Video Games Being used as a coping mechanism?

Video games are a great way to meet new people online and relieve yourself of stress once in a while. People have used video games as a coping mechanism for depression.

You could say it’s almost like a double-edged sword. On one hand, video games offer an incredible “break” from the root of your depression

It’s a distraction, it acts as a red herring to distract you away from your problems for a while. They only make you go further down the rabbit hole and further away from the root of your problems.

They act as more of a temporary relief rather than a cure. This dependency on video games results in getting addicted to them.

Symptoms for gaming addiction can be noticed such as thinking about gaming all or a lot of the time, Feeling bad when you can’t play, Needing to spend more and more time playing to feel good, and Lying to people close to you about how much time you spend playing.

Currently, there is no scientific consensus on when video game overuse becomes an addiction. For this reason, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has classified “Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD)” as an unverified potential diagnosis that requires further review.

Do really Video Games Being used as a coping mechanism?

Studies that have been conducted to find a correlation between depression and video games, these studies were conducted to identify the long-lasting positive or negative effects of video games.

Boys who regularly play video games at age 11 are less likely to develop depressive symptoms three years later, finds a new study led by a UCL researcher.

Video games are a double-edged sword they have lasting positive and negative effects on the mental health of an individual.

They should be used as a way to relieve your stress and socialize but not as a way to get yourself a fix of dopamine.

-KVR Naidu

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