When most talk about the topic of video game addiction, it usually gets laughed off as a joke or a "hobby" that most teenage guys have. I've been playing video games since I was about five years old and I've always played them for simple entertainment. Never in my dreams could I imagine a video game destroying the life of an individual or even worse, a friend.
The online video game "World of Warcraft" is one of the best selling video games ever, but it is also the most addicting video game ever. Blizzard, the creator of the game, hired psychiatrists during the creation of the game to determine how to make a game as addicting as possible. Now, many former "wow" players will complain that the game stole their lives, i mean it stole over two years of my life. In spite of this, a large majority of current and former "wow" players have one thing in common, they and myself all knew when to stop playing the game and live an active life.
This was not true for one of my good high school friends. Going into Junior year of high school, Bob (using an alias to save him from embarrassment) was an extremely athletic 17 year old kid. He had everything in front of him, a new truck, a collegiate future in baseball, and the opportunity to go to just about any college he wanted. Then sometime during Junior year, myself as well as other "wow" players tallked Bob into playing the game. At first he would go no where near the game as he knew he would get addicted just like everyone else. After pushing him, Bob gave in and purchased world of warcraft.
Lets jump ahead as Bob continued to play wow all of Senior year and first year of college. Over the course of the last two years Bob has spend at over $10,000 on World of Warcraft. He has spend this exorbitant amount of money on buying anything from WOW "gold" (the game's virtual currency") to other players accounts. During Senior year he quit baseball to focus more time on wow, and with that threw away his scholarships to schools such as Vanderbuilt. Over the last two years he has went from one having a physique similar to Vin Diesel, to now having one similar to Chris Farley. Just this past year during his first semester of college, Bob sat in his off campus apartment (his dad saw it fit that a freshman have an off campus apartment) and played wow over 15 hours a day and nearly flunked out of school.
This all leads me to just yesterday when I stumbled upon a recent picture of Bob on Facebook (as I haven't seen him since Senior year of high school). When I saw the picture I just thought it was some guy I had never seen before, but as I saw it was him that was "tagged" in the picture, I could not believe my eyes. Words cannot describe what my good high school friend now looks like. His hair is down to his shoulders (this is a guy whos hair never ran past his ears in high school) and he looks as if his clothes are five sizes too small (the same clothes that were lose on him in high school). Looking at Bob made me sit back in my chair and evaluate what was truly important in my life, what has made and molded me into the person I am today.
Reflecting back I ask myself, can a video game destroy ones life? Was World of Warcraft responsible for Bob's deterioration or was it his lack of self control? Am I wrong for thinking that his lifestyle is extremely unhealthy? Why was I so shocked when I saw that picture of him on Facebook? What can I do, if anything, to help Bob change his life?
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