By SHAYLEE DENHAM
Staff Writer
Have you ever decided to play your favorite game for a few hours and later looked at the time to realise you’ve been playing all day? Luckily so have thousands of people. Video games are fun to play and sometimes can be described as addicting. Many parents over the years have shared their concerns with the addicting aspects of video games and have tried to stop their children from getting addicted. Video games; however, is just as addicting as screen times on phones (don’t tell your facebook loving relatives this).
What makes screen time/videogames so addictive? Well, it all comes down to a specific hormone called dopamine. Because video games and phones are interesting and catch our attention our brain releases dopamine, giving us that “feel-good” chemical that makes our time on screen and playing games feel like an achievement/success.
Because it is in our nature to want to receive the feeling dopamine gives us, we become addicted to aspects that help us release this chemical. This makes video games and time on our phones hard to put down.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, new technology for education and entertainment is exciting and has improved our quality of life; however, it is spending excessive amounts of time on screen that makes the addiction negative. Video Games are fun and entertaining, as long as you can stay productive throughout the day playing games should not be an issue, just watch out for its addictive aspects.