PUBG and Mental Health

By Mahrukh Nafees Malik.

Keeping in mind the persisting scenario of the modern era ,the initiation of on line games overwhelmed off line games worldwide.The most highly rated on line game PUBG which is being viral now a days has stretched its roots to every house.

Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) is an on line multi player battle royale game developed and published by PUBG Corporation, a subsidiary of South Korean video game company Bluehole.

According to an estimate till December 2019, PUBG game has crossed approximately 600 million down loaders.It was first released for Microsoft Windows in December 2017.

In this game, each round starts with around a hundred players parachuting on an island and look for weapons to protect themselves. The gamer has to shoot down the other players before they assail. The one who holds up till the end wins the game.

Now a days owing to the out break of the pandemic COVID-19 young ones are isolated and they keep playing PUBG while getting addicted to it.Meanwhile they have to study on line as they cannot go to school.They are least interested in studies and prefer PUBG on it.

Being an eyewitness I have seen children playing PUB-G. Mean while playing they are mostly out of their senses and utter these sort of words:                   “Shoot him!,Oooops!,Attack..!” without being aware of what is happening around their surroundings.

Excessive usage of PUB-G has a negative impact on our physical as well as mental health.

Adding to its mental health effects, the first vital ingredient would be a factor of aggression which is controlled by the part of our brain known as Amygdala.

Researchers proved that aggression is  sometimes adaptive.

It reminds me of a bobo doll experiment by Albert Bendura in which children were exposed to two different adult models; an aggressive model and a non-aggressive one. After observing the adult’s behaviour, the children were kept in a room without the model and were observed imitating the behaviours they had confronted earlier.

According to World Health Organization:

The inclusion of gaming disorder in ICD-11 follows the development of treatment programmes for people with health conditions identical to those characteristic of gaming disorder in many parts of the world, and will result in the increased attention of health professionals to the risks of development of this disorder and, accordingly, to relevant prevention and treatment measures.

Video game addiction has been linked to depression and sleeplessness. In PUBG, the birds of a feather flock together in order to win it ,thus the addiction of playing persists around the clock. After every achievement in the game, the mind wants more which leads to addictive behaviour.

By excessive usage of PUBG, children’s behaviour becomes violent which can be easily observed by parents. They become socially less active and their energy consumes in gaming instead of any other physical exertion or sports.

Keeping in view the demerits, children ought to restrain themselves rather then being a part of the disastrous consequences.

No one is compelling students to stop playing it but the thing is just don’t get addicted to it.