Videogame Addictions. It is always good to know where to draw the line.

 

I LOVE this cartoon XD

The discourses of addiction have an extremely loaded term with a very specific definition. There are social contexts together with the wider discourse itself is getting in the way of coherent discussion of the subjects. They can be emotive and politically charged. As mentioned during class, there are different definitions and contexts of addiction combine to make the term a dangerous landscape to navigate. The chemical dependencies of addiction is that there are united in changing body and neuro chemistry, leading to withdrawal. Withdrawal itself is a specific process, which stresses the body. However, game dose not fit this model. 

Dopamine, dopamine is a neurohormone released during pleasurable events. The naturally occurring neurohormone released in the brain used to fire up the pleasure and reward areas.  People getting addicted into playing videogames could be based on several reasons.it could be feeling satisfied by achieving each goals, the narrative or storyline of the game is appealing makes you willing to keep playing to find out more. It could be the graphic of sounds etc. I have to admit that videogames are easily to addict to it. Remembering back in the days when I was little, I got so addicted to play those 6 in 1 Nintendo games. I still can remember it clearly by having get up early in the morning and stay really late at night just to play those little games. Especially Super Maoris Bros, favorite game of all time. It was interesting to see that, for me been addicted into playing videogames it helped me to do other stuff faster? When school starts, for the first couple of month when I still haven’t fully got out of my addictions of my 6 in 1 videogames, whenever I got back home the first thing I had to do was to finish my homework. So that I could play my games!  In a way, I guess addictions are something that motivates you finishing your other tasks faster.  

For me, personally I think addiction is normal as long as you know how to control yourself.  We all have some sorts of addictions, not just playing videogames, for example workaholic, shopaholic etc. There will always be a line where you cannot overdo it. I know people who can play videogames for days without moving their chair, no eating, and no drinking just full on playing. It was interesting how during class Kelvin mentioned I believe it was the game called EverQuest where it asks you to provide your information and bank details and later on you have your pizza delivered to your doorstep. 
I was a bit worried rather than be interested... Obviously the game developer doesn’t want you to play for a while and felt hungry then you would have left your chair to grab some food and during this time you might do something else and felt less interested in playing the game. By delivering pizza to your doorstep, which provides the “convenience” for the players to get up then grab food themselves, instead, you can keep playing and “we” as if the game was a realistic human being will take care all of these stuff for you. So you won’t “waste” your time on these sorts of thing.

There are also social concerns, where you might become anti-social? however people do argue that you are not necessarily "anti-social" because when you are playing MMORPG like WOW you are not the only one who is playing, there are millions of others out there play at the same time. Plus, during the play you can talk to other people so therefore it is not really anti-social… but from what I can see it… not including the people you play with online are you real life friends. Although they do exists some where on this earth, but you might no necessarily have the chance or willing to meet them in person...?  

Therefore they could your friends in a virtual world but not really in reality? But then and again, there are people forming good friendship via playing videogames or even meet up in realities. I'm respecting that.

                        

Addicting to games can be also dangerous, not only it harms your body system it might also manipulating human’s behavior. Violent videogames.  Player once sucked into the virtual reality world especially when they have the total controls over the game, they are likely to become more immersed with the game and the more they become addicted to it the more likely they will copy what they have seen or done in the game. For example, Grand Theft Auto game, the game offers the player a total freedom of an open world situation. There are also real life cases out there where people committing a crime based on their videogame influences.

 

Another point that I would like to make is the linkage of immersion and addiction. These two ideas are related, similar to the connection between Violence and Agency. Immersion is on of the traits, which sets games apart. The assumption within the historical discourse of immersion, it was a process that happened to the audience. Within that framework, it makes sense to be concerned about something ‘unique to games’, which can steal the audience from themselves. Reinforce back to Taylor’s framework of diegetic immersion, where the audience becomes unaware of the creation and relation of elements within the texts. And situated immersion is where the player is operating within the space of the game as opposed to on it, and treating it as a legitimate, lived space.  In this case, situated immersion is a less of an obvious connection to addiction than diegetic immersion. 

Therefore, to conclude, addiction of videogames could cause not just personal concerns but also social concerns. By playing games for long hours it can make a big impact on your body system and by having addicted too much or too immersed to the game you might get manipulated from the game by changing the behavior. Virtual realities are different with realities. It is always good to know where to draw the line and how stay in self-controls.