A Virtual Poison

While most business establishments come to suffer in the middle of their bankruptcy and struggle just to rescue their drowning stocks and profits, and to gain back their popularity, one firm stands towards its goal and showers their earnings on their heads, one firm prospers as they play ear-shattering rock music inside their shops, one firm... got the answer now? Right, that firm perfectly describes a computer shop or in other aliases they are called as 'Internet Cafe' and dubbed as "Today's Most Awesome Hang-out". Well the question now is will they even reach bankruptcy or even experience a downfall in their gross earnings? From what I can witness nowadays they won't even have a day without huge earnings.

What alarmed me of these computer shops is how they greatly influence a child's innocent mind towards a mind full of violence, action, and wickedness. This is also the reason why I've thought of writing this blog that would also serve as a tool for our awakening although this message might just be very simple and might just pass through our ears and push its way to the other. Here I want to establish my point on the popularity (a popularity even increasing) of on-line games such as DotA and Ragnarok. Those online games commonly have a main objective of destroying a fortification or a citadel in order for a player to win the game, or in a parallel view, to achieve his goal. From the definition itself, what makes it to have a negative feedback in some or in a few? Let me establish my first question adressed to the 'gamemasters' out there who mostly fail to prioritize education please ponder upon this statement, Is it correct or appropriate for a child to be taught of destroying and annihilating something in order to achieve his goal? In my perception, that is what the game implies. Psychologically-speaking, a goal shall NEVER be achieved by any means of destruction, by any means of harming innocent lives, murdering other people, and ruining anything that comes to block your way. Is that what those on-line games try to implant on children's minds?

What advantages and benefits these kinds of games can give or can influence children and teens? Is there even one? Once, I asked a child who is an avid fan of one online games the same question and answered me sarcastically saying, "It's fun, and it's a form of enjoyment." On-line games can be a form of entertainment but it's somewhat like an entertainment that poisons others minds and brings out the negative trait among those who patronage these games. If they are seeking for entertainment and fun, playing on-line games is not a solution. Furthermore, there are several other forms of entertainment without destroying our minds but rather can hone and enhance our mind and our holistic being with activities such as reading, studying, engaging ourselves in sports like basketball, being a lover of art by writing journals, novels, painting, or playing musical instruments.

Any other advantages? Well if can't give any, let me turn the question upside-down and face the opposite view, what disadvantages can these games give children who glue themselves on the computer chair? On-line games truly have several disadvantages that may harm a child's well-being. Here are some of them:

An Disaster on Education. Education is said to be the foundation of every child but in today's matters, that foundation might just be a piece of crap. On-line games unquestionably destroy a child's education. In most Philippine schools, this has been a very uncontrollable problem in part of intermediate elementary levels and all levels of high school students where massive on-line gaming comes from. Instead of seeing a student attentively listens to a teacher's lecture and actively participates in class, he is very well-active in a different manner, he grins in front of the computer screen while doubly asking for an extension to the computer shop facilitator. On-line games are temptation to most pupils choosing to cut classes just because they want to reach a level and compete with his other classmates. The worst thing is, this so-called 'cutting classes' are gradually becoming more and more rampant and are even done in groups doing such unscrupulous things as climbing over a school's fence just to reach their destination. Games teach the child how to neglect their studies and to ignore their education. As a matter of fact, those who are inclined in these on-line games are said to be harvesting a very poor grade or in Leyman's terms, they usually get a failing grade.

Prodigality and Dishonesty. Online games lead children and teenagers to a life full of wickedness and wrongdoings such as lying and disobeying their parents. Most scenarios depict a child asking money from parents and telling them that he will spend it for food or for school projects but the truth lies behind his wistful grin that is, spending the money for an hour in the computer shop bonding with the online game. This is obviously a product of online gaming and what it gives and injects in a child's mind, lying.

Jumping on some other disadvantages, I tried to search for people who also have a bad feeling towards such games and ended up with finding a writer in "The Times Online" and a parent named Giles Whittel. She said, "A significant vogue in video-games, however, is to put the player not in the role of a character who combats wrongdoing, but of the wrongdoers themselves: the mass murderer, the torturer, the street thug, drug dealer or pimp. The selection of protagonist is no doubt ironic, with these strutting miscreants representing the fantasies of nerdy little middle-class boys, but when one considers the prevalence of gangs, drug dealers and teenage violence on the streets the irony doesn't seem quite so amusing." And the most remarkable and eye-catching of her statements was that games are a "colossal waste of time".

Actually these harmful things that on-line games give children and teenagers are just a percentage of a whole bunch of disadvantages like the unwise use of money, failure to accomplish more meaningful stuffs, being irresponsible and disrespectful, and other bad effects that they can give. This essay aims not to attack a particular on-line game or to annoy and to disappoint some who love to play these games, but rather to give you an idea of what these games can cause us if we embrace it too much. Let us always learn how ro moderate and to balance our ways of life still prioritizing those which can cause us goodness and can give us lasting benefits. For we shall always keep in mind that all things too much are truly a nuisance and a disaster.