By: Boya Hu

Researchers discovered that people who game take some risks, for example, Gaming Transfer Phenomenon (GTP) and Gaming Disorder (GD). They sometime might hallucinate images or sounds from the real-life games that they play prolonged playing.

According to Kids News, Australian and New Zealand psychiatrists said that GTP causes gamers to see things that are not there. They have been seeing video game elements in real life, such as a health bar on people’s heads.

According to American Psychiatric Association, the definition of game addiction is, there are functional and structural alterations in the neural reward system – a group of structures associated with feeling pleasure, learning, and motivation, which causes an effect on your brain. GTP is like gaming addiction and gaming disorder: the gamer cannot stop playing after he or she starts seeing hallucinations and might even skip meals to keep playing.

A video gamer, Daniel Owens, had insomnia when he was playing Portal 2, but he also had that problem when he was playing Super Mario Sunshine. “I remember specifically on another occasion, after Super Mario Sunshine came out, that I could not sleep for a full night. It was the worst.” said Daniel.

The World Health Organization classified gaming disorder into the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) (2). The disorder’s symptoms are losing control of playing games, putting games first rather than daily activities, and playing even when suffering discomfort.

At least one all gamers play video games plays video games in two-thirds of American households, according to American Psychiatric Association. About 160 million American adults play video games or internet games in the world. Royal Australian and New Zealand’s College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) proved that 10 percent of the young people who game get GD. Throughout the pandemic, the percent of young people getting GD grew a lot, which is a concerning situation.