By: Emma Xing

Recent studies have shown people who are addicted to video games are hallucinating and having gaming disorders. So if you have a video game in your hands now, you might want to put it down!

Since new technologies have been invented, people have been becoming addicted to their devices. And things on those devices include video games.

Over the past years, gamers have reported seeing health bars on top of people, as if they were in a video game and even hearing a narrative voice in their head as they go on with their day! One of these people is Daniel Owens. He described his experience of sleeping disorder (insomnia) from playing games and imagining game characters coming to life!

And as conditions get worse, psychiatrists even named the hallucinations as Gaming transfer phenomenon (GTP) .

This happens as the gamers want to turn on their devices and play more and more, and eventually, will skip meals, or sometimes even classes! The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) said that around 10 percent of teenagers have gaming disorders. The numbers have exploded since the pandemic! And there are currently around 60 million people who have GD! That amount is near the population of Germany!

What’s a fish without the i? The FSH! Perth’s Fiona Stanley Hospital which stands for FSH had been studying GD cases. Kavita Seth, a psychiatrist there explained it especially happens if the gamers are uncontrollable in their game to a point where they can’t stop. Plus, getting mad at the game itself for losing to other people.

Around that point, gamers start losing their sense of doing anything in reality.

But she believes that the gamers should be limited! Do you believe that as well?