Computer addiction

graphic Nastya(R)

Computer is one of the greatest inventions of the mankind. It helps people a lot in their work and life. But it also has become a problem of addiction to it. Although there are addicted adults, the majority of addicted are children and teenagers.
One of the most serious problems is playing games. Now many teenagers spend a lot of timeplaying, some of them even whole evening, weekends, holidays. They even miss lessons and do not do homework to have more play time. They lose interest to sport and hobbies.
Here is the extract from the article "Insidious friend" by Tatyana Zaykova, LNTU psychologist,

that we translated into English.

"By today computer technology reached so high level that it allows programmers to create very realistic games with good graphics and sound. With every step in computer technology development the number of gamers grow. Their most important activity is playing computer games, as a result their social contacts are very few. Such interest is like illness, because we can see psychological dependence. That is why psychologists have more and more clients from people who find it difficult to stop playing. We can say that the whole class of computer fans is forming in the society. Most of them have psychological problems: not satisfaction with themselves, loss of sense of life and human values. Instead, such people can be superheroes in virtual world, very successful ones. This hero is respected, which is not easy to achieve in real life.
The more a person plays the more contrast he feels between his real individuality and virtual one. Games turn into the means of "solving" life problems, which is escaping from them. This way the mechanism of psychological dependence is formed. By the way, addiction to role computer games is more serious than other games. Gamer is similar to drug addict and needs everyday dose, for some it is 30 minutes a day, for some one hour and for some much more.
We can only guess to what result this state of things can bring the whole humankind in several years. "

Teenagers who like to play computer games, start give more and more time to this activity.
With development and availability of Internet, it became type of addiction too. Internet is good invention but it also causes problems. Many teenagers start to prefer communication with virtual friends and spend more and more time on it. Virtual communication is much easier but as result, teenagers have poor social life.

Computer addiction is not easy to treat. It can have bad consequences on future. It will become more serious with time and teenager will take it into his future life, where he will have problems with job, building his own family.

If you play, it must be only half hours per day. If you feel that you can not live a day without playing, or if you play many hours and it is difficult for you to stop for doing other activities, you must consult specialists, because it is start of addiction that is easier to treat at early stages.
Many cases known that people were taken to hospitals by force, because they could not stop for days.

You shound use computer for study and development purposes. Real life is much more interesting than virtual life!

We thank Tatyana Eduardovna Zaykova for permission to translate her article.