Computer Games: The Potentially Detrimental Activity

Computer Games Are Addictive

Quite a few Americans have grown up playing computer games – mostly for pleasure, mostly alone – and
they’ve wasted a lot of time, and a lot of their health and money, doing it, too. True, some computer games
may develop the user’s reasoning skills, their ability to solve problems and so on. Perhaps this is the case, but
playing computer games can also have a detrimental effect on a person – especially if they are consumed by
the activity to the point they neglect their everyday responsibilities and their well-being. The overuse of
computer games affects a person negatively on quite a few levels, mostly one’s physical, mental and emotional
health, but also their finances. This is not to say that playing computer games alone is bad for a person;
however, when it begins to affect a person’s life in a negative way, it becomes a problem, and it’s a problem
our society must acknowledge and work hard to fix.

To begin with, let’s take a look at how the overuse of computer games negatively affects a person’s physical
health. For one, consider the activity itself. Rarely are computer games played standing up or moving around;
they are done mostly sedentary – and encourage a sedentary lifestyle. A person consumed by computer games
spends a great deal of their leisure time sitting down. This makes for bad cardiovascular health, which means
potential heart problems and strokes – and of course obesity, which causes premature death in a person. Since
people in our society spend more and more of our time sitting, because technology controls our lives, it is
increasingly important to live a healthy lifestyle with daily exercise. Sitting too long is bad for us, and that is
precisely why the overuse of computer games is bad for a person’s health.

Computer Games are Time-Consuming

?omputer games can be detrimental to a person’s mental and emotional health, a negative side effect of this
time-consuming activity. Even if they enjoy playing the computer game, the user will eventually start feeling
lonely, unfulfilled and out of touch with reality. This may lead to depression and anxiety, a feeling of
hopelessness, unless they begin incorporating healthier activities into their daily life – such as volunteering,
exercising, hanging out with friends or reading. But this is quite a challenge when a person is engulfed in such
an unhealthy, time-consuming, yet much enjoyable, activity. That is much of the problem: computer games
can be a lot of fun to play, so much that people will forgo human interaction and a healthy lifestyle just to
continue playing the game. At this point, it almost becomes an addiction – and addictions always have
negative outcomes.