As soon as computers and the Internet became an integral part of our society, we became interested in everything related to them. Naturally, the most entertaining aspect was the easiest to fall in love with, so online games quickly became the center of attention all around the world.
At first, online games were very simple. They didn’t have the power to glue you to the chair for several hours. However, over the years, these games advanced, thus becoming more interesting to players and taking up a lot of their free time.
Therefore, today, we’re looking for an answer to a rather straightforward question — how much time should an average person spend playing online games?
In order to answer this question, we’ve decided to outline all the advantages and disadvantages of these games and try to reach a meaningful conclusion. Stay tuned!
Advantages of Online Gaming
It has been scientifically proven that playing online games is good for our mental health. First of all, they affect our brain function; while playing games, we need to make decisions faster than usual and react quickly in order to win.
Another benefit of online gaming also has to do with health but in a slightly different way. Namely, playing online games is a relaxing and fun activity that helps us deal with stress in a fast and efficient way. Imagine spending an evening at home with a cup of hot tea, and your only assignment for the day is to collect House of Fun free coins.
Additionally, online games enhance our problem-solving skills and improve our creativity, help us take responsibility for our actions, and connect us to various other online gaming lovers from all around the world.
Despite all of this, things could still go wrong.
Downsides of Online Gaming
Even though online games come with multiple advantages, there are a few things to be mindful of. One of the primary downsides of online gaming is the possibility of becoming addicted.
This probably won’t happen if you limit your gaming sessions to half an hour of free slots per day, but if a game happens to be highly compelling, you might find yourself unable to do anything else in your free time.
In such cases, you can start avoiding social events so you can have more time for games. For instance, you might decide to spend less time with other people, even though that’s necessary for a healthy lifestyle. Also, you might stop being physically active and replace healthy habits with fast food and snacks.
Lastly, if we consider the effect the screen has on our eyesight, it’s easy to conclude that our overall health will be in decline if we play online games too much. So, what is the right amount of time one should spend on online games?
Optimal Time-Limit for Playing Games Online
Nowadays, online games are designed to keep players entertained for as long as possible. They work like a magnet, keeping you attached to your computer or laptop not only for hours but even days.
What’s more, almost all online games available on the web are optimized for mobile use, which makes the problem even bigger on a global level.
Fortunately, there are ways to keep yourself at a safe distance and have control of your gaming habits. Most modern devices allow you to set app timers and decide how much you want to use each app per day.
Allow yourself to enjoy online gaming regularly but don’t do it for longer than 30 minutes or one hour per day. It would be ideal to limit online gaming to a few hours per week. If that’s not an option, anything will do as long as you know that a limit exists.
If this doesn’t work for you, you can always ask your friends or family members to help you block all gaming websites on your devices so that you can’t access them for some time. Finally, do yourself a favor and find a real hobby — choose something you enjoy and you’ll easily start spending less time in the online world!
I use a nice pair of blue light cutting glasses to help with my screen time!
I haven’t had much issue with eyesight and I’ve spent quite a lot of time playing online games (and doing other things that would keep me glued to my screen). But it could be that I use a software called f.lux to reduce blue light on my PC, and just use night shift on my phone.
Also there are a lot of modern technology that can monitor or improve your health as you’re gaming. For instance, I see a lot of people use heart rate monitors while playing games. And not all games are sedentary (for instance, motion control games are probably the best to keeping yourself in shape). I think it’s easier to stay in shape now than it was a decade or even two decades ago since there’s more technology assisting people. I mean I wouldn’t recommend spending 48 hours straight playing a game, but you could definitely play games for a long period of time before needing a break and still be fine in your day-to-day life.