Teenagers Using Video Games As A Way To Escape Stress

Darkness eats through the room, as images flash from a television/monitor onto a teenagers glasses. His eyebrows draw closer and his hands grip the controller tighter. Furiously his fingers moved through the controller, moving joysticks, and pressing buttons. The room reeks of unwashed clothes and expired food. Shelves above his monitor are lined with energy drinks, the clock reads 3:57AM and he is still awake. On his left math worksheets and half finished english assignments lie on the desk.

This is the life of nearly 84% of teenagers in UWCSEA.

The regular middle schooler or freshman from UWCSEA spends about 8-10 hours on average playing video over the weekends. But did you know that 87.4% of gamers here at UWCSEA say that they use video games the escape the stress in life.

“However this is not the best/most principled decision” says mentor Chris Ihara currently teaching at UWC. “When escaping reality they have no idea how much time has passed since they turned on their game console or computer” says national counceller James Ostein. After their gaming session is finished and they tune back into “reality” and notice how little time they have before the next test/assignment is due. So it becomes clear that video game causes more stress for teenagers. And so video games, even though scientifically proven as a way to release stress, only release stress in the short term and has consequential and powerful long term effects -including dropping grades, friendship problems health etc. This stress is being caused by constant demands of teachers to turn in assignments and test, and confused kids using video games as a way to escape this reality is giving giving students worse and worse grades and other issues like health problems.

According to stress expert Doctor Kathleen Hall the CEO of The Stress Institute “Not only does video games impact our studies and cause higher stress levels, but it also impacts our health, for example lack of sleep, radiation on the going through the eye and into the brain as well as other harmful effects”. This suggests that not only are teenagers gaining higher levels of stress after gaming, but it's also impacting kids health. Radiation from the TV can often cause migraines, after an intense gaming session for a long time and sometimes also short periods. This evidence is significant because it reveals that teenager’s health is also being impacted, and there is no way to limit this, there are more than one harmful side effects from playing video games. This makes it clear that kids suffer these problems from video and this could also permanently damaged nerves in the brain suggests Discovery Science.

Returning to previously mentioned statement from James Ostein “When escaping reality they have no idea how much time has passed since they turned on their game console or computer”. Similar to health problems some readers might not realize is that not only does this issue cause more stress/health problems (such as migraines, stress on the eye etc) but depending on when the session ends it can cause harm to the sleep patterns of teenagers which would eventually lead to impact teenager’s health. Teenager Aayush Dutta from Grade 8 shares an experience, “It was the end of the week, typical Friday night I stayed in my bedroom playing videogames with some friends, and tried to release all the stress I had for the next week, from tests, and due assignments, as I played I lost track of time and pulled of an all nighters playing video games without knowing, I only went back into reality when a ray of sunshine crept into my room through the crack of my curtains”. When asked about the side effects he stated “the whole of next week I was drowsy, really tired, couldn’t focus on studies but I got through it fortunately, but I found myself doing the same the next weekend as well” This makes it clear that kids lose track of time while playing video games to release stress, and that disrupts their sleep patterns.

“This is worrisome” is what James Ostein said about this issue. Research suggests that teenagers should get anywhere between eight and a half to nine hours of sleep each night. However kids like Aayush are getting no where near that and it also spoils their sleep pattern, making them sleep during the day and stay up all night. Lack of sleep results in sloppiness with work, memory loss, speed of your brain, aging your skin, risk of death from cardiovascular disease (some deaths have happened due to getting this disease after consecutive hours of gaming) obesity, high blood pressure and other serious health problems, including heart disease, heart attack, heart failure, irregular heartbeat, and diabetes.

This evidence is revealing that hours of gaming done by many students (2 out of 5 boys in grade 8) can lead to unhealthy sleep patterns and deprivation, which eventually leads too many health issues and academic issues.

All in all many kids in this day and age are using video games as a method to escape reality, to not feel stressed. But this is wrong, and can have many consequences for them in the future for example, lower grades, health problems, and depression from not talking to anyone and just playing video games, and this should not be a lightly treated issue.

However this does not have carry on, teenagers don't have to rely on video games to release stress. Many teenagers have learnt this the hard way after growing up to become adults, they now try to pass the same message they would have loved to have. “Find ways to manage your stress, set yourself goals, work to them and then get a reward but don't use it in the wrong way” says adult now Viresh. The reward might be video games, but the time limit needs to be there. Many kids are achieving this by moving their video game consoles out of their room and into the living room. Resulting in less time spent playing these games, because than their parents will be able to tell them when to stop unlike their room which only consists of just him/her. But if that's a problem you can always set time duration on your console to let it only power on for a certain amount of time.

Returning to the stress issue that makes many of the gamers play video games on the first hand you can try to manage your stress by, controlling what you can, find out where the stress is coming from and if you can change it for example if you have an assignment due, use applications like concentrate to block you from getting distracted for hours which will give you less time to complete the assignment and add more stress, and finish the work in the allotted time you have given yourself and than do whatever you want.

Another important strategy that is used by many students is visiting a local councellor, it doesn't have to be at some fancy place, there are counselors available in most schools, so tell them to make use of the opportunity, teenagers can talk to them about their stress, what they do to escape it (playing video games in this article) and get feedback on better ways to manage their stress from the experts!