Recent studies aboard show that playing computer games actually has benefits such as improving hand and eye coordination. But as the proverbial saying goes, too much of a good thing is bad (?).
While computer games prove helpful in relieving stress, it's a double-edged sword with catastrophic results. Among these are cases for cutting classes, failing grades, and anti-social and isolationism.
There's nothing wrong with sitting in front of the monitor and extinguishing the lives of imaginary creatures, they are, after all, worthy of every anger and frustration inside you, as long as these games are not your top priority.
But when a student goes beyond what is beneficial, and skips class just to challenge his peers to another match, that, of course, is already a different matter.
This is a normal scenario in general high schools but believe it or not, this actually happened in Scientia when a group of students were literally caught in the act.
The said group was reported to have been dropped off by their schoolbus in front of a computer shop ten minutes away from the school. According to the driver, the students requested to be driven there to research on their homework that apparently does not exist.
They were caught by members of the faculty eventually and were reported to the school administration.
Stress has been a commonplace in a Scientian's world. They live with it for ten months, wake up in the morning and face it, go home with it. But there are also various ways to relieve it.
There's no denying that one of them is by pressing the keys of the keyboard and abusing your finger with the many clicks of the mouse, I mean computer games.
Games widely popular to the Scientian world varies in the level of morbidity and violence that suits their taste. This includes the vivid, vicious world of DOTA, musically-inclined O2 Jam, and the classic, Counter Strike.
To a stressed out, worried Scientian, these games offer a chance for them to live in another world without worrying over the take-home Ms. X gave earlier or the grueling, mind-melting long test Mr. Z would give the next day. These games offer them the chance to momentarily forget the real world and just let their imagination roam free.
But too much of a good thing spells trouble. Aside from the radiation that would likely blind them in the future, studies have already concluded that just like the TV, computer games affect the players' attention span, decreasing them for matter of 30 minutes approximately.
In excessive playing of computer games, not only do they waste their time and through their parents' hard-earned money away, they are also distracted from doing what needs to be done… in a Scientian's vocabulary-finish their homework and study for quizzes.
We can't stop students from choosing to enter a fictional world and force them to stop doing what they're really enjoying, but we can always provide them other alternatives or distractions such as music and the arts. And since they are the responsibility of the school, the administration should not cast this problem aside and instead, should take this matter into consideration. This is no simple matter we're talking about.
Theirs was a world of fantasy and new dimensions, where they could stab and kill every monster that happens upon them mercilessly with their anger and frustration, where leveling-up was like having a grade of 100 in Physics, and everything seemed like a dream only that it wasn't.
A world of elation and disillusionment; but every war has its casualties.
Sadly, it's their future.
