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how we express ourselfs

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LOI 1: positives and negatives of gaming (form)

LOI 2: connection between physical health and mental health in gaming (connection)

LOI 3: Inquiring into the history of gaming (change)

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I chose this td theme because my central idea is about gaming addiction and it is how we express our selves is by gaming my exhibition is also about gaming and gaming is how we express ourselves and if you get addicted to gaming it another way of how you express yourself because its how you feel usually people with gaming addiction have really sensitive feelings and that show they express themselves

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Gaming can cure depression
Gaming can help your social skills
Games can increase  your brains grey matter
Game can make you more physically active
Games can improve you vision
Gaming can make you focus more

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As long as your not staring at the screen for 10 hours and staying 2 feet away your vision can improve by gaming in a study 10 male students who were not gamers were trained  for 30 hours in first person action games and tested against 10 non gamers. The students who played games were more able to see objects clearly .

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Videos games can have mental health benefits 

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Videos games can have mental health benefits 

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Studies have shown that some fiddle games can boost your mood  and make better heart rhythms and there are signs that it can also help relieve stress. Video games and stress has been in numerous unrelated studies that why Verdot games have been used in a lot of therapy and it was used for decades

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video games effect  your negative health 

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video games effect  your negative health 

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Playing video games is not a healthy activity however if played for hours on end. It can quickly become a problem to ones physical body here are some health issues that can happen because of video games
Gamers thumbs
It is a condition called quevains ten

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The circuitry in your brain one of the reasons video games are fun. Your brain releases a chemical called dopamine and it regulates the pleasure of video games. when dopamine activity happens you feel joy in the center of your brain

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Most of the bad effects of video games are blamed on the violence they contain in the game.  Children who play more violent video games are more likely to have increased aggressive , feelings, and behaviors, according to a study by Anderson & Bushman in 2001

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Also, in 2018, an analysis of 24 studies involving 17000 youngsters from countries including the U.S., Canada, Germany and Japan and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found those who played violent games such as “Grand Theft Auto,” “Call of Duty” and “Manhunt” were more likely to exhibit behavior such as being sent to the principal’s office for fighting or hitting a non-family member.

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Anyone who is suffering from a behavioral addiction such as gambling, video games, watching TV, unhealthy eating, excessive workout or gym, or shopping.

Understanding behavioral addiction

Setting group goals

Participating in goal-oriented activities

Completing assignments set by the psychologists

Developing supportive and friendly relationships

Registration Procedure:
Please contact us on 04 365 8498 or email us at hric@hricdubai.com for inquiries or registration

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Addiction - Human Relations Institute & Clinics

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Who Should Attend: Anyone who is suffering from a behavioral addiction such as gambling, video games, watching TV, unhealthy eating, excessive workout or gym, or shopping. What will you learn: Understanding behavioral addiction Setting group goals Participating in goal-oriented activities Completing assignments set by the psychologists Developing supportive and friendly relationships Registration Procedure: Please contact ...

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As any parent knows, a good deal of parenting is saying 'No'. No, you cannot eat candy for breakfast. No, you cannot put makeup yet. No, you cannot watch adult shows on TV. No, you cannot play on the computer all day.

But like any parent, you know how hard it is for kids to resist the lure of screens. 'Just 5 more minutes,' they beg in earnest and when you cave in, you just know another hour will have gone by with their noses deep inside the screen.
Why are electronic devices so addictive?
According to some studies it would appear that the excitement of computers and video games causes the brain to release a chemical that is, in essence, addictive. For any parent who has seen the fervor by which some kids play video games, this news is no surprise.

Video games are becoming increasingly popular with young children, and since children lack impulse control, they are more likely to become addicted.
Why is this addiction detrimental to our kids?
When time spent on the computer, playing video games or cruising the Internet reaches a point that it harms a child's or adult's family and social relationships, or disrupts school or work life, that person may be caught in a cycle of addiction.

Like other addictions, the computer or video game has replaced friends and family as the source of a person's emotional life. Increasingly, to feel good, the addicted person spends more time playing video games or searching the Internet. Time away from the computer or game causes moodiness or withdrawal.

When a person spends up to ten hours a day or more rearranging or sending files, playing games, surfing the net, visiting chat rooms, instant messaging, and reading emails, that easily can reach up to seventy to eighty hours a week on-line with the computer. Major social, school or work disruptions will result.
What are the symptoms of computer or video game addiction?

Most of non-school hours are spent on the computer or playing video games.

Falling asleep in school.

Not keeping up with assignments.

Worsening grades.

Lying about computer or video game use.

Choosing to use the computer or play video games, rather than see friends.

Dropping out of other social groups (clubs or sports).

Irritable when not playing a video game or on the computer.

There are even physical symptoms that may point to addiction:

Carpal tunnel syndrome.

Sleep disturbances

Back, neck aches

Headaches

Dry eyes

Failure to eat regularly or neglect personal hygiene

Pain in the fingers or thumbs

How do you curb computer and video game addiction?
Video games, if not too violent, are important for the child's mental skills such as problem-solving, strategic and critical thinking. But it's important that video and computer games are played in moderation. Parents should provide a selection of activities, not just the ones that have the most action or are addictive. Choose some that involve problem-solving or good storylines. Also, aim for a balance in your child's life. Sports activities are important, as is reading. Just think of computer games as one more component in a child's exploration of what's out there in life.

Give children educational rather than violent games.

Encourage video game playing in groups rather than as a solitary activity.

Set time limits on children's playing time. Tell them they can play for a couple of hours after they have done their homework - not before.

Ensure children follow the video game manufacturer's recommendations. For example, they should sit at least two feet from the screen, play in a well-lit room, never have the screen at maximum brightness, and never play when feeling tired.

Finally, if all else fails, take away the games console and give it back on a part-time basis when appropriate

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NIDO® Grow Milk Range | Children's Nutritional Drink

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As any parent knows, a good deal of parenting is saying 'No'. No, you cannot eat candy for breakfast. No, you cannot put makeup yet. No, you cannot watch adult shows on TV. No, you cannot play on the computer all day.

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Now officially recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), gaming addiction is a behavioural addiction referring to a pattern of frequent and persistent gaming, despite the negative consequences that this causes, including relationship, financial or work based problems.
Covid-19: click here for more information on how we're currently delivering services.
When receiving treatment for gaming addiction at Priory, we are aware that the negative effects of compulsive gaming can be extremely harmful if effective support isn't sought. This is why we offer a number of treatment methods including behavioural counselling focused on abstinence, self-help groups, and a 12-Step rehabilitation programme. Treatment for gaming addiction can take place as part of our 28-day Addiction Treatment Programme, with the length and type of treatment that you receive, dependent on your unique condition and the severity of your addiction.

Advancement in gaming technology in recent years has led to increasing realism and a heightened sense of immersion into video game worlds. While common perception suggests that children and teenagers spend the most time in virtually crafted worlds, research indicates that just fewer than 50% of adults play video games across devices as wide ranging as televisions and portable devices such as smartphones.

The growing amount of television and online adverts promoting gaming products and streaming services also allows you to take an active part in the community even when you aren't directly gaming. This can make it very difficult to detach from the world of gaming, meaning neglecting other vital aspects of your life becomes ever more likely.

Treatment for gaming addiction

Treatment for gaming addiction at Priory is similar to the approach that is used for treating people with other addictions such as compulsive alcohol or drug use, with residential, day and outpatient addiction programmes offered.

If you believe that the amount of time that you or a loved one are spending playing computer games is adversely affecting other aspects of life, then we can devise a bespoke treatment programme involving behavioural therapy, self-help groups, and 12-Step rehabilitation programmes if the severity of your addiction is acute.

Gaming addiction is categorised as an impulse control disorder, which means that you may struggle to manage your urge to play video games, and may experience withdrawal symptoms should you not be able to play a game for an extended period of time. It is likely that you will have established an increasingly dependent routine involving an increasing amount of gaming each day, in order to satisfy cravings.

To help you to manage your thoughts, emotions and behaviours relating to gaming addiction, there are a number of therapy and self-help treatments which work towards abstinence and reduction in the amount of time that you spend playing computer games, and instead help you to learn techniques that allow you to direct the urge to play video games into alternative and more positive behaviours.

The fact that we use computers extensively in everyday life means that avoiding triggers for playing computer games cannot usually be completely avoided. The following treatment methods are focused on moderating behaviours and creating a level of emotional control which means that you can limit your gaming time to an acceptable amount.
This page was reviewed by Stephanie Chick (FDAP) in July 2020, and is scheduled to be reviewed again in July 2022. To view all Priory gaming addiction specialists, please

For details of how Priory can provide you with assistance regarding gaming addiction treatment and rehabilitation, please call 0800 144 8969 . For professionals looking to make a referral, please click here

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Now officially recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), gaming addiction is a behavioural addiction referring to a pattern of frequent and persistent gaming, despite the negative consequences that this causes, including relationship, financial or work based problems. Covid-19: click here for more information on how we're currently delivering services.

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Since its commercial birth in the 1950s as a technological oddity at a science fair, gaming has blossomed into one of the most profitable entertainment industries in the world.

The mobile technology boom in recent years has revolutionized the industry and opened the doors to a new generation of gamers. Indeed, gaming has become so integrated with modern popular culture that now even grandmas know what Angry Birds is, and more than 42 percent of Americans are gamers and four out of five U.S. households have a console.

The Early Years

The first recognized example of a game machine was unveiled by Dr. Edward Uhler Condon at the New York World's Fair in 1940. The game, based on the ancient mathematical game of Nim, was played by about 50,000 people during the six months it was on display, with the computer reportedly winning more than 90 percent of the games.

However, the first game system designed for commercial home use did not emerge until nearly three decades later, when Ralph Baer and his team released his prototype, the "Brown Box," in 1967.

The "Brown Box" was a vacuum tube-circuit that could be connected to a television set and allowed two users to control cubes that chased each other on the screen. The "Brown Box" could be programmed to play a variety of games, including ping pong, checkers and four sports games. Using advanced technology for this time, added accessories included a lightgun for a target shooting game, and a special attachment used for a golf putting game.

According to the National Museum of American History , Baer recalled, "The minute we played ping-pong, we knew we had a product. Before that we weren't too sure."

The "Brown Box" was licensed to Magnavox, which released the system as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. It preceded Atari by a few months, which is often mistakenly thought of as the first games console.

Between August 1972 and 1975, when the Magnavox was discontinued, around 300,000 consoles were sold. Poor sales were blamed on mismanaged in-store marketing campaigns and the fact that home gaming was a relatively alien concept to the average American at this time.

However mismanaged it might have been, this was the birth of the digital gaming we know today.

Onward To Atari And Arcade Gaming

Sega and Taito were the first companies to pique the public's interest in arcade gaming when they released the electro-mechanical games Periscope and Crown Special Soccer in 1966 and 1967. In 1972, Atari (founded by Nolan Bushnell, the godfather of gaming) became the first gaming company to really set the benchmark for a large-scale gaming community.

The nature of the games sparked competition among players, who could record their high scores ... and were determined to mark their space at the top of the list.

Atari not only developed their games in-house, they also created a whole new industry around the "arcade," and in 1973, retailing at $1,095, Atari began to sell the first real electronic video game Pong, and arcade machines began emerging in bars, bowling alleys and shopping malls around the world. Tech-heads realized they were onto a big thing; between 1972 and 1985, more than 15 companies began to develop video games for the ever-expanding market.

The Roots Of Multiplayer Gaming As We Know It

During the late 1970s, a number of chain restaurants around the U.S. started to install video games to capitalize on the hot new craze. The nature of the games sparked competition among players, who could record their high scores with their initials and were determined to mark their space at the top of the list. At this point, multiplayer gaming was limited to players competing on the same screen.

The first example of players competing on separate screens came in 1973 with "Empire" - a strategic turn-based game for up to eight players - which was created for the PLATO network system. PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operation), was one of the first generalized computer-based teaching systems, originally built by the University of Illinois and later taken over by Control Data (CDC), who built the machines on which the system ran.

According to usage logs from the PLATO system, users spent about 300,000 hours playing Empire between 1978 and 1985. In 1973, Jim Bowery released Spasim for PLATO - a 32-player space shooter - which is regarded as the first example of a 3D multiplayer game. While access to PLATO was limited to large organizations such as universities - and Atari - who could afford the computers and connections necessary to join the network, PLATO represents one of the first steps on the technological road to the Internet, and online multiplayer gaming as we know it today.

At this point, gaming was popular with the younger generations, and was a shared activity in that people competed for high-scores in arcades. However, most people would not have considered four out of every five American households having a games system as a probable reality.

Home Gaming Becomes A Reality

In addition to gaming consoles becoming popular in commercial centers and chain restaurants in the U.S., the early 1970s also saw the advent of personal computers and mass-produced gaming consoles become a reality. Technological advancements, such as Intel's invention of the world's first microprocessor, led to the creation of games such as Gunfight in 1975, the first example of a multiplayer human-to-human combat shooter.

While far from Call of Duty, Gunfight was a big deal when it first hit arcades. It came with a new style of gameplay, using one joystick to control movement and another for shooting direction - something that had never been seen before.

As home gaming and arcade gaming boomed, so too did the development of the gaming community.

In 1977, Atari released the Atari VCS (later known as the Atari 2600), but found sales slow, selling only 250,000 machines in its first year, then 550,000 in 1978 - well below the figures expected. The low sales have been blamed on the fact that Americans were still getting used to the idea of color TVs at home, the consoles were expensive and people were growing tired of Pong, Atari's most popular game.

When it was released, the Atari VCS was only designed to play 10 simple challenge games, such as Pong, Outlaw and Tank. However, the console included an external ROM slot where game cartridges could be plugged in; the potential was quickly discovered by programmers around the world, who created games far outperforming the console's original designed.

The integration of the microprocessor also led to the release of Space Invaders for the Atari VCS in 1980, signifying a new era of gaming - and sales: Atari 2600 sales shot up to 2 million units in 1980.

As home and arcade gaming boomed, so too did the development of the gaming community. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw the release of hobbyist magazines such as Creative Computing (1974), Computer and Video Games (1981) and Computer Gaming World (1981). These magazines created a sense of community, and offered a channel by which gamers could engage.

Personal Computers: Designing Games And Opening Up To A Wider Community

The video game boom caused by Space Invaders saw a huge number of new companies and consoles pop up, resulting in a period of market saturation. Too many gaming consoles, and too few interesting, engaging new games to play on them, eventually led to the 1983 North American video games crash, which saw huge losses, and truckloads of unpopular, poor-quality titles buried in the desert just to get rid of them. The gaming industry was in need of a change.

At more or less the same time that consoles started getting bad press, home computers like the Commodore Vic-20, the Commodore 64 and the Apple II started to grow in popularity. These new home computer systems were affordable for the average American, retailing at around $300 in the early 1980s (around $860 in today's money), and were advertised as the "sensible" option for the whole family.

These home computers had much more powerful processors than the previous generation of consoles; this opened the door to a new level of gaming, with more complex, less linear games. They also offered the technology needed for gamers to create their own games with BASIC code. Even Bill Gates designed a game, called Donkey (a simple game that involved dodging donkeys on a highway while driving a sports car). Interestingly, the game was brought back from the dead as an iOS app back in 2012.

While the game was described at the time as "crude and embarrassing" by rivals at Apple, Gates included the game to inspire users to develop their own games and programs using the integrated BASIC code program.

Magazines like Computer and Video Games and Gaming World provided BASIC source code for games and utility programs, which could be typed into early PCs. Games, programs and readers' code submissions were accepted and shared.

In addition to providing the means for more people to create their own game using code, early computers also paved the way for multiplayer gaming, a key milestone for the evolution of the gaming community.

Early computers such as the Macintosh, and some consoles such as the Atari ST, allowed users to connect their devices with other players as early as the late 1980s. In 1987, MidiMaze was released on the Atari ST and included a function by which up to 16 consoles could be linked by connecting one computer's MIDI-OUT port to the next computer's MIDI-IN port.

While many users reported that more than four players at a time slowed the game dramatically and made it unstable, this was the first step toward the idea of a deathmatch, which exploded in popularity with the release of Doom in 1993 and is one of the most popular types of games today.

The real revolution in gaming came when LAN networks, and later the Internet, opened up multiplayer gaming.

Multiplayer gaming over networks really took off with the release of Pathway to Darkness in 1993, and the "LAN Party" was born. LAN gaming grew more popular with the release of Marathon on the Macintosh in 1994 and especially after first-person multiplayer shooter Quake hit stores in 1996. By this point, the release of Windows 95 and affordable Ethernet cards brought networking to the Windows PC, further expanding the popularity of multiplayer LAN games.

The real revolution in gaming came when LAN networks, and later the Internet, opened up multiplayer gaming. Multiplayer gaming took the gaming community to a new level because it allowed fans to compete and interact from different computers, which improved the social aspect of gaming. This key step set the stage for the large-scale interactive gaming that modern gamers currently enjoy. On April 30, 1993, CERN put the World Wide Web software in the public domain, but it would be years before the Internet was powerful enough to accommodate gaming as we know it today.
Image: Wikimedia Commons/Evan-Amos
The Move To Online Gaming On Consoles

Long before gaming giants Sega and Nintendo moved into the sphere of online gaming, many engineers attempted to utilize the power of telephone lines to transfer information between consoles.

William von Meister unveiled groundbreaking modem-transfer technology for the Atari 2600 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in 1982. The new device, the CVC GameLine, enabled users to download software and games using their fixed telephone connection and a cartridge that could be plugged in to their Atari console.

The device allowed users to "download" multiple games from programmers around the world, which could be played for free up to eight times; it also allowed users to download free games on their birthdays. Unfortunately, the device failed to gain support from the leading games manufacturers of the time, and was dealt a death-blow by the crash of 1983.

Real advances in "online" gaming wouldn't take place until the release of 4th generation 16-bit-era consoles in the early 1990s, after the Internet as we know it became part of the public domain in 1993. In 1995 Nintendo released Satellaview, a satellite modem peripheral for Nintendo's Super Famicom console. The technology allowed users to download games, news and cheats hints directly to their console using satellites. Broadcasts continued until 2000, but the technology never made it out of Japan to the global market.

Accessing the Internet was expensive at the turn of the millennium.

Between 1993 and 1996, Sega, Nintendo and Atari made a number of attempts to break into "online" gaming by using cable providers, but none of them really took off due to slow Internet capabilities and problems with cable providers. It wasn't until the release of the Sega Dreamcast, the world's first Internet-ready console, in 2000, that real advances were made in online gaming as we know it today. The Dreamcast came with an embedded 56 Kbps modem and a copy of the latest PlanetWeb browser, making Internet-based gaming a core part of its setup rather than just a quirky add-on used by a minority of users.

The Dreamcast was a truly revolutionary system, and was the first net-centric device to gain popularity. However, it also was a massive failure, which effectively put an end to Sega's console legacy. Accessing the Internet was expensive at the turn of the millennium, and Sega ended up footing huge bills as users used its PlanetWeb browser around the world.

Experts related the console's failure to the Internet-focused technology being ahead of its time, as well as the rapid evolution of PC technology in the early 2000s - which led people to doubt the use of a console designed solely for gaming. Regardless of its failure, Dreamcast paved the way for the next generation of consoles, such as the Xbox. Released in the mid-2000s, the new console manufacturers learned from and improved the net-centric focus of the Dreamcast, making online functionality an integral part of the gaming industry.

The release of Runescape in 2001 was a game changer. MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) allows millions of players worldwide to play, interact and compete against fellow fans on the same platform. The games also include chat functions, allowing players to interact and communicate with other players whom they meet in-game. These games may seem outdated now, but they remain extremely popular within the dedicated gaming community.

The Modern Age Of Gaming

Since the early 2000s, Internet capabilities have exploded and computer processor technology has improved at such a fast rate that every new batch of games, graphics and consoles seems to blow the previous generation out of the water. The cost of technology, servers and the Internet has dropped so far that Internet at lightning speeds is now accessible and commonplace, and 3.2 billion people across the globe have access to the Internet. According to the ESA Computer and video games industry report for 2015, at least 1.5 billion people with Internet access play video games.

Online storefronts such as Xbox Live Marketplace and the Wii Shop Channel have totally changed the way people buy games, update software and communicate and interact with other gamers, and networking services like Sony's PSN have helped online multiplayer gaming reach unbelievable new heights.

Every new batch of games, graphics and consoles seems to blow the previous generation out of the water.

Technology allows millions around the world to enjoy gaming as a shared activity. The recent ESA gaming report showed that 54 percent of frequent gamers feel their hobby helps them connect with friends, and 45 percent use gaming as a way to spend time with their family.

By the time of the Xbox 360 release, online multiplayer gaming was an integral part of the experience (especially "deathmatch" games played against millions of peers around the world for games such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare). Nowadays, many games have an online component that vastly improves the gameplay experience and interactivity, often superseding the importance of the player's offline game objectives.

"What I've been told as a blanket expectation is that 90% of players who start your game will never see the end of it..." says Keith Fuller, a longtime production contractor for Activision.

As online first-person shooter games became more popular, gaming "clans" began to emerge around the world. A clan, guild or faction is an organized group of video gamers that regularly play together in multiplayer games. These games range from groups of a few friends to 4,000-person organizations with a broad range of structures, goals and members. Multiple online platforms exist, where clans are rated against each other and can organize battles and meet-ups online.

The Move Toward Mobile

Since smartphones and app stores hit the market in 2007, gaming has undergone yet another rapid evolution that has changed not only the way people play games, but also brought gaming into the mainstream pop culture in a way never before seen. Rapid developments in mobile technology over the last decade have created an explosion of mobile gaming, which is set to overtake revenue from console-based gaming in 2015.

This huge shift in the gaming industry toward mobile, especially in Southeast Asia, has not only widened gaming demographics, but also pushed gaming to the forefront of media attention. Like the early gaming fans joining niche forums, today's users have rallied around mobile gaming, and the Internet, magazines and social media are full of commentaries of new games and industry gossip. As always, gamers' blogs and forums are filled with new game tips, and sites such as Macworld, Ars Technica and TouchArcade push games from lesser-known independent developers, as well as traditional gaming companies.

The gaming industry was previously monopolized by a handful of companies, but in recent years, companies such as Apple and Google have been sneaking their way up the rankings due to their games sales earnings from their app stores. The time-killing nature of mobile gaming is attractive to so many people who basic games such as Angry Birds made Rovio $200 million in 2012 alone, and broke two billion downloads in 2014.

More complex mass multiplayer mobile games such as Clash of Clans are bringing in huge sums each year, connecting millions of players around the world through their mobile device or League of Legends on the PC.

The Future

The move to mobile technology has defined the recent chapter of gaming, but while on-the-move gaming is well-suited to the busy lives of millennials, gaming on mobile devices also has its limitations. Phone screens are small (well, at least until the iPhone 6s came out), and processor speeds and internal memories on the majority of cellphones limit gameplay possibilities. According to a recent VentureBeat article, mobile gaming is already witnessing its first slump. Revenue growth has slowed, and the cost of doing business and distribution costs have risen dramatically over the last few years.

Although mobile gaming has caused the death of hand-held gaming devices, consoles are still booming, and each new generation of console welcomes a new era of technology and capabilities. Two industries that could well play a key role in the future of gaming are virtual reality and artificial intelligence technology.

The next chapter for gaming is still unclear, but whatever happens, it is sure to be entertaining.

Virtual reality (VR) company Oculus was acquired by Facebook in 2014, and is set to release its Rift headset in 2016. The headset seems to lean perfectly toward use within the video games industry, and would potentially allow gamers to "live" inside an interactive, immersive 3D world. The opportunities to create fully interactive, dynamic "worlds" for MMORPG, in which players could move around, interact with other players and experience the digital landscapes in a totally new dimension, could be within arms reach.

There have been a lot of advancements over the last few years in the world of language-processing artificial intelligence. In 2014, Google acquired Deep Mind; this year, IBM acquired AlchemyAPI, a leading provider in deep-learning technology; in October 2015, Apple made two AI acquisitions in less than a week. Two of the fields being developed are accuracy for voice recognition technology and open-ended dialogue with computers.

These advances could signify an amazing new chapter for gaming - especially if combined with VR, as they could allow games to interact with characters within games, who would be able to respond to questions and commands, with intelligent and seemingly natural responses. In the world of first-person shooters, sports games and strategy games, players could effectively command the computer to complete in-game tasks, as the computer would be able to understand commands through a headset due to advances in voice recognition accuracy.

If the changes that have occurred over the last century are anything to go by, it appears that gaming in 2025 will be almost unrecognizable to how it is today. Although Angry Birds has been a household name since its release in 2011, it is unlikely to be remembered as fondly as Space Invaders or Pong. Throughout its progression, gaming has seen multiple trends wane and tide, then be totally replaced by another technology. The next chapter for gaming is still unclear, but whatever happens, it is sure to be entertaining.

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The History Of Gaming: An Evolving Community | TechCrunch

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Since its commercial birth in the 1950s as a technological oddity at a science fair, gaming has blossomed into one of the most profitable entertainment industries in the world. The mobile technology boom in recent years has revolutionized the industry and opened the doors to a new generation of gamers.

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Video games can be a great recreational hobby. However, video game addiction can lead to several issues. The negative effects of video games include effects on our mind, body relationships, job performance, and more.
It is important to remember that video games are not inherently evil. Most of the negative effects of video games arise from excessive use and addiction. Here are ten negative effects of video games:

1. Dopamine addiction

2. Reduction in Motivation

3. Alexithymia and emotional suppression

4. Repetitive stress injuries and other health risks

5. Poor mental health

6. Relationship issues

7. Social disconnection

8. Exposure to toxic gaming environments

9. Poor academic or professional performance

10. Escapism and getting stuck in life

Let's explore each of these effects in more detail and look at how we can combat the negative effects of video games.

Learn more about the negative effects of video games by taking the video game addiction quiz below:

Dopamine Addiction

The reward circuitry in your brain is one of the reasons video games are fun. Your brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine, which regulates the feeling of pleasure from video games. When dopamine activity happens in the nucleus accumbens, the pleasure center of your brains, you feel joy.

When you play video games, your brain releases a constant dopamine supply, with occasional random bursts. Over time, your brain gets used to this steady supply of dopamine, and the nucleus accumbens requires even more dopamine release for gaming to feel fun. That prevents you from enjoying anything that is not as stimulating as a video game.

Even if you try to give up gaming, your mind will attract you to other forms of stimulation, such as browsing YouTube or scrolling through social media. Simple activities will seem completely unappealing, and you will not be motivated to do anything that isn't exciting. That is the height of dopamine addiction. If you let your gaming habit get out of control, this is a real possibility.

Negative Effects of Video Games on Motivation

Unlike the nucleus accumbens, we cannot map the triumph circuit onto the brain as easily. It does not localize to one part of the brain - it's just a general pattern of psychology and cognition integral to human beings.

The triumph circuit makes us feel good when we overcome a challenge. In evolutionary biology, there's a strong story about venturing into the unknown, finding something valuable, overcoming some kind of problem, and then bringing it back to society. That has shaped social psychology - we as human beings value people who overcome odds.

Video games have hacked this circuit. They have found a way to deliver all the psychological rewards that we often seek to gain from the real world. What we want from video games is often very similar to what we want from life. We want excitement, adventures, friendships, victories, and status. Games have found a way to serve that to us with little effort on our end. As a result, a person's ability to engage the triumph circuit suffers when they can just engage it with video games.

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Negative Effects of Video Games on Emotions

When we experience fear, worry, shame, or other negative emotions, the amygdala becomes active. The amygdala is the part of that brain that governs these negative emotions. It is also integral to our learning circuitry since it creates connections to the hippocampus, the center for learning in our brain.

However, fMRI studies have shown that if we start to play video games when our amygdala is active, it calms down. The effects of this are two-fold:

Constant suppression of negative emotions can lead to a condition called alexithymia. If a person is alexithymic, then that means that they have trouble determining their internal emotional state. Alexithymic people find it hard to pinpoint the emotions that they are feeling. However, that does not mean that those emotions do not affect their behavior.

The amygdala is a core part of our learning circuitry. Painful experiences get imprinted onto our memory, and we learn from them. However, people find it hard to quit playing video games because their amygdala does not make connections with their hippocampus as smoothly. They don't learn from the painful experiences of not doing well in school or at work. Their learning circuitry gets sabotaged, and it becomes difficult for them to quit gaming.

Negative Health Effects of Video Games

Playing video games is not an unhealthy activity on its own. However, if done for hours on end, it can quickly become detrimental to one's physical health. Here are some health issues that can arise due to video game addiction.

Repetitive Stress Injuries

Repetitive Stress Injuries (RSIs) are relatively common among gamers. Gaming requires strenuous, repetitive motion on the hands and wrists (sometimes for hours on end). These motions can cause inflammation and injury. Here are some RSIs that you can develop from gaming:

Gamer's thumb is a nickname given to a condition called de Quervain's Tenosynovitis. It is a condition in which the tendons that move our thumb become inflamed, which leads to pain and limited movement.

Trigger finger, also known as Stenosing Tenosynovitis, is a condition in which a finger gets stuck in a bent position. It may bend or straighten with a snap, like a trigger being pulled or released, hence the name.

Tennis elbow (Lateral Epicondylitis) is also a potential RSI that you can develop by gaming too much. It is a painful condition in which the tendons in the elbow get overloaded, usually due to repetitive movement of the wrist and arms.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is another RSI that can be caused by gaming too much. Its characteristic symptoms are numbness, tingling, or weakness in the hand. It occurs due to pressure on the median nerve. This nerve runs from your forearm into your hand through a part of your wrist called the carpal tunnel.

Other Physical Health Issues

We all know the feeling of getting lost for hours in a game, often forgetting to eat, or snacking on unhealthy foods. It should not be a surprise then, that obesity and malnutrition are risk factors from gaming too much. There is also some preliminary evidence that excessively playing video games can lead to obesity in teens.

Eyestrain is a pervasive issue among gamers. Staring at a screen for hours on end. The eyes focus much differently on a video screen than any other flat surface, such as a notebook. It is less strenuous to stare at a notebook because the distance is constant, and the eyes know where to focus. However, on a video screen, the focus is continually changing, leading to eye fatigue. It becomes difficult for the eyes to focus on other objects, even after the gaming session is over.

A study done on Australian adolescents found that prolonged periods of sitting at a computer could alter their developing neuromusculoskeletal system. Posture problems are incredibly common among gamers. The body tries to obtain the least energy-demanding position when it finds itself in one spot for prolonged periods. As a result, rounded shoulders, head leaned forward, a curved lower back, and back and neck problems later in life are common among gamers.

Video Games Can Affect the Brain Negatively

Video games do not necessarily lead to mental health problems. However, you can be at high risk for video game addiction if you already suffer from depression, anxiety, or other mental illness. This is due to the way video games affect your brain.

A study that looked at the effect of gaming on mental health found that problematic gaming habits correlated with maladaptive coping strategies, negative emotions, low self-esteem, a preference for solitude, and poor school performance.

While one of the benefits of gaming is an increase in the ability to concentrate, excessive gaming may lead to the opposite. A study done on 3000 children and adolescents from 12 different schools in Singapore found a bidirectional causality in play between video games and attention deficit disorders. While excessive gaming could contribute to a lack of long-term concentration ability, it is also likely that children who already show signs of attention deficit disorders would be more attracted to video games, due to the variety of experiences they can provide.

Relationship Issues

Relationship issues resulting from playing too many video games is a common issue among gamers and their families. When people get too addicted to video games, they start to neglect other parts of their lives. The first parts to go are wholesome and supportive relationships with family, friends, and loved ones.

Relationships need work to maintain. They are like a plant - if you neglect one long enough, it will wither up and die. Relationships need to regular nurturing for them to grow or even maintain. However, when a person spends most of their time playing video games, there is almost no time left in the day to talk to friends and family, let alone pursue romantic relationships.

A healthy amount of gaming with friends and family can lead to stronger bonds. However, excessive gaming often results in isolation. Therefore, it is much more important to keep an eye on your relationships and see if they are moving down a path that you do not desire.

Social Disconnection

Social disconnection is a real problem in the gaming community. Out of all the negative effects of video games, this one is touted a lot. Though we play multiplayer games, we rarely end up connecting with the people in our games. Some communities are more conducive to authentic human interaction than others. However, those are the exception. Isolation can be extremely detrimental to your mental health. Evolution did not design human beings to be solitary creatures. We thrive in groups where can we can support each other.

An Iranian study done on second-grade students in 2009 found that individuals who were addicted to video games tended to have lower social skills than those who were not. Social interaction is a skill, and if you spend most of your time alone in your room, playing games, and not interacting with other people in real life, then that skill will deteriorate. That can lead to social anxiety, which makes the problem worse.

Toxic Environments

In our society, men are culturally only allowed to express one negative emotion: anger. If they express other negative emotions, such as shame or fear, they are seen as weak or overly sensitive. That makes men more susceptible to developing alexithymia, especially if they are addicted to video games.

Statistics on the gender breakdown on the internet say that it consists of about 54% males and 46% females, as of 2019. However, some spaces such as Twitch are male-dominated. That is a lot of people in the gaming community who might feel that anger is the only acceptable emotion they can express. Hence, it is no surprise that these communities are so toxic.

Some gaming communities are more toxic than others. A potential reason for that could be that some games are more competitive than others, and competition sometimes does not bring out the best in us.

Negative Effect of Video Games on Academic Performance

If you are addicted to gaming, then your academic and professional success is likely to suffer. People who play games excessively find it challenging to pay attention to their jobs or school. It is quite common to turn to video games when your performance in these areas suffers. Games turn into an escape when the responsibilities in your life feel overwhelming.

A cross-sectional and longitudinal study of adolescents in secondary school showed a negative association of screen time with school achievement one year later, independent of their physical activity, age, gender, and socio-economic status. It suggests a link between increased gaming and poor academic performance.

You can have a healthy gaming habit and still maintain excellent performance at school or work. But due to the way games affect your brain, it is much easier to lose yourself in the virtual world then to try to tackle hardships in the real world. For example, many children and teenagers start gaming because they find a community that does not judge them for their socio-economic background or physical appearance. They get attached to this community and start to become disinterested in their performance in school, which leads to their grades taking a hit.

Escapism and Being Stuck in Life

We know that video games provide a safe space for people to escape to when they do not feel equipped to deal with the problems in their life. However, sometimes this can become problematic. If video games prevent you from finding ways to deal with your issues, then that is an issue.

If you spend 10 hours a day playing video games, then there is a chance that you are not facing the problems in your life head-on. While it can be quite painful to do so, it is also one of the best ways to move forward. You don't have to quit video games. You can maintain a healthy balance by taking one step at a time to take back control of your life.

Conclusion

As you might have noticed, most of the negative effects of video games arise from excessive use. Even the health issues mentioned only become a problem when a person spends hours in one place playing video games.

While it may seem like video games can create a lot of problems, there are plenty of gamers that lead successful lives and still play video games. Moderate doses of gaming make all the difference between playing games for enjoyment and gaming controlling your life. If you can address the underlying issues that make you want to play video games for 10+ hours a day, you can take back control of your life.

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If you feel that your gaming habit is affecting your life, we can help. Sign up to work with a Healthy Gamer Coach, trained by Dr. Alok Kanojia himself. Healthy Gamer Coaches are gamers who have taken control of their life, and know exactly what you're going through.

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10 Negative Effects of Video Games | Healthy Gamer

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Video games can be a great recreational hobby. However, video game addiction can lead to several issues. The negative effects of video games include effects on our mind, body relationships, job performance, and more. It is important to remember that video games are not inherently evil.

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Several researchers have tried to understand the effects of video games on children's development. There are many types of games made for varied purposes - some can be entertaining and relaxing while others can be challenging and good for learning and brain development. However, not all games are good for children and their effects can be adverse.

Positive Effects of Video Games on Children

Here are some of the advantages children can have from playing video games:

1. Working Together As a Team

Most games today are played online and often involve several players from across the country or world, which encourages the child to play with others. This will help your child build the skills required to work together as a team and solve problems together.

2. Better Decision-making Skills

Games function in real-time, and most games are fast-paced and require the player to make quick decisions in a short period of time. This helps in sculpting decision-making skills that are valuable in real-life fields such as sports or medicine, where split-second decisions under pressure are often required to be taken.

3. Maintaining Accuracy in Quick Decisions

Video games can help your kid maintain a good level of accuracy by learning to calculate all the dependent parameters fast. This is an extremely useful skill, which is why even soldiers and doctors are advised to play video games to sharpen their decision-making skills.

4. Coordination Between Hands and Eyes

By playing video games, kids understand hand-eye coordination - they begin to learn how the movement of their limbs affects the space and visual references around them. Good hand-eye coordination is essential for daily life activities; it is also required in nearly all sports activities and can even be beneficial in puzzle-solving.

5. Better Cognitive Functioning

When a certain skill is repeated multiple times, the brain starts developing a structure and creates new neural pathways and transmitters to optimise its functioning. In times when intense concentration is applied, the brain moulds itself to be able to solve problems faster, which can ultimately also help in solving issues in real life.

Negative Effects of Video Games on Children

The disadvantages of playing video games are also pronounced. Some of them include:

1. Health Issues

Spending a lot of time playing video games instead of indulging in physical activities can be detrimental to a child's health in several ways. A child's cognitive development may get affected if he doesn't get out and socialise in the real world. Constantly sitting in one place and playing video games at length can increase the chances of obesity, weaken the muscles and joints, make hands and fingers numb due to over-exertion, and multiple studies suggest that it can even weaken the eyesight.

2. Academic Issues

The fun that video games provide is in stark contrast to a typical day in school. This can cause kids to prefer video games over anything else, thus pushing them to not pay attention to school work. Even outside school, they may skip homework or studying for tests and choose video games instead. This can result in poor performance and affect their emotional intelligence.

3. Exposure to Wrong Values

Many video games in the market contain excessive violence, over-the-top sexuality, profanity, racism, and many other things that cannot be perceived by kids in the right manner. They may fail to take these depictions with a pinch of salt and may end up trying to emulate the same behaviour as portrayed in the games. Their brain architecture is still developing and they won't be able to differentiate right from wrong, until being exposed in the real world.

4. Makes Them Socially Disconnected

Even though multiplayer games exist, most kids end up playing them by themselves in their own rooms. This severely limits their interpersonal skills in real life, and they may prefer being by themselves and interact digitally. Such kids fail to strike up conversations and feel bored and out of place at social gatherings. And as a result, chances of adjustment disorder, depression, anxiety, stress gets high in their working as well as personal life.

5. Aggressive Behaviour

The violent content in video games and the instant gratification that they provide can cause the kids to be impatient and aggressive in their behaviour. When things fail to go as planned or any restrictions are laid on them, they may lash out or start harbouring aggressive thoughts that can manifest in troublesome behaviour.

Signs of Video Game Addiction in Kids

The World Health Organisation added "gaming disorders" to its 2018 medical reference book, International Classification of Diseases. Video games are quite easy to get addicted to. Your child may be addicted if he has the following symptoms:

1. Denial

The first sign of addiction is being defensive and denying that the problem exists. Your child may refuse to accept the fact that he is heavily dependent on video games, even if you provide him with proof.

2. Game-related Expenses

Your child may ask for money to be spent on upgrading the game, to buy various items related to the game, or he may even end up stealing from you to fuel the habit.

3. Disinterest in Other Aspects of Life

The world of video games may take over your child's life to such an extent that friends and family may start to seem boring. Neglecting other activities like studying, connecting with classmates, and disorientation often results in poor academic performance. Some children fail to maintain basic hygiene as well - skipping baths for days on end and spending most of their time playing video games can be some of the habits they may develop.

4. Uncontrolled Gaming Times

Your child may promise you that he will play only for 10 minutes or until he finishes a particular level, but he may not be able to follow through and end up playing for longer hours. He may do so without realising it!

5. Unable to Process Failure

Your child may exhibit aggressive behaviour in situations where he loses the game or fails to complete the level. He may become unreasonably angry and frustrated, unable to understand that it is merely a game.

6. Hiding and Playing

If you end up scolding or prohibiting your child from playing, he will try to find ways to play the game in secret without letting you find out. He might start lying or making up excuses to play the game just for a few minutes.

7. Constantly Preoccupied

Even when away from the video game, your child will appear distracted and lost in thought, usually thinking about something related to the game or constantly talking about it. Any mention of the gaming habit could end up irritating him.

How Can Parents Help Children Enjoy Video Games Properly and Avoid Problems?

There are many pros and cons of video games for children, but parents can keep certain aspects in mind to ensure that their kids can enjoy the games without any problems.

Don't allow your children to play video games when they are in preschool.

Before buying a game or letting your child play it, check the rating, the age limit, and any content warnings provided with it.

Try to play the game yourself and make yourself a part of their world. Your child will open up by discussing the various aspects of the game.

Keep fixed and restricted times for playing games. This includes playing games at a friend's place as well.

Keep a track of any online interactions your kid has with strangers and ensure they do not reveal any personal details to anyone.

Keep any kind of gadgets out of your child's room, especially during nights.

Make sure the gaming area is in public view and you can easily spot the screen from afar.

If you are a gamer, enforce the same rules for yourself so that the kid learns from you.

Allow your kids to play video games only after they complete their homework and other tasks.

Make other physical activities or outdoor sports a part of the child's life as well.

Video games aren't advisable for young kids as the light from screens can adversely affect their eyes. Such games also expose tender minds to inappropriate values and morals, which is why you should try some other activities to keep your child happily engaged for long. You can buy craft kits to keep your child busy. A fun-filled activity box with worksheets and storybooks is a great way to keep your kid busy! Also, make sure your kids get time for unstructured play with their friends every day, it will help them developing self-regulation skills, which would prove to be very important in all aspects of life and for success.

Resources and References: WebMD

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10 Positive & Negative Effects of Video Games on Children

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Several researchers have tried to understand the effects of video games on children's development. There are many types of games made for varied purposes - some can be entertaining and relaxing while others can be challenging and good for learning and brain development. However, not all games are good for children and their effects can be adverse.

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Article at a Glance
* Video games can be used to help improve test scores, teach life and job skills, improve brain function, and encourage physical exercise.
* Most popular video games and apps are addictive by design
* Because video game addiction can negatively impact social and physical health, parents should be aware of the symptoms.

Kids have been wild about video games for decades. But the introduction of mobile game systems and smartphone apps took that to new heights.

Mobility brought gaming into the car, the bedroom, and even to the bus stop. With roughly 95% of U.S. teens owning smartphones, it's hard to find a kid who isn't playing some kind of game.

Although video games get a lot of bad press, they do have some benefits. The trick is to strike the right balance of good content and appropriate limits. After all, video games should enhance your child's life, not take it over.

Video Game Pros:

Education

Studies have found that video games can improve learning. When video games have been used in the classroom, teachers see improved test scores. Games also allow students to learn and then apply what they have learned in a real-life situation. Medical and military training programs both use simulation-style games to teach tools and strategy.

Life Skills

Many video games teach kids how to delegate, work as a team, and prioritize. Internet-enabled games that let kids play with their real-life friends often require collaboration and division of tasks to beat the level.

Improved Brain Function

Video games have been shown to help us improve our ability to reason and solve problems. They help us make split-second decisions, process information more quickly, and multitask effectively. Games can also improve hand-eye coordination and boost auditory perception.

Exercise

Motion-controlled games like the Nintendo Wii were once thought to be the answer to parental concerns about video games leading to obesity. But studies have shown these video games alone don't increase kids' overall activity level.

However, there is some hope in the form of smartphone games that encourage kids to leave the house. Pokemon Go is one example, but your kids may also enjoy the real-life treasure hunt appeal of activities like Geocaching. Some apps like The Walk, blend storytelling and exercise to get players moving.

Job Skills

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) argues that kids need to play more video games in order to be competitive in the current job market. In a report they released in 2010, the FAS said games helped teach higher-order thinking skills like problem-solving, interpretive analysis, and more.

Video Game Cons:

Violence

While every other study seems to draw opposite conclusions about the social effects of playing violent video games, studies involving brain scans are concerning.

Simply put, children playing violent video games show decreased activity in areas of the brain dedicated to self-control and an increase in emotional arousal.

Even though the debate continues, be aware of how violent games affect your children. If you notice a problem, go with your gut.

Help your children choose games you feel are appropriate. Many console game ratings include detailed information about the contents of the game's violence level, language, topics, etc.

Addiction

England's National Health Service began treating video game addiction this year, after the World Health Organization listed "gaming disorder" in its International Classification of Disease.

What makes video games addictive? Playing releases dopamine into our systems, which gives us a feeling of pleasure and tells our brain to "do it again."

As a matter of fact, video games are designed to be addictive. John Hopson, a games researcher at Microsoft Game Studios is also a doctor of behavioral and brain sciences who writes about game design.

In "Behavioral Game Design" he explained how game designers can control behavior by providing simple stimulus and rewards at strategic times and places.

Children with poor impulse control or who have a hard time fitting in are most vulnerable to game addiction. This may be because video games offer an easy way to fill the void created when real-world relationships are hard to form.

Social Replacement

Be aware of how much your children are playing video games and if it's replacing or negatively impacting other aspects of their lives.

Internet-connected games make it easy to "hang out" with friends after school without ever leaving home. But this type of virtual get-together is no replacement for actual face-to-face interaction.

Setting aside the potential problems of online predators and cyber-bullying, virtual hangouts rob kids of the opportunity to practice their social skills and to move their bodies from one house to another.

Our Role in Video Games

Video games can play a positive role in our children's lives, but we need to be there to help set limits.

If you're worried that your child is becoming too obsessed with games, then it is time to sit down and talk. Be sensitive and nonjudgmental. Try to agree on a reasonable amount of space for video games to occupy in your family life.

Enlist the help of your pediatrician if you have concerns. He or she may have great tips and can even recommend a therapist who specializes in tweens or teens.

Remember, even though video games have their place, they should occupy less time than what kids need to devote to exercising, socializing, studying, and sleeping. In our ever-more-connected world, we could all use a little more practice just being unplugged.
Signs and Symptoms of Video Game Abuse:

Falling grades

Not sleeping enough, feelings of fatigue

Free time is used almost exclusively for playing video games

Irritability when not playing video games

Neglect of hygiene

Disinterest in other activities

Increased anxiety

Reviewed on November 21, 2019 by:

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Kids have been wild about video games for decades but video games should enhance your child's life, not take it over. Get the pros and cons.

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https://www.peertechzpublications.com/articles/doi10.17352-2455-3484.000025-jamts.php

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https://www.peertechzpublications.com/articles/doi10.17352-2455-3484.000025-jamts.php

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By: Peter Grinspoon, MD, Contributor

More than two-thirds of Americans play video games, also known as gaming. While gaming can be a fun distraction or hobby (and is even becoming a competitive sport on many college campuses), there are health risks that come from too much gaming. What are these harms, and what can be done about them?

Is there anything good about gaming?

Before discussing the harms of gaming, it is only fair to mention the benefits. Aside from being entertaining and a fun pastime, gaming can provide a way for people to interact with each other - a virtual community - as they work together toward completing common tasks. Our society suffers from an epidemic of loneliness, and gaming can be a vehicle to connect with others, including otherwise difficult-to-connect-with people in your life, such as kids, grandkids, or (I've seen this be quite helpful) with autistic children, who can have challenges with traditional modes of communication.

There is mixed research that there are some cognitive benefits to gaming, such as better control of one's attention and improved spatial reasoning, though it isn't entirely clear how much these benefits extend outside of the video game sphere into the real world. Finally, video games have medical applications, such as training people with degenerative diseases to improve their balance, helping adolescents with ADHD improve their thinking skills, or training surgeons on how to do technically complicated operations.

Gaming injuries

Repetitive stress injuries, or overuse injuries, are injuries that come from activities that involve repeated use of muscles and tendons, to the point that pain and inflammation develop. If these injuries are allowed to progress, numbness and weakness can develop, and permanent injury can result. Overuse injuries of the hands and arms are rampant among gamers.

One common example is carpel tunnel syndrome, which many gamers develop. Carpal tunnel syndrome, often seen in office workers, involves inflammation of a nerve in the wrist, which causes pain and numbness.

"Gamer's thumb," which was previously called "PlayStation thumb" (or "nintendinitis" or "nintendonitis" when Nintendo was popular), occurs when the tendons that move the thumb become inflamed. The medical term for this is de Quervain's tenosynovitis, and it can lead to swelling and limited movement. Gamers are also at risk for trigger finger, or stenosing tenosynovitis, which is when a finger gets stuck in the bent position due to chronic inflammation. Gamers can also get tennis elbow, a painful inflammation of the place where the tendon inserts into the bone on the outside of the elbow.

Gaming is also associated with obesity in teens and, plausibly, the same would be shown in adults, if studied. This is due to the obvious phenomenon that if a teen is sitting in front of a screen for hours every day, he or she isn't getting much exercise. The obesity is also thought to be due to increased food intake while playing video games. According to a study in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, "a single session of video game play in healthy male adolescents is associated with an increased food intake, regardless of appetite sensations." The proposed mechanisms are that either the signals that indicate satiety (fullness) get impaired, or that the mental stress involved with playing video games activates the reward centers, which leads to increased food intake.

Vision problems are common complaints of gamers. The most common vision problem is eye strain, which can lead to headaches and poor concentration. Gaming has been reported to result in seizures, leading to warnings on the packaging.

Gaming addiction

Gaming has also been associated with psychological problems. It is still an open question whether video game addiction, or internet gaming disorder (IGD), is a unique syndrome. According to the American Psychological Association, IGD is defined as experiencing at least five of the following nine criteria over a 12-month period:

gaming preoccupation

withdrawal

tolerance

loss of interest in other activities

downplaying use

loss of relationship, educational, or career opportunities

gaming to escape or relieve anxiety, guilt, or other negative mood states

failure to control

continued gaming despite psychosocial problems.

According to one study from the American Journal of Psychiatry, between 0.3% and 1.0% of Americans might have an internet gaming disorder. Treatments for this problem are a work in progress, as the disorder isn't fully understood or agreed upon, but can include public health approaches such as education and harm reduction, stricter labeling on the packaging, as well as cognitive behavioral therapy. There are even support groups, such as Computer Gaming Addicts Anonymous, which leverage the power of group support - also helpful in the treatment of other addictions - to the realm of gaming addiction.

Gaming has also been associated with sleep deprivation, insomnia and circadian rhythm disorders, depression, aggression, and anxiety, though more studies are needed to establish the validity and the strength of these connections. There has also been concern that exposure to the extreme violence that is commonly found in video games can desensitize teens and young adults to such violence, causing emotional problems and even leading to young people committing acts of violence.

Gaming in moderation

As with many other activities that have potential benefits and harms, moderation is the key. Most of the harms that come from gaming can be improved, if not avoided altogether, by limiting the number of hours spent in front of the screen, and by engaging in healthy activities like exercising, or socializing in the real world instead of the virtual game world.

Education is an essential key to injury prevention. Gamers need to be educated on how to protect their thumbs, wrists, and elbows, their waistlines, their emotional state, their sleep, and their eyes. Simple education around taking breaks, stretching, eating healthy snacks, and resting and icing your thumb, wrist, or elbow when it starts hurting can address injuries early, before they become significant. For the eyes, gamers can try the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, try to look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

In short, playing video games can be fun and a social activity when integrated into a healthy lifestyle that includes plenty of sleep, exercise, and good nutrition, rather than letting the game become your life.

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The health effects of too much gaming - Harvard Health

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While playing video games can be a fun pastime, and there are some potential benefits, there are health risks associated with too much gaming. They include repetitive stress injuries, vision problems, sleep deprivation, depression, and possibly addiction to playing.

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A gaming disorder, sometimes referred to as "video game addiction," is a pattern of game-playing behavior-involving online gaming or offline video games-that is difficult to control and that continues unabated despite serious negative consequences in other areas of the gamer's life.

Experts debate whether severely problematic gaming truly constitutes an "addiction" in the same sense as drug and alcohol addictions. But disordered gaming behavior recently received official recognition as a mental health condition by the World Health Organization (WHO), which included "gaming disorder" in the 11th edition of its International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). According to that guide, gaming disorder is marked by "impaired control" over gaming, which leads to it taking priority over other interests and activities. The gaming behavior persists even as it causes "significant impairment" in areas such as personal relationships, school, or work.

While gaming disorder is not officially included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, widely used for behavioral health diagnoses in the U.S., the latest version of the manual-the DSM-5-refers to Internet Gaming Disorder as a condition for further study.

Among the tentative criteria for such a disorder are withdrawal symptoms, such as irritability or sadness, when Internet gaming ceases; tolerance, or an increasing need for gaming; deception about the amount of one's gaming; and failed attempts to control one's gaming.

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A gaming disorder, sometimes referred to as "video game addiction," is a pattern of game-playing behavior-involving online gaming or offline video games-that is difficult to control and that continues unabated despite serious negative consequences in other areas of the gamer's life.

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Since its commercial birth in the 1950s as a technological oddity at a science fair, gaming has blossomed into one of the most profitable entertainment industries in the world.

The mobile technology boom in recent years has revolutionized the industry and opened the doors to a new generation of gamers. Indeed, gaming has become so integrated with modern popular culture that now even grandmas know what Angry Birds is, and more than 42 percent of Americans are gamers and four out of five U.S. households have a console.

The Early Years

The first recognized example of a game machine was unveiled by Dr. Edward Uhler Condon at the New York World's Fair in 1940. The game, based on the ancient mathematical game of Nim, was played by about 50,000 people during the six months it was on display, with the computer reportedly winning more than 90 percent of the games.

However, the first game system designed for commercial home use did not emerge until nearly three decades later, when Ralph Baer and his team released his prototype, the "Brown Box," in 1967.

The "Brown Box" was a vacuum tube-circuit that could be connected to a television set and allowed two users to control cubes that chased each other on the screen. The "Brown Box" could be programmed to play a variety of games, including ping pong, checkers and four sports games. Using advanced technology for this time, added accessories included a lightgun for a target shooting game, and a special attachment used for a golf putting game.

According to the National Museum of American History , Baer recalled, "The minute we played ping-pong, we knew we had a product. Before that we weren't too sure."

The "Brown Box" was licensed to Magnavox, which released the system as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. It preceded Atari by a few months, which is often mistakenly thought of as the first games console.

Between August 1972 and 1975, when the Magnavox was discontinued, around 300,000 consoles were sold. Poor sales were blamed on mismanaged in-store marketing campaigns and the fact that home gaming was a relatively alien concept to the average American at this time.

However mismanaged it might have been, this was the birth of the digital gaming we know today.

Onward To Atari And Arcade Gaming

Sega and Taito were the first companies to pique the public's interest in arcade gaming when they released the electro-mechanical games Periscope and Crown Special Soccer in 1966 and 1967. In 1972, Atari (founded by Nolan Bushnell, the godfather of gaming) became the first gaming company to really set the benchmark for a large-scale gaming community.

The nature of the games sparked competition among players, who could record their high scores ... and were determined to mark their space at the top of the list.

Atari not only developed their games in-house, they also created a whole new industry around the "arcade," and in 1973, retailing at $1,095, Atari began to sell the first real electronic video game Pong, and arcade machines began emerging in bars, bowling alleys and shopping malls around the world. Tech-heads realized they were onto a big thing; between 1972 and 1985, more than 15 companies began to develop video games for the ever-expanding market.

The Roots Of Multiplayer Gaming As We Know It

During the late 1970s, a number of chain restaurants around the U.S. started to install video games to capitalize on the hot new craze. The nature of the games sparked competition among players, who could record their high scores with their initials and were determined to mark their space at the top of the list. At this point, multiplayer gaming was limited to players competing on the same screen.

The first example of players competing on separate screens came in 1973 with "Empire" - a strategic turn-based game for up to eight players - which was created for the PLATO network system. PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operation), was one of the first generalized computer-based teaching systems, originally built by the University of Illinois and later taken over by Control Data (CDC), who built the machines on which the system ran.

According to usage logs from the PLATO system, users spent about 300,000 hours playing Empire between 1978 and 1985. In 1973, Jim Bowery released Spasim for PLATO - a 32-player space shooter - which is regarded as the first example of a 3D multiplayer game. While access to PLATO was limited to large organizations such as universities - and Atari - who could afford the computers and connections necessary to join the network, PLATO represents one of the first steps on the technological road to the Internet, and online multiplayer gaming as we know it today.

At this point, gaming was popular with the younger generations, and was a shared activity in that people competed for high-scores in arcades. However, most people would not have considered four out of every five American households having a games system as a probable reality.

Home Gaming Becomes A Reality

In addition to gaming consoles becoming popular in commercial centers and chain restaurants in the U.S., the early 1970s also saw the advent of personal computers and mass-produced gaming consoles become a reality. Technological advancements, such as Intel's invention of the world's first microprocessor, led to the creation of games such as Gunfight in 1975, the first example of a multiplayer human-to-human combat shooter.

While far from Call of Duty, Gunfight was a big deal when it first hit arcades. It came with a new style of gameplay, using one joystick to control movement and another for shooting direction - something that had never been seen before.

As home gaming and arcade gaming boomed, so too did the development of the gaming community.

In 1977, Atari released the Atari VCS (later known as the Atari 2600), but found sales slow, selling only 250,000 machines in its first year, then 550,000 in 1978 - well below the figures expected. The low sales have been blamed on the fact that Americans were still getting used to the idea of color TVs at home, the consoles were expensive and people were growing tired of Pong, Atari's most popular game.

When it was released, the Atari VCS was only designed to play 10 simple challenge games, such as Pong, Outlaw and Tank. However, the console included an external ROM slot where game cartridges could be plugged in; the potential was quickly discovered by programmers around the world, who created games far outperforming the console's original designed.

The integration of the microprocessor also led to the release of Space Invaders for the Atari VCS in 1980, signifying a new era of gaming - and sales: Atari 2600 sales shot up to 2 million units in 1980.

As home and arcade gaming boomed, so too did the development of the gaming community. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw the release of hobbyist magazines such as Creative Computing (1974), Computer and Video Games (1981) and Computer Gaming World (1981). These magazines created a sense of community, and offered a channel by which gamers could engage.

Personal Computers: Designing Games And Opening Up To A Wider Community

The video game boom caused by Space Invaders saw a huge number of new companies and consoles pop up, resulting in a period of market saturation. Too many gaming consoles, and too few interesting, engaging new games to play on them, eventually led to the 1983 North American video games crash, which saw huge losses, and truckloads of unpopular, poor-quality titles buried in the desert just to get rid of them. The gaming industry was in need of a change.

At more or less the same time that consoles started getting bad press, home computers like the Commodore Vic-20, the Commodore 64 and the Apple II started to grow in popularity. These new home computer systems were affordable for the average American, retailing at around $300 in the early 1980s (around $860 in today's money), and were advertised as the "sensible" option for the whole family.

These home computers had much more powerful processors than the previous generation of consoles; this opened the door to a new level of gaming, with more complex, less linear games. They also offered the technology needed for gamers to create their own games with BASIC code. Even Bill Gates designed a game, called Donkey (a simple game that involved dodging donkeys on a highway while driving a sports car). Interestingly, the game was brought back from the dead as an iOS app back in 2012.

While the game was described at the time as "crude and embarrassing" by rivals at Apple, Gates included the game to inspire users to develop their own games and programs using the integrated BASIC code program.

Magazines like Computer and Video Games and Gaming World provided BASIC source code for games and utility programs, which could be typed into early PCs. Games, programs and readers' code submissions were accepted and shared.

In addition to providing the means for more people to create their own game using code, early computers also paved the way for multiplayer gaming, a key milestone for the evolution of the gaming community.

Early computers such as the Macintosh, and some consoles such as the Atari ST, allowed users to connect their devices with other players as early as the late 1980s. In 1987, MidiMaze was released on the Atari ST and included a function by which up to 16 consoles could be linked by connecting one computer's MIDI-OUT port to the next computer's MIDI-IN port.

While many users reported that more than four players at a time slowed the game dramatically and made it unstable, this was the first step toward the idea of a deathmatch, which exploded in popularity with the release of Doom in 1993 and is one of the most popular types of games today.

The real revolution in gaming came when LAN networks, and later the Internet, opened up multiplayer gaming.

Multiplayer gaming over networks really took off with the release of Pathway to Darkness in 1993, and the "LAN Party" was born. LAN gaming grew more popular with the release of Marathon on the Macintosh in 1994 and especially after first-person multiplayer shooter Quake hit stores in 1996. By this point, the release of Windows 95 and affordable Ethernet cards brought networking to the Windows PC, further expanding the popularity of multiplayer LAN games.

The real revolution in gaming came when LAN networks, and later the Internet, opened up multiplayer gaming. Multiplayer gaming took the gaming community to a new level because it allowed fans to compete and interact from different computers, which improved the social aspect of gaming. This key step set the stage for the large-scale interactive gaming that modern gamers currently enjoy. On April 30, 1993, CERN put the World Wide Web software in the public domain, but it would be years before the Internet was powerful enough to accommodate gaming as we know it today.
Image: Wikimedia Commons/Evan-Amos
The Move To Online Gaming On Consoles

Long before gaming giants Sega and Nintendo moved into the sphere of online gaming, many engineers attempted to utilize the power of telephone lines to transfer information between consoles.

William von Meister unveiled groundbreaking modem-transfer technology for the Atari 2600 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in 1982. The new device, the CVC GameLine, enabled users to download software and games using their fixed telephone connection and a cartridge that could be plugged in to their Atari console.

The device allowed users to "download" multiple games from programmers around the world, which could be played for free up to eight times; it also allowed users to download free games on their birthdays. Unfortunately, the device failed to gain support from the leading games manufacturers of the time, and was dealt a death-blow by the crash of 1983.

Real advances in "online" gaming wouldn't take place until the release of 4th generation 16-bit-era consoles in the early 1990s, after the Internet as we know it became part of the public domain in 1993. In 1995 Nintendo released Satellaview, a satellite modem peripheral for Nintendo's Super Famicom console. The technology allowed users to download games, news and cheats hints directly to their console using satellites. Broadcasts continued until 2000, but the technology never made it out of Japan to the global market.

Accessing the Internet was expensive at the turn of the millennium.

Between 1993 and 1996, Sega, Nintendo and Atari made a number of attempts to break into "online" gaming by using cable providers, but none of them really took off due to slow Internet capabilities and problems with cable providers. It wasn't until the release of the Sega Dreamcast, the world's first Internet-ready console, in 2000, that real advances were made in online gaming as we know it today. The Dreamcast came with an embedded 56 Kbps modem and a copy of the latest PlanetWeb browser, making Internet-based gaming a core part of its setup rather than just a quirky add-on used by a minority of users.

The Dreamcast was a truly revolutionary system, and was the first net-centric device to gain popularity. However, it also was a massive failure, which effectively put an end to Sega's console legacy. Accessing the Internet was expensive at the turn of the millennium, and Sega ended up footing huge bills as users used its PlanetWeb browser around the world.

Experts related the console's failure to the Internet-focused technology being ahead of its time, as well as the rapid evolution of PC technology in the early 2000s - which led people to doubt the use of a console designed solely for gaming. Regardless of its failure, Dreamcast paved the way for the next generation of consoles, such as the Xbox. Released in the mid-2000s, the new console manufacturers learned from and improved the net-centric focus of the Dreamcast, making online functionality an integral part of the gaming industry.

The release of Runescape in 2001 was a game changer. MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) allows millions of players worldwide to play, interact and compete against fellow fans on the same platform. The games also include chat functions, allowing players to interact and communicate with other players whom they meet in-game. These games may seem outdated now, but they remain extremely popular within the dedicated gaming community.

The Modern Age Of Gaming

Since the early 2000s, Internet capabilities have exploded and computer processor technology has improved at such a fast rate that every new batch of games, graphics and consoles seems to blow the previous generation out of the water. The cost of technology, servers and the Internet has dropped so far that Internet at lightning speeds is now accessible and commonplace, and 3.2 billion people across the globe have access to the Internet. According to the ESA Computer and video games industry report for 2015, at least 1.5 billion people with Internet access play video games.

Online storefronts such as Xbox Live Marketplace and the Wii Shop Channel have totally changed the way people buy games, update software and communicate and interact with other gamers, and networking services like Sony's PSN have helped online multiplayer gaming reach unbelievable new heights.

Every new batch of games, graphics and consoles seems to blow the previous generation out of the water.

Technology allows millions around the world to enjoy gaming as a shared activity. The recent ESA gaming report showed that 54 percent of frequent gamers feel their hobby helps them connect with friends, and 45 percent use gaming as a way to spend time with their family.

By the time of the Xbox 360 release, online multiplayer gaming was an integral part of the experience (especially "deathmatch" games played against millions of peers around the world for games such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare). Nowadays, many games have an online component that vastly improves the gameplay experience and interactivity, often superseding the importance of the player's offline game objectives.

"What I've been told as a blanket expectation is that 90% of players who start your game will never see the end of it..." says Keith Fuller, a longtime production contractor for Activision.

As online first-person shooter games became more popular, gaming "clans" began to emerge around the world. A clan, guild or faction is an organized group of video gamers that regularly play together in multiplayer games. These games range from groups of a few friends to 4,000-person organizations with a broad range of structures, goals and members. Multiple online platforms exist, where clans are rated against each other and can organize battles and meet-ups online.

The Move Toward Mobile

Since smartphones and app stores hit the market in 2007, gaming has undergone yet another rapid evolution that has changed not only the way people play games, but also brought gaming into the mainstream pop culture in a way never before seen. Rapid developments in mobile technology over the last decade have created an explosion of mobile gaming, which is set to overtake revenue from console-based gaming in 2015.

This huge shift in the gaming industry toward mobile, especially in Southeast Asia, has not only widened gaming demographics, but also pushed gaming to the forefront of media attention. Like the early gaming fans joining niche forums, today's users have rallied around mobile gaming, and the Internet, magazines and social media are full of commentaries of new games and industry gossip. As always, gamers' blogs and forums are filled with new game tips, and sites such as Macworld, Ars Technica and TouchArcade push games from lesser-known independent developers, as well as traditional gaming companies.

The gaming industry was previously monopolized by a handful of companies, but in recent years, companies such as Apple and Google have been sneaking their way up the rankings due to their games sales earnings from their app stores. The time-killing nature of mobile gaming is attractive to so many people who basic games such as Angry Birds made Rovio $200 million in 2012 alone, and broke two billion downloads in 2014.

More complex mass multiplayer mobile games such as Clash of Clans are bringing in huge sums each year, connecting millions of players around the world through their mobile device or League of Legends on the PC.

The Future

The move to mobile technology has defined the recent chapter of gaming, but while on-the-move gaming is well-suited to the busy lives of millennials, gaming on mobile devices also has its limitations. Phone screens are small (well, at least until the iPhone 6s came out), and processor speeds and internal memories on the majority of cellphones limit gameplay possibilities. According to a recent VentureBeat article, mobile gaming is already witnessing its first slump. Revenue growth has slowed, and the cost of doing business and distribution costs have risen dramatically over the last few years.

Although mobile gaming has caused the death of hand-held gaming devices, consoles are still booming, and each new generation of console welcomes a new era of technology and capabilities. Two industries that could well play a key role in the future of gaming are virtual reality and artificial intelligence technology.

The next chapter for gaming is still unclear, but whatever happens, it is sure to be entertaining.

Virtual reality (VR) company Oculus was acquired by Facebook in 2014, and is set to release its Rift headset in 2016. The headset seems to lean perfectly toward use within the video games industry, and would potentially allow gamers to "live" inside an interactive, immersive 3D world. The opportunities to create fully interactive, dynamic "worlds" for MMORPG, in which players could move around, interact with other players and experience the digital landscapes in a totally new dimension, could be within arms reach.

There have been a lot of advancements over the last few years in the world of language-processing artificial intelligence. In 2014, Google acquired Deep Mind; this year, IBM acquired AlchemyAPI, a leading provider in deep-learning technology; in October 2015, Apple made two AI acquisitions in less than a week. Two of the fields being developed are accuracy for voice recognition technology and open-ended dialogue with computers.

These advances could signify an amazing new chapter for gaming - especially if combined with VR, as they could allow games to interact with characters within games, who would be able to respond to questions and commands, with intelligent and seemingly natural responses. In the world of first-person shooters, sports games and strategy games, players could effectively command the computer to complete in-game tasks, as the computer would be able to understand commands through a headset due to advances in voice recognition accuracy.

If the changes that have occurred over the last century are anything to go by, it appears that gaming in 2025 will be almost unrecognizable to how it is today. Although Angry Birds has been a household name since its release in 2011, it is unlikely to be remembered as fondly as Space Invaders or Pong. Throughout its progression, gaming has seen multiple trends wane and tide, then be totally replaced by another technology. The next chapter for gaming is still unclear, but whatever happens, it is sure to be entertaining.

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The History Of Gaming: An Evolving Community | TechCrunch

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Since its commercial birth in the 1950s as a technological oddity at a science fair, gaming has blossomed into one of the most profitable entertainment industries in the world. The mobile technology boom in recent years has revolutionized the industry and opened the doors to a new generation of gamers.

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Video gaming is a very popular activity among kids The amount of time spent playing video games has increased. Gaming is known to have some benefits such as improving focus, multitasking, and working memory, but it could also come with costs when it is used a lot.

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Video games can effect your physical health badly because it could give you anxiety and depression in players. Studies show that most gamers who are addicted to computer games have high heart beat and blood pressure due to much excitement and stress

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I have chosen this topic because it took interest to me that many people were addicted to gaming and it made me decide to try to help people stop being addicted to gaming and write what’s bad about it so they can avoid gaming but I also wrote what’s good about it. Also why I have chosen this topic is because I like gaming a lot because I usually game almost every single day. Gaming is a passion of mine that I enjoy daily but most of all I like the people that game with me but most of the time they are always online that makes me quiet furious because they are addicted to gaming so I decided to help people with gaming addiction I want to help people stop being addicted to gaming because that could cause them to be addicted to other stuff including gambling and drugs.

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Although it is not yet recognized by the American Medical Association as a diagnosable disorder, video game addiction is a very real problem for many people. According to the University of New Mexico, recent studies suggest that 6 to 15 percent of all gamers exhibit signs that could be characterized as addiction. Though this disorder can have significant consequences to those suffering from it, its signs and symptoms can sometimes be very difficult to recognize.

Are There Different Types of Video Game Addictions?

There are two major types of video games and therefore two major types of video game addictions. Standard video games are generally designed to be played by a single player and involve a clear goal or mission, such as rescuing a princess. The addiction in these games is often related to completing that mission or beating a high score or preset standard.

The other type of video game addiction is associated with online multiplayer games. These games are played online with other people and are especially addictive because they generally have no ending. Gamers with this type of addiction enjoy creating and temporarily becoming an online character. They often build relationships with other online players as an escape from reality. For some, this community may be the place where they feel they're the most accepted.

What Causes an Addiction to Video Games?

Many different causes factor into video game addiction. One of the main reasons that video games can become so addictive, however, is they are designed to be that way. Video game designers, like anyone else trying to make a profit, are always looking for ways to get more people playing their games. They accomplish this by making a game just challenging enough to keep you coming back for more but not so hard that the player eventually gives up. In other words, success for a gamer often feels just out of reach. In this respect, video game addiction is very similar to another more widely recognized disorder: gambling addiction.

What Are the Signs of Video Game Addiction Problem?

As with any other addiction, video game addiction has warning signs. It is important to know how to recognize these signs if you or someone you care about is an avid gamer. According to the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery, these symptoms can be both emotional and physical.

Emotional Symptoms of Video Game Addiction

Some of the emotional signs or symptoms of video game addiction include:

Feelings of restlessness and/or irritability when unable to play

Preoccupation with thoughts of previous online activity or anticipation of the next online session

Lying to friends or family members regarding the amount of time spent playing

Isolation from others in order to spend more time gaming

Physical Symptoms of Video Game Addiction

Some of the physical signs or symptoms of video game addiction include:

Migraines due to intense concentration or eye strain

Carpal tunnel syndrome caused by the overuse of a controller or computer mouse

Poor personal hygiene

Short-Term and Long-Term Effects of Video Game Addiction

Like any other compulsive disorder, video game addiction can have severe negative consequences. Though most of the symptoms listed above have short-term effects, they can lead to more severe long-term repercussions if not addressed properly. For example, someone addicted to video games will often avoid sleeping or eating proper meals in order to continue gaming. While the short-term effects of this may include hunger and fatigue, it could eventually lead to a sleep disorder or diet-related health issues. Similarly, those who isolate themselves from others in order to play video games may miss out on family events, outings with friends, or other events in the short-term. If this continues to be a pattern for a long period of time, however, addicts might find themselves without any friends at all.

Other long-term effects of video game addiction to consider are the financial, academic and occupational consequences involved. Video games and video game equipment can be very expensive, especially when factoring in recurring costs such as the high-speed Internet connection required for online multiplayer games. These games can also be very time-consuming, leaving addicted gamers with less time to focus on their education or career.

Is There a Test or Self-Assessment I Can Do?

The most effective self-assessment that can be done is to examine the above list of symptoms associated with video game addiction. If you find that you or someone you care about exhibits any of these warnings signs, it may be a good time to cut back on the amount of time spent gaming. If you are unsure whether these symptoms apply to you, we can help. Call our toll-free number at to discuss your possible symptoms or to learn about treatment options.

Medication: Are There Drug Options for Video Game Addictions?

Treatment for video game addiction can come in many forms, including different types of therapy or 12-step programs. Certain medications may even be able to inhibit addictive behaviors.

Drugs: Possible Options

According to addictionblog.org, bupropion is one medication that has been used recently to treat this type of disorder. The drug works in a way that changes the brain's chemistry and helps to decrease cravings for video game play. Though it has proven to be fairly effective, this option may not be for everyone. Others may choose to medicate only when absolutely necessary, treating the symptoms as they occur. For example, a gamer suffering from migraines may take medication for headaches. Likewise, an addict suffering from sleeplessness may turn to sleeping pills.

Medication Side Effects

When you take any form of medication, especially when self-medicating, it is very important to read all directions and follow dosage instructions carefully. Even over-the-counter medications can result in dependency and therefore should not be taken for long periods of time unless it is recommended by a medical professional.

Bupropion, though often helpful, is not for everyone. Some possible side effects include:

Antidepressant Drug Addiction, Dependence and Withdrawal in Online Addicts

Due to the evident link between video game or Internet addiction and depression, it is not surprising that many addicted gamers take antidepressant medication to help with the symptoms. Though most healthcare professionals consider this type of medication to be safe and effective, it also comes with its own set of risks and side effects. One factor to consider before beginning antidepressant medication is that it may be difficult to stop taking it. It is common to experience withdrawal symptoms, including anxiety, irritability, nausea and dizziness. In more serious cases, it is possible to experience depression as a symptom of withdrawal from the medication. This depression can be even more severe than the original depression, leading the patient to believe that the illness has returned.

Medication Overdose

According to the National Safely Council, unintentional overdose is responsible for more deaths among Americans between the ages of 35 and 54 years old than motor vehicle crashes. When taking any medication for addiction or any other problem, it is important to take only the amount prescribed. If you suspect possible overdose, it is important to act quickly. Options for immediate response include dialing 911 or contacting the National Poison Control Center.

Depression and Video Game Addiction

Two recent studies concerning the ties between video game addiction and depression showed an alarming correlation between the two. If you suffer from both conditions, it's important to seek help at a treatment facility that can address both issues. If you attempt to treat the video game addiction without treating the underlying depression, the addiction is more likely to recur.

Dual Diagnosis: Video Game Addiction and Substance Abuse

Because video game addiction has been linked to depression, sleeplessness and an overall lack of concern for one's own health, it is not surprising that substance abuse is also a problem for many gamers suffering from this compulsive disorder. For those suffering from video game addiction as well as substance abuse, proper treatment is imperative to recovery. If you or someone you know is currently suffering from one or both of these disorders, seek professional guidance immediately by calling us at .

Getting Help for Video Game Addiction

Recovery is not always easy, but it is achievable. Video game addiction can be just as dangerous as any other addiction and should be treated as such. The first step in overcoming dependency is being able to recognize that it exists. If you or someone you know exhibits any of the signs or symptoms described above, please don't hesitate to find help treating a video gaming addiction. Call our hotline today at to begin the road to recovery.

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Video Game Addiction Symptoms, Causes and Effects - PsychGuides.com

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Although it is not yet recognized by the American Medical Association as a diagnosable disorder, video game addiction is a very real problem for many people. According to the University of New Mexico, recent studies suggest that 6 to 15 percent of all gamers exhibit signs that could be characterized as addiction.

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Epic Games Store | Download & Play PC Games, Mods, DLC & More – Epic Games

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Welcome to Epic Games Store! Download and play PC Games of every genre. We have mods, DLC and Free Games too! Games for everyone.

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Ubisoft | Welcome to the official Ubisoft website

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Welcome to the official website for Ubisoft, creator of Assassin's Creed, Just Dance, Tom Clancy's video game series, Rayman, Far Cry, Watch Dogs and many others. Learn more about our breathtaking games here!

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Simon Electronic Game, 1978. The Father of the Video Game was also the inventor of Simon. Inventor Ralphs Baer is best known for developing the first video game system, but he accomplished far more.

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Most of the bad effects of video games are blamed on the violence they contain. Children  who play more violent video games are more likely to have increased aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and decreased prosocial helping, according to a scientific study Anderson & Bushman, 2001

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1958 First Video Game. In October 1958 William Higinbotham created what is  to be the first video game. It was a very simple tennis game similar to the 1970 video game Pong and it was quite a hit at a Brookhaven.

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A video game is any software program that can be played on a computing device. Although the nature of gaming does not require physical stamina and therefore is not limited by factors such as age, gender or fitness, it is most popular with adolescents the World Health Organization classified gaming disorder in their International Classification of Diseases

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The first ever recognized example of game machine was invented by Edward Uhler Condon at the nes york fair in 1940. The game was based on the ancient mathematical game of him it was played by 50,000 people during six months . It was on display.  With the computer reportedly winning more then 90 percent of the games

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But the first game system designed for commercial home use did not emerge until Breslau 3 decades later when Ralph Baer and his team released his prototype named the brown box in 1967. The brown box was a vacuum tube circuit that could be connect to a television set and allowed two people to control the cubes and those cube chased each other on the screen. The brown box coding could be changed a bit to pogram games including point pong, checkers, and four sport games.

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This advanced technology encouraged other people to make more things related to gaming but they changed it a bit and made accessories include a a light gun for target shooting and special attachments used for a golf putting game.

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William von Meister unveiled groundbreaking modem-transfer technology for the Atari 2600 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in 1982. The new device, the CVC GameLine, enabled users to download software and games using their fixed telephone connection and a cartridge that could be plugged in to their Atari console.

# data[].attributes.body
A video game is any software program that can be played on a computing device. Although the nature of gaming does not require physical stamina and therefore is not limited by factors such as age, gender or fitness, it is most popular with adolescents the World Health Organization classified gaming disorder in their International Classification of Diseases

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With the release of Pathway to Darkness in 1993, multiplayer gaming over networks took off, and the "LAN Party" was created. With the release of Marathon also for Macintosh in 1994 and the launch of the first-person multiplayer shooter Quake in 1996, LAN gaming became much more popular. By this age, Windows 95 had already been introduced, and affordable Ethernet cards was already available, bringing networking to the Windows PC, further expanding the popularity of multiplayer LAN games.

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Sega, Nintendo, and Atari all attempted using cable providers to break into "online" gaming between 1993 and 1996, but none of them really took off due to slow Internet speeds and cable provider problems. Big changes in online gaming as we know it today aren't made until the release of the Sega Dreamcast, the world's first Internet-ready console, in 2000.

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Experts linked the console's failure to Internet-focused technology being ahead of its time, as well as the fast growth of PC technology in the early 2000s, which led people to question the usefulness of a console designed only for gaming. Regardless of its failure, the Dreamcast set the stage for future console versions, such as the Xbox. The new console manufacturers was released in the mid-2000s.

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Since the introduction of smartphones and app stores in 2007, gaming has seen yet another rapid growth, changing not only how people play games, but also bringing gaming into mainstream pop culture in ways never seen before. Over the last decade, rapid advances in mobile technology have resulted in an explosion in mobile gaming, which is likely to overtake earnings from console-based games

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If the transformations that have taken over the last century are any indicator, gaming in 2025 will be barely recognisable from how it is today. Spite of the fact that Angry Birds has become a household brand since its release in 2011, it is unlikely to be remembered in the same way as Space Invaders or Pong are. Throughout its evolution, gaming has seen a number of patterns come and go.

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I used thinking skills in my research because I was always thinking what to search up and what to write thinking skills is really important or else I would’ve failed if I didn’t use my thinking skills thinking skills are most useful for research and writing down things without the thinking skills  nothing would make sense in this world.

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Hello, my name is Arthur I  am 11 years old and I am in year 6 this is my padlet. My passion is gaming  but to be specific it is about gaming addiction I like to talk about gaming addiction. This padlet is focusing on my LOI’s on my first LOI you will find out about the positives and the negatives of gaming I have alot more negative research to show how bad gaming is and on my second LOI you will find the connection between physical health and the mental health and lastly for my LOI 3 you will find the timeline of gaming. Further on is everything else I did including  my action learner profiles, key concept and lastly the skills

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My padlet is about gaming to be more specific gaming addiction I will talk about the negatives and positives of gaming and the benefits to. In this padlet you will find out the timeline of gaming, interesting facts about gaming, how gaming can effect you physically and mentally. All of this information will be in different parts of my padlet click on my first LOI to get started with my website

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I was an inquirer in my exhibition because I wanted to learn about this topic and know more and I went to a lot of different websites to inquire more about gaming I'm inquiring into gaming by doing a lot of research while writing this all up to remember this all and i'm really curious about gaming because this topic is my passion and its really interesting got research

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I am a risk taker because I have never done this before in my life and helping other people out and risking my own fun doing this because I'm spending a lot of time on this and that is risking my fun also in my action I was a risk-taker because I was trying to become a therapist to help other people that have an addiction in gaming and that s new thing I have never done before

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because I always think about what I'm going to write do and everything else in my opinion I think this is the most important learn profile because everyone has to think before they do things in every single LOI I was a thinker because I was thinking what research to write down and wrote down the correct research I found. Everyone need to think before doing anything or else you would probaly get it wrong

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I was knowledgeable because I had a lot of knowledge in my brain while doing this exhibition so I used my knowledge to write down everything I also used knowledgeable in my action because I used my knowledge to tell the people why u should stop being addicted to gaming and how to slow down you gaming addiction

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I was reflective because I looked back on what I did wrong and I corrected my mistakes and I also wrote a lot of reflection so I could remember what I did and form all this information I reflected on how should I do this in my opinion I think reflective learner profile is the second most important learner profile because you always need to reflect on what you do to learn form it that’s also why making mistakes could help you.

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LOI 1: positives and negatives of gaming (perspective )

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LOI 1: positives and negatives of gaming (perspective )

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I chose perspective because it’s how everyone sees gaming some people see it as a bad thing and another people see it as a good thing but in this LOI you will see both of the positives and the negatives but for some people the positives are negatives for them and it’s their perspective on gaming. Everyone has a different perspective on gaming because some people find it a bad thing and others a good thing. My LOI could only be about the negatives or some people and to others only the positives.

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This could happen if you game for 20 years you could  turn into a hunchback and look really bad

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In 1976 may not have been the absolute dawn of  video games , but it was certainly the dawn of moralizingabout games. That was the year Exidy re-worked its arcade title Destruction Derby as Death Race, tying it to recent cult hit Death Race 2000—and receiving blow back of the National safety Council in the process. The next few decades would see every imaginable variation of they're-warping-the-children handwringing, but none of it was able to slow the growth of gaming.

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In 20 years of gaming this could happen to you

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In 20 years of gaming this could happen to you

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Indent skull form pressure and over use of headphones
Dark circles from sleep deprivation and excessive screen time
Hunched back poor posture over time
Obese from increased food intake  and lack of exercise
Pale skin deficiency in vitamin b12 and d
Playstation thumbs repetitive strain from excessive use of controller
Bald patches lack of sunlight and vitamin d
Bloodshot eyes irritation from staring at a monitor
Hairy ears lack of air circulation
Rounded shoulders from lack of movement
Eczema stress induced
First person shooter excessive use of mouse and keyboard
Trigger fingers repetitive strain injury

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In  years of gaming addiction this could happen

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In  years of gaming addiction this could happen

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Dark circles from sleep deprivation
Obese from increased food intake and lack of exercise
Pale skin not enough vitamin d
Hunched back poor posture over time
Indent skull from pressure over use of headphones
Bald patches lack of sunlight
Eczema stress induced
Hairy ears lack of air circulation
Bloodshot eyes irritation from staring at a monitor
Rounded shoulders from lack of movement

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In  years of gaming addiction this could happen

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In  years of gaming addiction this could happen

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Dark circles from sleep deprivation
Obese from increased food intake and lack of exercise
Pale skin not enough vitamin d
Hunched back poor posture over time
Indent skull from pressure over use of headphones
Bald patches lack of sunlight
Eczema stress induced
Hairy ears lack of air circulation
Bloodshot eyes irritation from staring at a monitor
Rounded shoulders from lack of movement

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LOI 2: connection between physical health and mental health in gaming (connection)

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LOI 2: connection between physical health and mental health in gaming (connection)

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I chose connection because it it is connected to gaming the physical and mental health why is it connected with gaming and how is it connected with gaming i what my LOI 2 is about. It is the connection between you mental health and physical health. This key concepts is really obvious because the word connection is in the LOI

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LOI 3: Inquiring into the history of gaming (change)

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LOI 3: Inquiring into the history of gaming (change)

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I chose change because this is the timeline of gaming and its changing ever single day time by time is changes that’s why I chose change also I chose change is because the history of gaming is really different from gaming right now so it changed quiet a lot in the year we are in. Change would make a lot of sense in this LOI so that’s why I chose change

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I used social skills doing my interview because I talked to them and that takes my social skills I had 7 interviews that means I used my social skills a lot also in my action I tried to become a therapist and help other people by talking to them about their addiction in gaming I told them to try to lower your time while playing and that takes social skill to help other people because some people would not like to help because they are not using their social skills.

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In my opinion I think research is the most important in this exhibition because this exhibition is all about research we are supposed to learn  about our exhibition I used my research skill in everything because all of these facts I have is because of my research skills I use my research skills to make this whole entire exhibition and also research skills are good for learning about a single topic because you are researching about that topic so it is considered research

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I used communication skills in my interviews because I talked to all the people that I interviewed  and I’m using my communication skills to talk to them. Communication skill is something that you use every single day because communication skills in practically just talking so I did that also for my exhibition I talked to other people to know more about my exhibition so I used my communication skills to talk to them.

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I used my self Management skills to plan what I’m going to do in the day I used my self management skills while making my calendar so I can organise myself and that is using my self management skills I also use my self Management skills

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He was the first person I interviewed because he lives in the same house as me and he used to be addicted to gaming so I asked him questions about his gaming addiction he and severe damage in his life because of the gaming he doesn’t have good eye sight as before and his mental health also changed a bit because before he was really peaceful likes to meditate but after he not so peaceful he can’t stay still because gaming you usually don’t move

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In my action I tried to be become a therapist with two other people. their names are Afonso And Leopold we did it on a zoom but before that we made posters so we could put it around the park and the internet for the people we started it at 5 o clock on 26 may when we joined our meeting  and we saw a person inside he had a gaming addiction so we asked him questions how bad his gaming addiction was and he answered he usually played 8 hours a day  so Afonso and I told him some thing he could do to stop the gaming addiction after that he had to go and then we waited for the next people when the next person came Leopold had to do the speaking and then the next person came his name was Micheal he had the same problem so we answered with the same thing because he couldn’t go outside and everything like that after that and then more people came then the zoom ended after we gave them all the information they needed about ganing

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Both of my mentors weren’t addicted to gaming they both liked gaming but didn’t play a lot each day for my first mentor his name was Ivan I interview about the mental impact that video games gave he said his attitude changed a lot and he regret playing video games online because he usually screams a lot and for my other mentor Rohit I asked him about his physical changes in gaming and he answered that when he is not moving he usually feels like he needs to move because he didn’t move a lot when he was gaming.

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I asked him about what he did for gaming in general because he used to be addicted to gaming but not really he said he was borderline addicted right after working he played games and didn’t do anything else except eating food. His daily routine would be going to work then straight to gaming but he maintained his weight he didn’t get over weight or got skinnier but during that period his pants size got bigger.
When he was addicted he usually liked to read books.

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I asked for an interview but they replied with this

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Thank you mentors for helping me in this exhibition without them I wouldn’t be able to complete my exhibition especially both my mentors their names are Rohit, Ivan and mr Larry