Video gaming addiction is a mental health condition which affects lots of people in the world today, and the number of addicted individuals is on the rise. There are many people who play video games, but not everyone is addicted.

There is a difference between a healthy fun gaming activity and addiction. Addiction has a detrimental impact on your life, and it should be avoided.

The designers of video games employed psychology in the creation of these games. They are created to be addictive, so that they can keep you hooked on the game.

They provide immersive experiences which supply a high level of dopamine, and when you are too exposed to this stimulation levels, structural changes occur in the brain.

Hence, you begin to reside in a world where immediate gratification is expected. Games have an immersive effect; you can play for several hours without being mindful of the fact that, much time has elapsed.

Games provide an environment which makes you feel safe, and in charge.

Someone who is addicted to games would always be preoccupied with video games. They will always look forward to the only gaming activity. With time, video gaming becomes the most prevailing activity in their life.

In addition to this, people who are addicted to games would experience withdrawal symptoms when there is no gaming in sight. These symptoms are sadness, cravings, irritability, anxiety and sadness.

Also, they feel there is an increased amount of time to be engaged in games. A good number of times, it is influenced by the finishing of a difficult goal which grants a false feeling of satisfaction.

These addicted teenagers find it difficult to control their participation in video games.

It would also interest you to know that, people who are addicted to video games would lose interest in their previous past-times, which are apart from video games.

People who are addicted to video games use it as an avenue to escape their negative moods. This happens when they are feeling sad, depressed, anxious and the likes.

When it comes to online gaming, those who are addicted usually invest a lot of time playing, at the detriment of their relationships and health. Addicted gamers span across all ages, with a minute fraction being those who are quite old. Those who are hooked on online gaming tend to put aside their responsibilities which they are meant to carry out.

Asides the fact that neglect affects the relationships of online gamers, they take much time in discussing the game, which of course, tires people out, making them individuals who they do not want to be around. It becomes difficult for them to have real-life conversations, without having to integrate the online gaming world.

It would also be difficult for them to provide the necessary support and assistance to their family and friends, because they have little or nothing to contribute. For instance, an addicted teenager would find it difficult to develop necessary social skills, because his ability to do so, has been impaired. He would not know how to make friends, how to communicate with people, except those who are just like him.

To make things worse, the society greets the teenager with a look and feeling of weirdness, which makes the teenager to withdraw to himself, and seek solace in a world where he would be readily accepted. Christian treatment centers can usually help and support gaming addictions.

Below are some effects of being addicted to online gaming:

1. Aggression: Studies have shown that those who are addicted to online gaming, tend to be more aggressive than usual, especially in teenagers. It exposes them to violence, and they take on behaviours which are not typical of their age.
2. Poor performance at school and work: Online game addicts would find it very difficult to perform well in school. This is because they would spend most nights on the internet playing games, and the next day in school, they would be inactive. The same applies to the working-class adults. A good number of them reduce in productivity because of insufficient rest each night.
3. Adverse health effect: Extreme gaming has a detrimental effect on the health of a teenager, as they spend more time playing online instead of undergoing physical exercise which is beneficial to the body. The long hours spent facing the screen also affects the eyesight of an individual.

Internet gambling is a fairly common activity that many people have engaged in, but as harmless as it may seem, it does pose a threat in some ways. To the average person, internet gambling hardly even registers in their lives, but to a gambling addict, internet gambling is a destructive trap to fall into. All the appeal that gambling has held over people for centuries is now at any internet user’s fingertips through the click of a mouse. This addictive activity has an incredible hold over many people’s lives, and can be recognized in some distinctive traits.

When internet gambling has negative consequences on a person’s life, it has become an addiction. This is the consequence that is seen the most readily. All internet gambling costs money or some kind of wager, but when a person becomes addicted to it, the money starts flowing far too quickly. It is not long before the individual cannot pay their bills and their finances are depleted. This is one way that an internet gambling addiction can become destructive.

Internet gambling can be very detrimental on relationships. It is hard for a person to retain their respect for another once they uncover their addiction, unless the addict is willing to work to defeat their addiction. Because most people go through denial over their addiction, they push their friends and relatives further and further away by going deeper and deeper into their addiction. Not all relationships can recover from the pain that addiction causes. If an addict wants to keep their relationships, it is best they work on defeating their addiction.

And lastly, a person’s health can begin to suffer because of their internet gambling addiction. The constant sitting that online gambling requires becomes hard on the body when it is endured for many hours over many days. Not only is a person constantly sedentary when they are gambling online, but the time they invest into gambling eats up their time to do much of anything else, including exercise. This deteriorates a person’s health at a rapid rate, causing weight gain, muscle loss and reduced function of the body’s systems.

Some people say that gaming and gambling are not real addictions, and that only chemical addictions actually count. This is not credible information. Addiction is present anywhere someone is overvaluing a substance or a process. Gaming and gambling online are two activities, or processes, that give people pleasure, distract them from the outside world and offer escape. They are things that people abuse by overindulging in them. Their qualifications to be classified as addictive are as follows:

• Damaging to relationships. When someone compulsively gambles online or plays video games relentlessly, the people around them who are subjected to it become resentful of it. People obsessed with these activities tune out the entire world to engage in them, including their responsibilities to themselves and to others. This becomes very aggravating to people who have to depend on them because they do not pull their weight or make contributions. They spend very excessive amounts of time gaming and gambling.
• Draining to finances. Gaming and gambling are both expensive activities to engage in. Gambling is obviously expensive, as it revolves around placing bets with money. When people begin to do this compulsively, the cost becomes astronomical. Many people do not realize how expensive gaming is as well. Someone who is gaming compulsively is investing in many games, online memberships, gaming consoles and additional gaming components. A gaming addiction inevitably costs a great deal of money.
• Deteriorating to health. Both a gaming addiction and a gambling addiction require a great deal of sitting. Overtime, this adds up to a dysfunctional body. Sitting excessively in order to game or gamble causes immense problems to a person’s health. They inevitably begin to struggle with weight gain and muscle deterioration. Severe cases of gaming or gambling addiction can even lead to blood clots forming in the legs and heart problems due to lack of cardiovascular activity.

In short, anyone who says that gaming or gambling cannot be real addictions is misinformed. These two activities, when abused and overindulged in, can cause a great deal of stress, strife and chaos to a person’s life. If you or someone you know is struggling with a gaming or gambling addiction, take it seriously enough to find help.

When we think of severe addictions, we of course think of the addictions that put people in immediate danger, such as a heroin or cocaine addiction. However, just because an addiction does not pose an immediate threat does not make it any less of an addiction. A gaming or gambling addiction, for example, can cause critical damage to a person’s life in a number of ways.

Gaming addiction typically refers to a compulsion to play video games, either alone or online with friends. Gaming may seem like a harmless habit, but when it becomes an addiction that devours many hours in a day, it is detrimental to your health, relationships and responsibilities. Because it is such an inactive use of time, the gamer will more than likely experience weight gain, a slowed metabolism and other potential health risks. They will begin to push the people in their life away through neglect and find themselves with fewer close relationships. Their personal obligations and commitments will suffer as they devalue everything but gaming in importance.

Gambling addiction is similar to gaming addiction in that it takes something meant to be a pass time and places at an exaggerated level of importance, but gambling differs from gaming in that the stakes are raised. When money is involved, there is a higher thrill and a higher cost. This element of danger is the addictive draw to gambling, and also the reason it can prove so devastating to a person’s life. Though gambling is not draining on a person’s physical and mental health the way that a substance addiction is, it can leave them in complete financial ruin, isolate them from anyone who cared for them and destroy their reputation among co-workers and peers. Plus, a person who is badly entrenched in a gambling debt may have borrowed money from dangerous people in order to finance their habit. If they are unable to pay them back, they have put their safety at risk.

Gaming and gambling addictions lead to broken, dysfunctional lives. It has been found that the brain’s dopamine production during a gaming or gambling addiction is the same as that of an addiction to a substance or a chemical-creating activity such as sex. So, while there are no dangerous biological side effects like there is to substance abuse, the addictive draw of gaming and gambling is equal in strength to any other addiction and causes the same apparent, negative behavioral shifts. For that reason, gaming and gambling addiction should be respected as serious addictions and should be treated with self-help, support groups or gambling addiction treatment.