confessions of A GAME ADDICT.

Real Vs Virtual experiences....
They both have huge effects on people, it is without a doubt that if you experience reality, both good and bad, it will make you into the person you are today.  Nobody would question that.  If you are chased by dogs as a small child then you mat grow up with a fear of dogs....if you grew up with supportive, encouraging parents then there is a good chance you are a confident person today.  These real experiences are what mold and shape you, no one would advise getting out of reality because it can have bad effects on your development (maybe there is a therapy in that idea but thats for another time).

Virtual experiences.  first i want to see why they are soooo appealing to people.  If you are a school age child that perhaps is skinny, not particular strong and awkward, intelligent and not socially elegant where do you think this list of characteristics would have a child end up???? (this is where the title of the blog comes in) I can tell you from person experience it ends with a kid that is picked on in recess, not picked very high in gym class, reduced to few friends that are in same situation.  Now enter the virtual existence of computer games.... so i can spend my time being the big, strong, defender of the weak and hero to many, or spend life in the afore mentioned reality.  and THAT is why games are appealing to people.

So thats the reason why game addicts are common, because  to be completely honest some times reality sucks.  Now I put the cavat in here if your reality is bad and you do nothing about it then it will never change (thats where i went wrong i avoided instead of changed)   if you want it to change you gotta pop your head out of azeroth, everquest etc... to play a new kind of quest like "get a new friend" or "have a face to face conversation" these will improve your experience in reality so you can level up those skills.

virtual experiences:  if you are invested in the virtual life, either time spent, money spent, emotional connection, the virtual experience will have an impact.   How many times will we have to hear stories of people commiting suicide or some extreme action because of what hqppens in a virtual world.  This should be enough evidence to show how important it can become.  The major issue i feel is that having these virtual experience are not inheriantly wrong, its all about the level of priority we give them.  Example:  when people start losing job or wives/husbands because they give priority to the virtual experience, then this is an issue, they are mining from reality to feed the virtual.  There will always be reasons, if i hated my job and my spouse was miserable to live with, that would feed the urge to spend more time in virtual then real, but as i said before if you avoid life in virtual it will never get better in reality.

So i guess my opinion is that virtual experience is powerful use it wisely and it can help education, emotional skill formation.  these are good, but let it grow to surpass inportant realities and it goes to the dark side and creates the shadow of people that they use to be.