Watch out! Competitive Games Can Disrupt Mental Health

GAMEFINITY.ID, Salatiga – The influence of video games on mental health has become a hot topic in psychology. And now, researchers have found that competitive video games can be detrimental to players’ mental health.

Competitive games such as Dota 2, Mobile Legends, LOL, CS: GO are considered far more dangerous than single player casual games. Although more dangerous, ironically competitive games are much more loved than casual games.

Actually any video game is not inherently evil. They don’t always cause anxiety or depression. However, mental health disorders often come from players who are less able to respond positively when playing video games, especially competitive games.

Then what are the negative impacts of playing competitive games and how to overcome them? Let’s take a good look.

Alexithymia, Human Emotional Identification Disorder

If a person suppresses their emotions for a long period of time, they develop a condition called Alexithymia. Alexithymia is the inability to determine one’s inner emotional state. The majority of competitive gamers suffer from alexithymia, due to the way competitive video games suppress our emotions and affect our mental health.

All gamers would agree that when playing competitive games, losing is something that feels bad, whatever the reason. We’ve spent time, energy, thoughts to win the game but unfortunately it’s wasted.

Most competitive game players can’t handle the defeat well. They suppress negative feelings of defeat over and over and eventually those feelings explode and get out of hand.

If the outburst of feelings gets worse, these gamers will limit their emotional capacity. As a result, they will find it difficult to identify emotions and convey their emotions inappropriately. This is called Alexithymia.

Some of the early symptoms of Alexithymia caused by competitive video games include being used to speaking harshly, often blaming others, and being unable to accept the situation.

Depression Due to Ranking

“Ah, you’re really noob, when your rank is still that low”, “I don’t want to play with you, your rank is still like this”.

Surely we often hear words like that in a competitive gaming environment. In playing competitive games, ranking becomes a measure of ability to play games. The higher a person’s rank, the higher his abilities.

This rank system indirectly gave rise to a caste system in the competitive gaming community. There are many cases where high-ranking players feel superior to low-ranked players.

As a result, players with low ranks feel pressured and depressed over this discriminatory behavior. These players will create unhealthy patterns in playing competitive games so as not to be ridiculed by high-ranking players.

Unhealthy Obsession and Fanaticism

Most competitive game enthusiasts have an unhealthy obsession and fanaticism towards the games they play. Not infrequently when we look at competitive game online forums, fanatics often worship the games they play like gods.

Competition between competitive games such as Mobile Legends with Arena of Valor, PUBGM with Free Fire can also spread to their players. So it is not uncommon for fierce debates to occur between fanatics about which game is superior.

The fanatics will look for debating opponents and try to bring down rival games and raise their game to the sky. There are even cases where the dispute has led to various criminal acts such as persecution, defamation, and others.

Overcoming Mental Disorders Due to Competitive Games

If you feel negative symptoms due to the competitive game, you can do this to prevent these negative symptoms from getting worse.

Reduce competitive gaming time.
Change your mindset in playing competitive games from “looking for victory” to “looking for fun”
Do positive activities in the real world such as taking a walk to breathe fresh air, exercising, and so on.
Try playing casual games that are more relaxed and easy to enjoy.
Try socializing with other people for real.
Think of everything that happens in the game as unreal and only fictitious.

Yup, those were some mental health disorders due to competitive games. As gamers, of course, we hope to be kept away from various kinds of mental problems caused by competitive games. And lastly, the author would like to advise gamers to keep playing games in a healthy manner and think positively about everything that happens in the game.