By;- _Hassina Bano
The Players Unknown Battle Ground (PUBG) an online solo cum multiplayer gameplay, which is really very famous among Younger generations soon after its inception. Particularly the youth, Everybody started playing this game in their leisure time but the fact of the matter is that rather making it to refresh themselves, most of the users are addicted to such extinct that they almost spend their precious time too playing this game.
The addiction of this game created very hard debates on all the network, wether it is social media, mass media, print media. It was observed that the game has very serious consequences especially on the younger generation.
PUBG game became more controversial as the cases of suicide were reported due to the addiction of this time wasting game.
The game has more adverse effects on our life than its visible advantages. PUBG effects entire life, deflecting both personal & professional life & jeopardizes holistic development of an individual. It can devastate, harm a person in a divergent way, like psychologically, physically, socially & economically as well.
PUBG can engender behavioral problems. It has some intoxicating, addictive elements & they are working as prime-movers for multiple disorders.
The battle fight triggers aggressive thoughts, bellicose emotions & the constantly invasive mood swings leaves an erroneous impression on minds. If a person plays for an hour in a day that is quite good for mental state, but consistent playing for 4-6 hours a day is very harmful both mentally & physically as said by World Health Organization (WHO) in 2018. It can out- turn anxiety, stress & impatience also.
Most people spending whole night playing PUBG not only has vast, direct impact on their physical health but if badly effect psychologically also. A person can feel torn-out & lazy whole day. The more screentime, the more chances of affecting your eyesight & heavy head & overall physical health. Children are becoming room bugs which is not good for brain.
It influence immensely on one’s professional as well as personal life.
Some Employers/Employees are spending their working time by onplay gaming (PUBG), which leads them to the point they fail to cope-up their targets on their certain time. Their professional & personal life do not remain stable too. Spending plenty of time on PUBG & giving it more preference over jobstime & family even leads to breakups in relationship & divorces too. This destroys whole the family euphoria as well.
PUBG effects students badly. Mostly students prefer to play video games instead of reading books and it lessens their academic scores. Researchers have suggested the young PUBG players are lagging behind academics and this needs to be addressed.
Students devote more time on PUBG as it works as entertainment to them and academic seems boring, here it arises a lack of interest among them.
One of the male student of JKSA (jammu and Kashmir student association) requested the then Governor J&K Satya Pal Malik to ban PUBG mobile, & claimed that game has resulted in poor results /scores for students appearing in dafferet board exams terming the game as “future spoiler”.
Recently a 13-year old boy committed suicide by hanging himself at his home in south Kashmirs Pulwama district, the reason being younger brother didnt let him play PUBG on mobile phone. They had installed PUBG game on fathers phone that later became their source of addiction & elder one ended his life by committing suicide. The incident must force us to ponder over certain things. We must understand how its addiction on younger generation is increasing suicide tendencies among our youngsters. We need to review this to save future of our generation.
The killing and shooting elements of the game are promoting violence and are giving birth to psychological disorders, wrecking badly health of young children. It was banned for some time in four countries India, Nepal, China, and Iraq. In India there wasn’t a nationwide ban but in some states like Vadodara, Rajkot, and Surat there was a temporary ban. This partial banning happened only when the Rajkot police commissioner issued notice on March 7. Around 20 players (mostly students) were arrested, after that the ban was lifted again. The Rajkot police also requested to Google for removing it from play store.
Situation of youngetsers is getting worse day by day, their abilities and academics are getting hampered day by day. People are lagging far behind socially. PUBG players are of the view that we have some friends on gaming, making audio chats while playing through some advanced functions of PUBG and consider themselves socially active but looting and spotting enemies are not social interactions. The winning creates patriotism and enthusiasm, “winner winner chicken dinner” gives rise to some kind of victory feelings in them. Whoever wins finds that game even more alluring, and the one who loses, became victim of inferiority complex, and this false obsession and enthusiasm pushes him more towards gaming and pressurizes him for spending and wasting more time on it.
Amidst all this I was really shocked when vegetable seller told me that he paid a good amount to buy few gaming accesories for making game more fascinating. A time when people are facing unbearable financial losses in lockdown, one who is selling vegetables “mixing his blood and sweat” working so hard for survival, putting himself in risk is paying 800-1200 rupees extra for gaming. How pathetic it is, what’s wrong with people, entertainment is good but addiction is not cool. As the saying goes, excess of everything is bad.
Now, PUBG has been under scrutiny for being a violent game. Excessive violence can trigger aggressive thoughts, emotions and behaviour that ultimately affects the mental health of the player.
Author is pursuing Masters in Philosophy from IGNOU and has done Masters In English from KU