Negative Effects Of Video Games: Who doesn’t love the thrill of exciting video games? Young and old, men and women love video games. Playing video games can be a fun pastime. Your performance in other areas of your life, such as school, work, or even day-to-day activities, will undoubtedly suffer because you are unable to focus on those areas.

8 Negative Effects Of Video Games

Here are some of the side effects of video games. In this article, we look at 10 negative game effects of video games. Make sure to read this article till the end as it will be very informative and helpful. A healthy sleep pattern is important for overall well-being. Experts recommend getting 7-9 hours of sleep per day, depending on your age. However, if you play video games until midnight, that’s impossible. Sleeping a few hours or no sleep at all can make regular functioning difficult. Unfortunately, it is very easy to get addicted to video games, which can lead to various problems. Even when you make an effort to stop gaming, your mind is focused on other activities that motivate you, like watching YouTube videos or browsing social media.

Poor Sleep Hygiene

A common problem among gamers is that they don’t get enough sleep. A lack of daily sleep ultimately affects other aspects of your life. This is one of the side effects of video games. Insomnia is often the result of long gaming sessions, especially when playing late at night or with players from different time zones. It’s easy to lose “one game” which leads to “just one hour of sleep”. Many games can hurt your physical health, including poor sleeping habits. Lack of sleep also negatively impacts memory and relationships, affecting overall quality of life.

Dopamine Addiction

One of the reasons video games are fun is the reward circuitry in your brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter secreted by your brain that controls how much you enjoy video games. You experience pleasure when there is dopamine activity in the nucleus accumbens, the pleasure center of your brain. When you play video games, your brain continuously releases dopamine, with rare unexpected bursts. Your brain gets used to this constant flow of dopamine over time, and the nucleus accumbens needs more dopamine release to keep games fun.

This makes it impossible to enjoy anything that isn’t a video game. This is one of the side effects of video games. You won’t feel inspired to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, and simple tasks will feel uncomfortable. At this point, the peak of dopamine addiction is reached. It can happen when you let your gambling habits spiral out of control.

Playing a video game is not inherently dangerous. But if practiced over a longer period, it can quickly lead to health problems. These health problems can be caused by addiction to video games. RSIs (Repetitive Stress Injuries) are common among gamers. Hands and wrists often have to perform heavy and repetitive movements for hours while playing video games. These steps can lead to inflammation and injury. This is one of the side effects of video games.

Repetitive Stress Injuries

Stenosing tenosynovitis, commonly known as trigger finger, is a condition in which the finger gets stuck in a bent position. The name comes from the fact that it can suddenly bend or straighten, like pulling or releasing a trigger. Here are a few RSIs that might result from playing video games:

• Stenosing Tenosynovitis, often known as trigger finger, is a condition where a finger becomes trapped in a bent posture. The term comes from the fact that it may bend or straighten abruptly, much like pulling or releasing a trigger.
• The term “gamer’s thumb” refers to a condition known as de Quervain’s Tenosynovitis. The tendons that move our thumb become inflamed in this illness, causing pain and restricted motion.
• Overcoming can also result in another RSI called carpal tunnel syndrome. Its typical symptoms include numbness, tingling, or hand weakness. The median nerve is under pressure, which causes it. The carpal tunnel in your wrist is where this nerve travels from your forearm to your hand.

Some negative effects of video games on health

• Everyone has experienced the feeling of wasting hours playing a game, often skipping meals, or drinking unhealthy alcohol.
• It is therefore not surprising that obesity and malnutrition are risk factors for gambling. Additionally, some preliminary data suggests that children who play video games excessively may become obese.
• Eye strain is a common problem among gamers. spend hours in front of the screen. Eyes focus in a very different way on a TV screen than on any other flat surface, like a laptop.
• Because the distance is constant and your eyes know what to focus on, looking at a laptop isn’t tiring. However, on a video screen, the focus is constantly changing, which causes eye strain.
• Player positioning issues are common. When the body is stuck in one position for a long time, it tries to move to a position that requires the least amount of energy.
• As a result, later in life players tend to have rounded shoulders, a forward head, an arched back, and back and neck problems.

Dehydration and poor diet

Dehydration and poor diet are side effects of video games. If you play video games continuously for a few hours, stop eating, drinking, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Without the right nutrients and fluids, your body cannot function properly. This is one of the side effects of video games. Dehydration causes migraines and a poor diet leads to muscle loss. In the long term, a poor diet can lead to serious health problems like celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and, in extreme cases, cancer. If, due to your gambling habits, you neglect three meals a day or at least 2-3 liters of water, you will suffer negative consequences.

Physical Health Atrophy

Your body will suffer more if you walk slowly and exercise. Weight gain, muscle wasting, aching joints, and poor posture are common examples. Sitting in the same position all day can have other harmful effects on your physical health, such as chronic headaches and neck and back problems. This is one of the side effects of video games. A small percentage of gamers will develop obesity as a result of their excessive gaming, although there is a small association between obesity and video games. Heart problems and heart disease can also be caused by obesity.

For example, Jian Zihao (aka Mad-Dog or Uzi), one of the most popular League of Legends players, recently quit playing video games after being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and other health problems that can be attributed to a high-fat diet. and inactivity. He attributed these negative health effects to excessive gambling.

Toxic Areas

Men in our culture are only allowed to show one negative emotion, and that is anger. They seem overly sensitive or weak when exhibiting other uncomfortable feelings, such as guilt or fear. For this reason, men are more likely to suffer from alexithymia, especially when addicted to video games. According to a 2019 statistic on the gender breakdown on the internet, about 54% are male and 46% are female. However, there are other places, like Twitch, where men are dominant.

Many people in the gaming world believe that anger is the only emotion they are allowed to have. It follows that the toxicity of these communities is not surprising. This is one of the side effects of video games. Some gaming communities are more toxic than others. A big reason for this could be that some sports are more competitive than others and sometimes competition doesn’t bring out the best in us.

Relationship Issues Negative Effects Of Video Games

Relationship problems Negative effects of video games. Playing too many video games can lead to relationship issues, an issue that affects both gamers and their families. When people get too addicted to video games, they start neglecting other aces.

Social Disconnection Negative Effects Of Video Games

The gaming community has a serious problem with social isolation. This is one of the negative effects of video games that receive the most attention. Despite playing multiplayer games, we hardly ever interact with the players. Genuine human interaction is more likely to occur in some cultures than others. These are the exceptions, though. Your mental health can suffer greatly if you spend a lot of time alone. Humans were not intended to be lonely entities by evolution. We thrive in social settings where we can help one another.

People who are hooked to video games typically have weaker social skills than non-addicted people, according to a 2009 Iranian study on second-graders. Social contact is a talent, and it will decline if you spend most of your time alone in your room playing video games and not engaging with others in real life. That may result in social anxiety, which exacerbates the issue.