By Brahim Kaddaoui, student of Gestion et Médiation Sociale, Université Mohammed Premier, Oujda, Morocco
Human beings! Known for their adventurous nature, as well as for their need for thrill and adrenaline.
People tend to seek for any plausible reason for entertainment, which eventually does contain an eminent part of our daily lives. Therefore, with these recent events, it is crucial to get attracted by something that might take the boredom away. In other words, due to Covid-19; most of the people around the globe are in lockdown because of social distancing.
#PlayApartTogether!
There are many movements that have launched their marches in order to prevent a colossal disaster, given the fact that there is already a huge deficiency in the research for the cure to stop this. Moreover, numerous people resort to many ways of chasing boredom, either by playing music; meaning playing with instruments; or even learning to play with any, playing indoor sport has been a solution to both stay healthy and busy themselves with, some as well resorted to learning how to cook and even excelled at it, and the list goes on.
But for those who wouldn’t find the inspiration, nor the interest to practice such things, they usually go to isolate themselves in their own world, with their own video games, which is the purpose of this article. The challenging playing stages, thrill in driving race cars, and the desire to defeat whoever claims to be better at any given game, generate an alternate reality to any person who starts this addiction.
And as this last word has many optimal negative meanings, I will be using the few percentages of the good side of the word to change the way people view it. When getting addicted to a game of any kind, it matters on how a person deals with the given addiction. In other words, no one should get negatively addicted to a game, but a person could get positively addicted to the graphics of the game, to the story of it all, and even to the thought and creativity that had been put to create such a masterpiece. Therefore, we cannot deny that it might burn some braincells if abused, but no one can deny that once the game is shared and played in a group, it tightens the bonds between individuals, and creates a social bubble that keeps a tremendous amount of joy and fun.
This observation made by the organization came after they’ve publicly and repeatedly announced on many reports and articles that video games are the source of mental sickness, stress increase and violence.
Nevertheless, they have backed their new idea about how positive it actually can be, as it is a two-headed sword, it could automatically turn out to be the source of a possible negative result, as mentioned before. But the problem will not just be in the addiction, it could extend itself to the multitude of people who will be distinguished from one another by willingly prefer staying at home for the only reason of; and I use the broad and familiar term that is used nowadays; gaming. Knowing that there is a high chance of that happening as soon the Covid-19 will wear off, and people will be allowed to head out. Things might get complicated for the maintenance of the conditions the world will be dealing with, which will therefore be seen and taken as an addiction.
In the present work we are going to focus on the videogames that are more beneficial and valuable in terms of education, story lines, moral lessons, the way that it can connect us with our friends and family and most importantly the videogames that rarely ever have an effectively negative side effect; for the ones who know how to deal with them.
Sport games
One of the main events of this month is COMBAT CORONA, which was raised by FIFA to invite famous Football players to stream a 1 versus 1 tournament filled with excitement and thrill. Therefore sports tend to leave a beneficial footprint on people, tightening their bonds, keeping the competition as to who is better at what game, and with what team, games like FIFA20, NBA2K20, The Olympics 2020, Mario Kart, and many others pave the path to an easily eminent field, especially when it comes to being precisely accurate, remembering some certain skills and momentums of when to shoot, when to drift, or even in fight games, when to make a combo. All of these mentioned above relate to one another, and create a link that strengthens the braincells by activating them, and managing to control the fingers in an eye and hand coordination. Knowing that sports can be played by people from all walks of life and people of all ages, the specificity of the excitement makes it entertaining more than addicting.
Story games
Video games are much known with their overwhelming storytelling. According to the literature, they have proven how stories impacts emotional, motivational, and physiological responses, it has also been reported that video games with decent stories can change health behaviors, indeed many persons claimed that certain video games changed them to a better version of themselves and made them the person they are now. Final fantasy series is one of those engaging, deep scenario games, some of them like the 6th and 7th considered to be a masterpiece, when it comes to not only the story but also in terms of character development, good plots and significant moral lessons. As time goes, those games have gotten even deeper, more sophisticated and much more diverse in terms of influences and themes.
Dave Gilbert, the founder of Wadjet Eye Games claimed that video games achieve things never been reached in other forms such as movies or books. For example the Persona series and Until dawn, those games put consumers in the experience by making the events happen with having full control of the story path. They have different endings, some of them are good and some of them are bad depending on the gamer’s decision across the story. It involves more interaction that makes the customer part of the story, by actually role-playing the main character. It is powerful when emotional events happens to that character. It has the potential to compromise a massive connection that the person would never feel in books or television series. In a point of fact, many have experienced serious emotions while playing those, including fear, excitement, joy and sadness. It’s those emotions that drive the story forward, making players want to continue playing to see what happens to these characters that they’ve grown emotionally attached to.
As mentioned above, some storytelling video games brought various moral lessons to the table. Uncharted series as illustration, where the main characters is a treasure hunter. In each time of his adventures he fails to get the treasure just by not letting down the persons he cherishes the most or just by doing the right thing to do and not being selfish. The game shows that whenever a person is obsessed or greedy for a treasure, it mostly leads him to his doom. In the end, the main character realized he found his real treasure, it was those experience, those adventures those friends he got to meet and share with them happiness and sadness. That the real treasure is something that you feel not something that you own. Eventually we can replace the word “treasure” with any kind of thing in our lives that we constantly chase and made blind not realizing the true happiness we already have.
Educational games
None around the 4 corners of the globe would want his kids to be deprived from fun and games as an educational tool, and an eminent way of developing one’s skills in dealing with multiple things as a result of video games.
This problematic has generated a bunch of questions that have an answer nowadays. As a matter of fact, with the development of video games and the loads of individuals drawn to them, new ideals and modernity phases come across their lives. Therefore, as the example of the company of NINTENDO has put on the table numerous suggestions of games that help enhance the educational, critical and highly advanced thinking skills. Moreover, those games contain riddles that support the acquisition of mathematical skills, solving multiple riddles, or even having a picturing memory. Which is meticulously required in such conditions, and in order to maintain a decent and active brain. The trick about these innovative ideal games is that they were not initially made for kids, they eventually include grown-ups as well, as we see nowadays that 7 out 10 fully grown up individuals find themselves drawn into games like these as a way of keeping their mind fresh. Since they are entertaining and they develop one’s decision making, fast adaptation and quick reflex to strategies and combos of movements, it has been proven that games do eventually develop many skills that are both needed in real life and during their gaming. As we could take the example of “ESCAPE THE ROOM”, “2048”, or even “KIDS LEARN MATH A+ Edition”. This last one is allowing kids to acquire the ability to solve mathematical cases, geometrical exercises, and also friendly animal drawings that could probably get them to be interested in wildlife, and possibly open up to that broad animal life.
How to Avoid Video Game Addiction
To restrain the amount of time spent gaming, and have everything under control, it is recommended to try these tips for both adults and kids:
1. Set time limits for playing and stick to them.
2. Keep phones and other gadgets out of the bedroom so you won’t play into the night.
3. Do other activities every day, including exercise. This will lower the health risks of sitting and playing for long stretches of time.
4. Set the parental supervision mode on, so if you enjoy gaming too much, parents could clog your way into spending more time in there.
5. And last but not least, enjoy what you do, and be wise with the choice of games you aspire to dedicate your time to.
And in the end, the best advice that could be given to anyone who would want to enjoy their time, is washing their hands and playing video games with moderation.
