In college, students are mostly concentrated on their lectures and home assignments: they attend seminars, work on projects, write papers, and perform exercises. The workload is huge, and sometimes you need to put off your rest and work on your assignments a little more. This approach can be good for your academic performance but may negatively impact your health, leading to stress. In these cases, young people either blow out or look for an answer to the question, «Who can write an essay for me?.
When you have an option just to order essay, you have more time for yourself: it can be a gym, parties, movies or playing video games. In fact, the last one is one of the popular activities: it is so enjoyable that students forget about time and end up playing several hours. In some cases, it leads to gaming addiction when nothing but gaming matters. In this article, we will discuss the effects of online games to students and observe helpful ways on how to stop computer games addiction.
Game addiction and reasons to be concerned
In fact, there is nothing completely wrong with video games on your PC. You can play after classes to freshen your thoughts after a long day in college. But it may come to the point when you start thinking, «I have people who can do my essay so that I may play more.
It’s okay. It may be okay first, but if it happens too often, you might have a gaming disorder. Scientifically, it means that the person will keep engaging in particular behaviors or activities, even having a negative impact that outweighs all benefits. In some cases, you wouldn’t stop even if you wanted to. According to statistics, around 9% of college students play video games so often that it does harm to their lives.
Around 5% of them feel bad when they are not playing, or someone tries to control their playing. More than 3% have already lost friends or ruined relationships because of addictive computer games. Now over 2 million students in the US are addicted.
Of course, computer games are not all that bad, and they are not always a problem: they can relieve stress, enhance memory, coordination, problem-solving and creativity. They also give a perfect opportunity for socialization. However, with the increase of eSports popularity, there are more cons than actual pros here:
- On average, a student can play from five to eight hours a day which equals to a full-time job;
- There is less time for studies, friends, dating and networking opportunities;
- Lack of sleep and serious health problems;
- Your grades go lower, and you miss out on learning opportunities;
- With unsatisfactory academic progress financial debts are coming;
- You can lose scholarships and drop out of college.
If you feel that you are having a problem with video games, you can always make use of campus resources like mental health centers or anonymous organizations of online gamers. If you are not ready for it now, you can make some changes yourself:
Admit the problem
This is the first step to changing your life. You need to understand that you have a problem, it takes off your life and you have to control it;
Set a time
To avoid the temptation, set yourself a specific time (for example, two hours a day) and put it away once all the time is over. Thus you don’t give up playing, but limit your time;
Ask a friend
Do you have someone you play video games with? Your friend, roomie, an online friend (providing they play reasonable limits). Ask them to help you control your passion;
Add more limits
Don’t play much before you go to sleep, don’t play if you feel that can be left behind in studies and don’t play if you have a chance to go out and hang out with real people;
Don’t prioritize
No matter how interesting video games can be, try to find something which is more engaging (not drugs and alcohol, please). Find something in real life that attracts you as much. It can be a hobby, sports or any other thing;
Make it a reward
Play games only if you have done all the chores, homework if you received a good grade or completed a paper. Whatever you like, make gaming a reward for any achievements you make;
Control your finances
Set a limit of money you can spend on video games and related to it stuff. Thus you can save money; playing without upgrades may become harder, and you can try to manage your addiction.