Ever since the Atari 2600 came out in 1977, people have been accusing video games of being harmful. As the years went on and the population of gamers increased, people started to question video games a lot more. Some say “it is corrupting our youth,” or “it’s causing people to become more violent.” In all honesty, most of these claims seem illegitimate.
One of the most common things that non-gamers say is “video games are causing people to become more violent.” It’s obvious that they are referring to the games that may involve shooting or fighting. The way they think is easy to see. Their line of thinking is that the gamer may try to replicate actions that take place in the game. The truth is, games that involve fighting act as a release for somebody who may feel like they want to fight another person. Since they can’t do it in real life, they do it in the game instead because there is no penalty and it can release tension or anger.
An undeniable fact is that some gamers play their games too often. A main reason for this is online gaming. With online play growing more and more to mainstream, there are a lot of people playing games and that means a lot of interaction is made. Players can talk to other people while they play their games and make friends. The more friends someone makes, the more often they might be online because they will have more people to talk to. This is a main reason people may stay on their game consoles longer.
Online gaming is not all bad. A stereotype people often say is that people who play a lot of video games never interact with other humans. This is not true because when you play a game online, you have a great chance of making friends since there are an extreme amount of players on at one time. Although these people might live far away and you may never physically come in contact with these friends, they still really are real people and online gamers can gain social skills by talking to these people.
Video games are not always bad. It can be a way to let your feelings go or can be a way to create new relationships with new people. It depends on what games you play and how you play them.