What's What! Video Game Facts (26/365)

It's around 11 in the morning on a Saturday, you have some free time So you already sit in your chair in front of your PC or reclining on the couch in front of the television, you enter your favorite game of the moment, You got kill so you take a look of the watch and surprise is 6 o'clock on Sunday afternoon, dude let me tell you something you must realize you have a problem. For some people video games have earned a place in their daily routines, to the point of becoming the first option when it comes to occupying leisure time, especially in adolescents and young adults. The danger arises when those recreational moments give way to addiction.

Studies have revealed that playing video games increase gray matter, helps make quick decisions or increase motor skills, but what happens when that passion for video games moves to another plane? you have what is considered Video Game Addiction to the point of interfering with the personal life and daily activities of the subject who uses them at may indirectly lead to premature death.

The oldest case of a death caused by a video game, the game Berzerk released in 1980 by Stern Electronics it produced severe addictions. In the pursuit of the record, Jeff Dailey, died of a heart attack in 1980, he was only 19 years old. Peter Burkowski another player, made the Berzerk top-ten list twice in fifteen minutes. Astonishingly, he collapsed just a few seconds after the game was over, the teenager added to his already compromised cardiovascular system all the fatigue and stress of the game and he end up dying for a heart attack at age 18.

Some "gamers" have sit for hours in front of the television or PC to surpass videogame levels or to reach the maximum score, thing is to continue playing. The main causes of these deaths are prolonged hours fasting, dehydration and lack of sleep.

In 2005, Seungseob Lee was an industrial boiler repairman in Taegu, South Korea, he played StarCraft almost continuously for fifty hours. He went into cardiac arrest and died at a local hospital. August 2005, a young man died in similar circumstances in South Korea after spending close to fifty hours in a row playing World of Warcraft

In 2007, it was reported that Mr. Zhang died in Jinzhou (China) after playing online games persistently during the week-long Lunar New Year holiday as a result of a heart attack, brought on by a lack of physical activity. In 2012, two males in Taiwan died while playing computer games. Probably that long hours in a sedentary position created cardiovascular problems, also in the same year, a 18-year-old boy died in Taiwan from a heart attack after spending 40 hours playing World of Warcraft.

I'll put this last but surely there are hundreds of cases january 2015, a 32-year-old man was found dead in an Internet cafe in Taiwan after he spent nearly three days playing an online video game. Some more recent cases have to do with the increase of online games such as mmorpg & moba.

These are just some of the cases where addiction to video games has led to death, there are also people who were upset causing death to third parties due to video games addiction but that is another issue. The American Psychiatric Association, concluded that there was not enough evidence to determine that officially addiction to video games was a mental disorder but it's less addictive activity behind gambling.