preview

Video Game Addiction : The Tetris Syndrome Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
The first time I actually saw what a video game addiction looked like was when I discovered the Tetris syndrome, more formally known as Game Theory Phenomena, or GTP for short, was when I saw a 23 year old man break his leg. He was running on rooftops, jumping between the empty spaces that were allies between each apartment. Some of the jumps were smaller, others were bigger. Luckily the running start allowed him to get over safely. That’s when he reached a 10 foot gap between one apartment to the roof of a convenience store. With one giant leap, he made it halfway, fell landed on the metal dumpsters below, rolled off, and was left lying on the ground, clutching his leg. The first thing he said? “I usually always make that jump.” How is it possible that a five foot seven man was able to land a 20 foot jump? It wasn’t physically possible - at least not in the real world. That man was indeed able to land a 10 foot jump, in a videogame, but he played so much his brain was convinced that he was able to do it. That man, like many others all around the world, suffered from Tetris Syndrome. The Tetris Syndrome affects the brain the same was as PTSD would affect the brain (1). During PTSD, the mind takes a traumatic event and replays it in one 's brain, causing one to act the as they would in the same situation, even though the situation is no longer present. The Tetris Syndrome makes one react to an event the way they would in a video game, if both the events in the game and the
Get Access
Related
Get Access