Can Video Games and Social Media be Dangerous?

Photo+courtesy+of+Pixabay

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Shrihan Srivastava, Journalism Class Reporter & Staff Editor

Technology, such as video games and social media has been shown to be rising in popularity globally, but could also be shown to be addicting. Many times, they can show to be fun to use, and there’s no doubt that they are fun to have, but is it worth the addiction that can possibly ensue?

Video games are for the majority of time, enjoyable, and the same can apply for social media, where being able to talk to people online can be enjoyable, but of course both of them have their risks. 

Generally, when people think of the risks people could bring about for technological entertainment, they might think of things like cybersecurity, and risks of online scammers/hackers. While this is all true, it will generally not present as a risk of online entertainment very often. 

The bigger problem with online entertainment is that it could most certainly prove to be an unhealthy lifeline without the moderation needed to prevent it from taking over your daily life. While adults have fully developed minds, and generally are more knowledgeable than children about the harshness and dangers of the real world, children and young adults are also targeted by social media, and their decision-making has not fully yet developed.

In video games, there can be many things that drive a person to just stay a tiny bit longer, which can very easily extend to playing games for a lot more time than you might have intended to play them. For example, wanting to finish up a game objective, or just wanting to savor a few more minutes, can easily cause things like these to happen.

For social media, websites such as Discord, and other websites with the same nature can end up grabbing your attention for far too long periods of time, with the fact that it’s extremely tempting to stay on an ongoing conversation instead of leaving it. 

It is not only websites in that nature only however. You might be tempted to go too far into browsing on the web for entertainment.