video

Before one talks about video games, they must first know what a game is. Games are “closed,formal systems that engages players in structured conflict and resolves its uncertainty in an unequal outcome” (Fullerton,47). Games are closed in the fact that once engaged in the game, the player sets asides their rules for their daily life and accepts the rules of

But not all video games are violent: in fact, video games can promote cohesion through cooperation rather than competition. Multiplayer games sometimes implement a cooperative mode enabling players to use teamwork to achieve a goal instead of contending for supremacy. This cooperative multiplayer encourages “(against the stereotype of gaming as a socially isolating action) the development of team, social,

Even within the best relationships, close partners do not always treat each other with care and kindness. In interdependent relationships, it is inevitable that partners will sometimes behave in a manner potentially destructive to the relationship. When faced with dissatisfactory behaviours, the other partner has a choice: to respond in kind or to accommodate. Accommodation refers to responding to a partner's destructive act by inhibiting the impulse to reciprocate with another destructive act, and instead behaving in a constructive manner. Caryl Rusbult and her colleagues (1991) first identified accommodation as an important part of a relationship. They defined accommodation in terms of the typology of responses to dissatisfaction in relationships, which can vary along two dimensions: whether responses are constructive or destructive to the relationship, and whether responses actively or passively address the problem at hand. Within these two dimensions there are four categories of response: exit involves actively harming a relationship (e.g.,

Video Games immerse the player into a completely different world whether it is a first person shooter or a virtual reality headset. There is something attractive about getting away from the real world and experiencing something out of the ordinary. Take the short story, written by Rachel B. Glaser, “The Jon Lennin Xperience” as an example. The main character, Jason, has a younger sister who is constantly playing a virtual reality game where she is dating Kanye West. Jason eventually is sucked into a similar game where he plays as John Lennon. The game engulfs him and he becomes addicted. He spends more and more time on the system and enjoys it more than real life. Video games can be fun and relieve stress, but when played