Are computer games bad for You?

Dean

27 Apr 2025 — 1 min read

The important word is “You”.

There are computer games which can help educate and inspire. They can supply experiences which are simply out of reach for many of us in the real world, like piloting a spaceship or managing a world-class football team. Gaming can also provide invaluable mastery experience to those of us who might feel unable to attain it in any other way. There are clearly positive aspects to gaming, and I feel this can be said of most technologies, but do the positive aspects outweigh the negative aspects for You? Are you spending so much time gaming and thinking about games, that you are neglecting your real life?

Consider television before the internet came along. It was one of the first technologies to help unite and inform people on a massive scale with both images and audio. However, even if you could classify every single TV programme as "good" or "bad", consider that even if you only watched TV programmes which were “good”, should you?

Personally, I still play computer games from time to time, and no longer consider them as bad for me, as long as I stick within a number of limits. However, that’s for my situation now. In the past I had a serious problem which was out of control. For you, perhaps just consider the following three questions:

* Is your own relationship with gaming a healthy one?

* What do you want out of life?

* Are you happy?

Ultimately, the time you have in this human life is yours to spend as you will. However, if you’re tired of your current lifestyle and want to do something which feels more meaningful to you, then you already know what needs to be done. It can be a daunting problem to face, but I found it easier to do so by making small changes, step by step.

Direction

Finding direction in life can be frustrating. The trouble is that every time I didn’t choose my own path, someone else chose it for me: An employer, a family member, or even my “lesser self”. By that I mean the part of me which thought it was best to

Relapses and justifications

I relapsed by breaking my own rules for gaming more times than I remember. It wasn’t just once or twice, I’m talking about years of cycling in and out of excessive gaming. For example, after I finished my studies and got busy with a demanding day job, I

Step by Step

The first few times I tried to stop gaming, I made the classic mistake of going cold turkey, feeling miserable, and then falling back into my old habits within days. After more failed attempts, it became apparent that my goal had to be deeper. I didn’t just have to

Low Point

The first time I played a computer game as a young child was a captivating experience. I was at my cousin’s house and he had a NES with Super Mario Bros. Making a little pixelated Mario boing up and down on a CRT screen is perhaps laughable compared to

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Direction

Relapses and justifications

Step by Step

Low Point