Editor, The News:
Re: The Envy of all gamers (The News, July 29).
Ben deMunck may be “The Envy of all gamers,” but there’s another side to being cloistered up indoors in front of a computer screen for long hours at a time: addiction.
The creators of these games design them to be addictive. Typically, the more you play, the higher your character increases in status. But to maintain this, you must play even more. It snowballs easily.
Of course, not everyone who plays these games is addicted, but many are. For those of us on the other side of the addiction, it’s often difficult or impossible to have a healthy or fulfilling relationship with the gamer.
This compulsion can and does harm relationships, end marriages, and break apart families.
Sure, it’s not all bad: many can and do self-regulate.
But it saddens me that so many people can’t tolerate life without near constant entertainment.
That escapism is often more important than reality; that children must be plugged into their devices in the car, at the dinner table, at the store, in order to be tolerated or placated; that so many people prefer the avatars in the virtual world to the real human bodies in the next room; or that so many people feel they can’t explore their neighborhoods without a screen in front of them.
Call me a troglodyte, but we have never been so connected and disconnected all at the same time.
Danielle Raymond
Maple Ridge