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Name : Chan NguyenClass : ESL MO3							Addiction to Online Gaming	Online Gaming addiction is being considered a very serious issue all over the world lately, especially in developing countries. In this essay, I hope to provide some insight and understanding of it.  First of all, I would like to introduce you to something about games and their popularity. As technology has been growing at an insane speed, gaming online actually has been playing an important role in youth life. Teenagers are the principal target of many gaming companies. Many kinds of games such as action, strategy or adventure come out every single month; computer games are really exploding. The more technology develops, the more the game industry expands, from Asia to Europe…all over the world.  Not that long ago, only 5 years ago, when we heard the word “computer game”, we just focused on kids. But, that’s just in the past; nowadays people of all ages are playing games on computer. Interestingly, not only males, but also the number of female player has been increasing quickly in the game community recently. In the past, we usually played computer games with an artificial computer ; nowadays we play game with the human brain. That means we can play with other people on the internet. Yes, it is very interesting and the more people play, the more interesting it is. Imagine you’re a person among 100,000 people with a goal to kill a monster. In that unreal world, gamers share their unity, their spirit and friendship no matter where they come from, Asia, Europe…wherever. Their mission is controlling a character such as a “human” or an “org”…under a nickname that will represent that player. Furthermore, they can also communicate and trade with others in order to get a new “suit” for themselves (“suit” here means a shield, a helmet, or a pair of shoes…). In this world, everything is staged like it was 500 years ago; it has knights, queens and lords….Gamers’s first goal is to protect themselves against enemies, second is to complete an honorable mission “kill monster to protect the peace of world”. And the most interesting things in my opinion is they also have their own language system in order to describe something such as a towel, a treasure or even a kingdom…which make game online more mysterious. Now you might have some understanding about what an only game is, right? And obviously, it’s really interesting, isn’t it? But hold on here; why did I choose the world “addiction” and what does the term “G.O addiction” actually mean? In general, addiction sounds very negative, we can easily link to drug addiction, alcohol addiction…Addicts do not merely pursue a pleasurable experience and need to experience it in advance to function normally; they have to repeat it again and again. They crave something and they are never satisfied. A serious addiction will lead to harmful consequences. For instance, drug or heroin addiction can lead to a damaged life or even death. I myself used to be a victim of GO. At that time, I was totally deep inside the circle of the game, I craved it. I usually spent 16-20 hours per day for my character. What a terrible time! It also caused to health problem because I spent too much time in front of the monitor, this habit distorts the sense of time. If you don’t mind, I will tell you my whole story of being addicted in gaming online.3 years ago, when I was in the first year of university in my country, I usually hung out with my classmates; because we all lived far from our family, we really got along with each other. We cooked, studied, even slept together. That time was really dreamlike and memorable, and our study result was always pretty good, too. However from the day we start to “knowing” game online, our study was went way down. I remember the first time we played game is a Saturday night which was more boring than usual, walking around the town, occasionally, we found a very interesting place “cyber game café”. We entered a room like a coffee bar and there were a series of computers row by row. This kind of club was very popular for the students because it was very economical and useful entertainment; you could drink a coffee and use internet as well as played a game with others people via a local network. We started with a game named “Lineage” and after one times we went crazy for it. Again, it was very fun and interesting; “Lineage” was opening a new world for us. We crave for exploring anything inside this unreal world, first we played together and then, after several times, we played online. After the first day getting used with that club, we visit that place more frequent and we gradually became acquainted customers. As a member of our clan, I took the role of creating new weapons; others had their own missions such as dealing with other clans, examining a new weapon, testing a new strategy for our clan and we also had our own website. Then all the treasures we gained, we sold to some rich business men who were also addicts. We usually had a party for the amount of money we earned but we intentionally forgot the money we paid for the owner’s cyber club. At that time, we really thought we might have a life like that and considered gaming online as a real career. After a year, a lot of problem arose in our clan; first was not easy to sell our gains any more. Typically, the amount of people were increasing rapidly in our game and it’s very high competitive for us to archive those items such as “sword”, “gold”, “treasure”…It was just like that there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions of people just like us are playing it. Think in term of supply, demand, and price. When the supply of workers is ten or hundred times greater than the demand for workers, the price is definitely goes down. The more people play our game, the cheaper our treasure is; and it led to the result that we were not be able to afford to play for whole day whole night anymore. And the last way is using the money that our parent sent to pay for it. We played so much that we couldn’t do anything else, even having time to eat healthy or sleeping regularly. In our mind, there was only game and game. We have to burn our brain to create a new strategy or dealing with other group to maintain our “clan”. After a while, our group gradually dwindle from 10 to 6, 6 to 4…Our goal was gradually becoming vague; yes we still played, but at this time was not to accomplish anything but just to satisfy ourselves. We were “real addicts”. Our shapes were just like dry skeletons. Worst of all, playing game also meant we were pouring all our studies into the sea, the result of our neglecting final exams were very low or even failing; it didn’t surprised us at all. Our health was also influenced seriously because of playing overnight and sleeping at day time. We were actually slaves of gaming online.  And we began to recognize its negative aspects. But thinking and acting are completely different, some of us could quit while others could not. I was lucky because I decided to go to the US. Now whenever I think of the term “gaming online” I break out in a sweat. If I were still there, could I really quit it? After reading through my whole story, what do you think? A scary feeling or a curiosity?Not unlike drugs or heroin, Game let their participants have their own space to experience their skill, emotion, friendship even love. They often refer to being “hooked on computers”. Addicts usually underestimate their control over playing. Even if they can put off other activities to spend hours and hours and hours playing, they feel they could easily resume a different, normal life. Sometimes, they still want to do other things, but the fact that they didn’t study, go out with their friends, communicate…even go out with their love, it’s just like those activities are no longer as desirable as gaming online. Game online addiction has a very sweet shape like a smoking bar of chocolate which makes everybody want to eat it; however inside it, the core is not peanut butter but heroin. It comes to them very softly and gently and goes right into their mind, it doesn’t provide the true nourishment that is required. Day by day it totally owns them. Game online addicts develop a distorted perception of reality and lose self-control. In addition, like cigarettes, it is harmful to health and we will become passive, and frustrated. And the most frightening, the gamer will spend more time playing game than ever before and finally a serious addiction is inevitable. Again, game online is attracting all ages and opens a fantastic environment to connect many people all around the world; it’s also a brilliant inventive technology, an artificial intelligence and a very economical entertainment for everybody. However, if you can’t control your playing time properly, it could be disaster and leads to many negative consequences, or the worst of all is becoming “an addict”. Note that getting into it is always much easier than getting out of it. Stop before it’s too late, that’s all I can say. Young people usually like discovering and exploring, I suspect that you’ll reject it and take the advice of those who tell you what you want to hear. But that’s fine with me. All I can do is tell the truth and hope that it will get through to a few people. Good luck!