Feature
Addiction of a Different Kind
Kazi Hayat Reza
THE boy entered his home after a long and tedious day at school. He hurriedly took a shower and wolfed his food and made his way to the computer. The screen sprang to life in a blue haze and the familiar icons popped to existence. He clicked away and soon the screen changed to one where there was an animated figure carrying weapons and blasting pixilated demons away in a frenzy of blood curdling violence. The boy leaned forward with interest in his eyes and started clicking and tapping buttons in rapid succession. The game he was absorbed in was nothing short of gory but he did not care. It gave him the boost he needed to keep him going through his mundane life.
It was almost dark and yet he continued on with his electronic battles. The boy's mother, yelled at him for the umpteenth time to stop the mindless violence and go to study. Yet he did nothing of that sort. Finally his mother came up to him and forcefully dragged him away from the computer. His mother then proceeded to give him an elongated lecture on the evils of computer games, mentioning the fact that children in the US on average play one hour a day albeit being the leading gaming industry, all of which simply bounced off him. His mind was still attached to the game he had been so intensely enjoying. He shuffled to his table and opened his books and stared at them. He was staring all right but not reading; his mind was still lost in the fantasy created by the gaming companies across the world. "But is it my fault I love playing games?" he thought. He needed to play these games. It was his only outlet for venting his bottled up emotions, his only escape from a world where all around there is chaos and disappointment.
He did not want to dwell on philosophical thoughts and tried to put his mind to his studies. But for some reason his mind just refused to register what his eyes were reading. It was just jumping back to his gaming thoughts where he was disemboweling animated demons. His mind was playing certain scenes from the game over and over again in a continuous loop. Thus he sat reliving his afternoon session all through his study time instead of doing what he was supposed to do.
Soon it was time for him to stop his vain efforts at studying and to go off to sleep. But sleep was ever elusive. His mind just refused to shut down. It continued on flashing him random and intense scenes from the game. He tossed and turned on his bed, striving to go to sleep and thus respite. This went on late into the night and he finally closed his mind in a wave of exhaustion. Unfortunately, just when he seemed to have finally dozed off, the alarm went off heralding the time for him to go to school. He dozed for the first three periods and barely registered anything that happened in the class, consequently doing terribly in a popup test for which he had no preparation whatsoever. But that had little or no effect on him, his mind was anxious as to when the dreaded school would be over and when he could go back to his electronic fantasy world created very craftily by one of the major game producing companies across the globe. To the boy the material world had little or no importance. The electronic games had fully captured another innocent and ignorant soul in its enticing web of never ending addiction.
This is a personal experience of the author and he sincerely requests all those gaming addicts out there to try and reduce the habit's influence. It is in everyone's interest, especially yours. Try to kick the habit.
(Student of A-levels, Sunbeams)
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