The Drug for Gamers
NEIRAD enilno edition
Procrastination is already a problem among high school students, but adding video games is escalating this issue. With new technology coming out and new iPhone features kids are getting even more distracted. Wake up, go to school, play a sport, go home and pick up your phone. Instead of doing homework, students are clutching their phones to play addicting games long into the night and well into the next school day.
“I used to see people playing a popular iPhone game called Snail Mail in my study hall and I also saw them playing it in my English class,” sophomore Sarah Graves said.
Graves’s point reflects in an informal Neirad Enlino polling of DHS students. Sixty percent said they play games on their phone almost every day. Fifty percent admit it takes their attention from more important matters such as homework.
Freshman Caylee Waters says her distraction of choice is an iPhone game called “Snail Mail”.
“I would play all the time because the game was so addicting, “Waters said. “It only took me a week and a half to beat it.”
Waters admits her schoolwork has proved a poor match for the allure of this game. “Snail Mail” did distract me from my homework and it became sort of a problem,” she said.
On apple.com there are more than 100,000 applications people can download to their iPhones: more than 100,000 new ways things to divert one’s attention. Some students even admit to playing these games in class and walking the halls completely lost in the fascination of action on a tiny cell phone screen.
In fact, one game is even called the “Most Addictive Game.” The challenge is to move a little square without hitting the other squares. The goal is to keep the center box away from the other moving boxes for as long as possible. The game gets increasingly more difficult when the boxes keep moving faster and faster. (From personal observation the game is rather hard to stop playing!)
There is some concern among big game companies like Nintendo that the allure of iPhone apps will hurt sales for the upcoming holiday season. But when asked 75 percent of students said they still preferred playing an XBox game more than a small screen phone game app.
With an Xbox retailing for $199.99 and an iPhone app being downloaded for free,or as little as 99 cents, one would think the big console games don’t stand a chance. The iPhone can also offer features a big game console cannot provide such as phone service and email. So, one would think that people would buy the iPhone over the XBox even if it is more exciting to sit and play games on a nice big plasma screen.
But perhaps Nintendo and Microsoft, makers of Wii and Xbox respectively, don’t have to worry too much about kids giving up their video consoles this holiday season.
“Playing phone games is fun and easy to do on the go, but X-Box and Play Station are so much more fun because it’s bigger and you feel like you’re really there,” freshman Parker Hamill said. These games are sucking kids into this addiction. They would rather play on their phone than pay attention in class. So kids, please put down your phone and pick up a pencil.
Can't get enough of gaming. Be sure not to miss Justin Pryor's feature on Facebook's addictive new game, FarmVille. Live December 1st in Neirad Enilno.
