Social impact of Game Addiction

1. Social impact of Game Addiction A4384 -Tan Zachary Yi Kai A4033 -Zaid Mohammad A4339 -Kong Yng Yng A3678 -Gavin Tham Mun Kang

2. Game Evolution As you know, computer games over the past twenty years has had a major impact on society. The effect of the gaming revolution has influence society in both a positive and negative manner.

3. What is Video Game Addiction? • Video game addiction is hypothesized to be an excessive or compulsive use of computer or video games, which interferes with a person's everyday life.

4. Signs of Addiction • When one is unable or unwilling to participate in any interests or extracurricular activities other than gaming. • If you are constantly thinking about your next gaming session, devising ways to get back to the game, abandoning former hobbies that don’t relate to video games or declining social events with personal interaction because you are spending time discussing video games on the Internet, you are probably addicted to gaming.

5. What Makes A Video Game Addictive? • The design of the video games is similar to the design of gambling casinos, which will allow players to have smaller "wins" that keep them playing. • "Hooks" for making games addictive: • The high score • Beating the Game • Completing the Game • Achievements • Role playing • Discovery • Relationships

6. The High Score Trying to beat the high score (even if the player is trying to beat his own score) can keep a player playing for hours The player will strive to get the highest score possible by being absolutely perfect and not making mistakes and achieving this requires HUGE amount of practice times.

7. Beating the Game This hook isn't used in online role playing games but is found in nearly every gaming system.The desire to beat up the game is fed as a player "levels up" or finds the next hidden clue.

8. Completing the game This falls into another category from beating the game. But first lets explain about RPG games. Role playing games allows players to do more than just play - they get to actually create the characters in the game and embark on an adventure that's somewhat unique to that character. Consequently there's an emotional attachment to the character, and the story makes it much harder to stop playing.

9. Completing the game(cont) Commonly found in RPG games (role playing games), by beating the game, you would probably have missed out on potential choices in game, that could have a huge impact on the storyline of the game. The player is then driven by a huge amount of desire to experience the game in a different way, enjoying a totally different perspective then the one he got when he first beat the game And there usually is a lot of different ways to get different endings in the game making the player spend even more time to complete the game.

10. Completing the game(cont) On the way to getting the different endings, the player will then be introduced to many more items. These items will help the player in various ways depending on the storyline. So in order to complete the game, the player would have to collect EVERY SINGLE ITEM in the game and that requires tremendous amount of effort and time as the player would have to travel around finding secrets etc. This is because the item’s that are needed for the games completion are usually dropped by monsters and the drop rate is calculated through a random number generator, the numbers can be as low as 0.01% !!! Imagine killing the same monster 10,000 times just to get a single item in the game. And repeat that for dozens of other items.

11. Discovery The exploration and discovery tactics is most often used in role playing games. The thrill of discovery (even of places that don't really exists ) can be extremely compelling.

12. Relationships Again, this is primarily an online hook. Online role playing games allow people to build relationships with other players. Players are introduced to a community most commonly known as a guild or clan. For example you can join a clan in clash of clans. This will allow a group of players to mingle with each other online.

13. Positive effects of Game Addiction Game addiction doesn’t just give out negative effects but by taking advantages of game addiction many positive effects of video games. By doing so, it could help us improve daily life and our social environment to be more friendly and open-minded

14. The Positive effects of Game addiction Pain management Stress management Efficiency/Priority Coordination and spatial recognition Pro social behavior Exercise Education

15. Pain Management Nauert PhD, R. (2015) states that video games can reduce anxiety and acute pain caused by painful medical procedures and could be useful for treating chronic pain. This is particularly true as video games require you to focus most of your senses onto the game itself thus indirectly dulling the pain you receive. It can also keep your mind of the pain as your thoughts are constantly filled with thoughts of the game.

16. Stress Management Games can also be used to reduce stress This is particularly true in a lot of cases where a student is swamped by lots of workload. Instead of panicking and being inefficient , the student will take a short break and play games This will allow the student to collect his thoughts and proceed to solve his problem more objectively.

17. Efficiency/Priority A gamer does not like to waste time. They are always thinking of the most efficient way to get things done. For example, in the game a gamer is presented with many ways to travel. This can vary from flying, travelling by sea or even using a teleporter. A gamer will tend to list down the cost/benefits of each travelling method and choose the best possible decision.

18. Coordination and spatial recognition Gamers tend to develop a habit which will enable them to improve their body coordination and spatial recognition. They are many video games which require gamers to be aware of their surrounding where they are required to work out a plan with precision and accuracy. This can be utilize in a way that would help us perform our daily life activities, work functions and playing sports.

19. Pro Social Behavior Prosocial behavior is defined as any action intended to help others. Most game addicted players are more open minded and are able to help other people easily as some games require the gamers to join with random people to accomplish goals together as most of these players will have a common goal.

20. Exercise There are some games that forces the user to move in order to achieve specific goals. For example, wii and xbox kinect. There is a common speculation from most people that gamers are unhealthy because all they do is sit around play games and just eating fast food. This is an effective method to get the users to enjoy exercise thus being healthy.

21. Education Games also promote children to learn more proactively as they are more interactive compared to books, teachers etc. During the process of gaming, the game will progressively get harder without the user knowing and this will allow the gamer to develop problem solving, decision making and reasoning skills. For example puzzle games

22. Negative effects of Game Addiction Whether the child plays video games on a portable unit, a television or the Internet, excessive gaming can affect his life. Video game addiction can be as problematic as gambling and affects players as young as 8 years old.

23. Negative effects of Game Addiction (Cont) Here are some of the Negative Effects of Game Addiction. Efficiency/Priority Education Preoccupation Health Problems Suffering Relationships Increased Aggression Poor Performance

24. Efficiency/Priority Being too efficient can be a bad thing as well. By being too efficient, the gamer’s judgement tends to waver and they began to prioritize things very differently from other people. This can be seen in many examples such as gamers skipping both breakfast and lunch just to play games since the gamers have placed gaming above eating in their priority list. This is pretty absurd as eating plays a very important part in our body function as it provides nutrients to the body. Another example of this is that gamers would also prioritize games over sleep, some gamers would even stay awake overnight just to play games staying awake for more than 24 hours.

25. Gamer dies after playing World of Warcraft for 19 hours straight 24-year-old gamer Wu Tai coughed up blood, collapsed, and died before his fellow gamers at an internet cafe during a 19-hour World of Warcraft session.

26. Education This was discussed positively in one of the previous slide but there can be negative things in education as well. A parent does not have time to moderate the games they will buy for their children, so a game with bad influence may promote negative qualities to the child. For example, in the game GTAV there are loads of swear words, killings, weapons, etc.

27. Preoccupation A video game addiction can be harmful if a child is unable or unwilling to participate in any interests or extracurricular activities other than gaming. The On-Line Gamers Anonymous website notes that it may be a sign of an addiction if a child is constantly thinking about his next video game session, devising ways to get back to the game, abandoning former hobbies that don’t relate to video games or declining social events with personal interaction because he's spending time discussing video games on the Internet

28. Health Problems If a child spends all of his free time playing video games and skips meals or loses sleep because of excessive game play, a video game addiction can negatively impact his health. Children who spend more than two hours a day in front of a television or video games in lieu of participating in physical activity may suffer from childhood obesity.

29. Suffering Relationships Relationships with friends and family members may suffer if a child is spending more time gaming than he is talking to or going out with loved ones. The On-Line Gamers Anonymous website notes that gaming may be negatively affecting your child's life if he only wants to talk about video games, lies to cover up the amount of time he spends playing, and argues with you over his excessive gaming.

30. Increased Aggression Video games that feature violent actions and scenarios may lead addicted players to be desensitized to the violence. Just like an addiction, the users will behave very negatively if their source of relief are taken away from them . This is because the user is too obsessed with their source of relief. For example an alcoholic may show signs of hostility

31. Poor Performance Long hours playing video games can negatively affect a child's performance in school if he's preoccupied with video games. He can fail to work at his optimum level because he's exhausted from a late night of video game playing. If a child devotes more than one or two hours a day to television or video games, he may have trouble falling asleep, have problems paying attention and have lower test scores than other children who don’t spend as much time in front of a television or video game console.

32. Emotional Symptoms of Video Game Addiction Some of the emotional symptoms or signs of Video Game Addiciton 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

33. Physical Symptoms of Video Game Addiction Some of the physical signs or symptoms of video game addiction include: Fatigue Migraines due to intense concentration or eye strain Carpal tunnel syndrome caused by the overuse of a controller or computer mouse Poor personal hygiene

34. Conclusion Video games can be good or bad. It all depends on how YOU as an individual use it. A parent should always moderate the amount of time their child spends on the computer to prevent video game addiction. At the end of the day, your accomplishments in the game stays in the game. Sooner or later you have to come face to face with reality and know that putting a lot of time and effort into gaming is simply not worth it.

35. References Nauert PhD, R. (2015). Video Games Help Relieve Pain. Psych Central. Retrieved on August 19, 2015, from http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/05/10/video-games-help-relieve-pain/13660.html Adminstrator of contented Writer(2013). http://www.contentedwriter.com/impact-of-computer-games-on-society/ http://www.video-game-addiction.org/what-makes-games-addictive.html Christopher D.(2015). The Negative Effects of Video Game Addiction. Retrieved on August 20, 2015, from http://www.livestrong.com/article/278074-negative-effects-of-video-game-addiction/

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