Negative Health Effects of Video Games Caitlin M

Negative Health Effects of Video Games Caitlin M Media Studies 20

Video games can impact someone’s health in many different ways. These are mostly negative and are things you need to be aware of before you think of playing video games for long periods of time or very often. These health effects include: Muscle Pain Seizures Obesity Lack of Vitamin D Lack of Sleep Addiction Mental Health Disorders Aggressive Behaviours Bad Eyesight The Negative Effects

Muscle Pain Many people who play video games for long periods of time may notice that they have pain in their neck, forearms, hands, or wrists because they are constantly being used and the muscles are uncomfortable to be used in that way. This happens when you play video games for hours and hours with little breaks or none at all.

Seizures happen when someone has epilepsy, which is a brain condition that makes you appear to be somewhat shaking and sleeping. Video games can cause seizures because when you are staring closely at the screen and there are flashing lights or flickering pictures, someone with epilepsy might start having a seizure.

Obesity While playing video games, people tend to sit in one spot for a very long time and if this is done on a daily basis, it might cause you to become overweight if you don’t play games where you are actually moving around. Sitting around, potentially eating, and no physical activity are the main causes of obesity. Chances are by playing video games, you are doing all three.

Lack of Vitamin D Our main source of vitamin D comes from the sun. However, sitting inside playing video games doesn’t give you much time in the sun. Having a lack of Vitamin D can cause rickets, which is when your spine and legs change their shape because your bones are weaker. Vitamin D is important for your bone, lung, and brain health so it is an important vitamin to have in your body, so that means it is important to go outside in the sun every once in a while.

Lack of Sleep Gamers spend about 4. 6 nights a week playing video games and on average, 36% of those nights end up being late nights. This means gamers get about 101 minutes of less sleep than usual. All that screen time has also proven that how you sleep is affected. The quality of your sleep is much worse because of how much light there was from the screen and all the graphic images they may have seen.

Addiction Most people don’t think you can be addicted to things such as video games, but you can. People who create video games do research on what gamers really enjoy and then they make it high energy and interesting so you don’t ever want to stop playing. They play more and more until they can’t stop so they become addicted because they are so used to playing constantly.

Mental Health Disorders Playing video games can cause mental health disorders such as depression or anxiety. When you are playing video games, you tend to be lonely as most of the time you are only talking to other online gamers that you don’t actually know. You are likely to get lonely because of this, which could make you sad or worried because you feel you don’t have anyone that is actually there for you. You may not realize you have it, but it can be very common in gamers because of the loss of in-person friends.

Aggressive Behaviours Violence is video games is very common and this may cause some younger kids to think it is normal to act in that way, so they may become very aggressive towards others because they can’t tell the difference between a game and reality. Therefore, it makes them think violence and being aggressive towards others is okay.

Bad Eyesight Video games come in many different qualities and some are very bad. All the pixels and lighting can be bad sometimes and that can hurt your eyes, which can slowly make your eyesight worse. If you are playing in the dark, it can also be hard on your eyes to look in between the dark and light and just looking at the screen for so long in general if you aren’t taking breaks. The flashing can also be hard on our eyes as they have a hard time focusing sometimes when it is moving so fast.

Are Video Games BAD For You?

Bibliography https: //www. raisesmartkid. com/3 -to-6 -years-old/4 -articles/34 -the-good-and-badeffects-of-video-games https: //www. healthcentral. com/slideshow/ways-video-games-are-bad-for-yourhealth https: //www. rebuildyourvision. com/blog/vision-conditions/computer-visionsyndrome/how-do-video-games-affect-your-vision/