Escape the reality to establish virtual identity

Since the last lecture was about game addiction, I decided I should share my thoughts on it. The capitalist society we live in has presented us with a necessity on academic superiority and a dependence on financial security. This has inevitably formalized our inescapable boredom of our daily routine. This utter boredom and sickness of our repetitive activities sometimes makes us want to relinquish our duties and just simply quit. Despite this treasured imagination, reality is more haunting and relieving our duties for the sake of just ‘wanting’ does not impulse the neural system to press the quit button. So we seek an opportunity cost and for most people this is entering the promised virtual world of gaming. However appealing your current status in life can be, your idolized life is yet to be achieved. This is where the game makers satisfy your juicy appetite. They present you with virtual identity whereby you can experience and indulge a ‘new status’ with ‘new experiences’ that separate you from reality; at least for a short amount of time your gaming. However this ‘time’ factor has become an emergent problem for gamers as they increase their time consumption on gaming from game addiction. They seek to escape the reality to establish and form a new virtual identity where they are recognized and are achieving a lot more than their actual life. A game such as Football management (FM series) is an alluding game for strong addiction. People become the manager of a football team whereby they can influence every aspect of a club to achieving its ultimate goal of winning championships. A normal businessman can turn into an elite prestigious manager with a click of a button that turns on the action for Football management. This new identity is so much more entertaining than our real life, we begin to abandon it and spend less time on ‘real matters’. From sacrificing meals to personal hygiene, this leads to breaking up relationships and ultimately your job. It is not very surprising that this game was inducted into the English divorce court as a ‘reason for divorce’ because the husband spends ‘adequate amount of time’ with the wife. So what can we do? There is no definite answer; game makers warn that games are addictive and people should care about their amount of gaming. But personally I believe, personal care is not an option; seek help stupid gamers if you’re neglecting this post, your already addicted like a pink pistol.