Does Gaming Help or Hurt Procrastination?

 

Procrastination, one of the most common epidemics of our time. Pushing off our responsibilities until the last minute has been a huge issue within the last few years. Many online sources state that video games is one of the biggest sources of procrastination, but is it really?

Video games can encourage procrastination because of a few different reasons. The most obvious reason is that video games are fun. Most people play games because they are entertaining and hard to quit whenever you start playing them. But alone does not encourage procrastination, but video games can be addicting as well. This means that people could be procrastinating because they would rather be playing games instead of doing productive work. In conjunction with the two prior points, video games stimulate the brain and release dopamine, encouraging more addictive behaviors, and because the brain tends to lean towards things that cause comfort instead of something that might cause stress. This could be why video games encourage more procrastination.

 

What are you procrastinating for?  Buy some Gaming Gurus Merch!!

 

Just because the prior paragraph may be true, just because something is addictive doesn’t mean that people HAVE to be addicted to it. There are many vices in this world: alcohol, gambling, smoking, etc. but that doesn’t mean that everyone who partakes in gambling or drinking is addicted. The same applies with video games, sure it could be addicting for one individual, but it may not be the same for others. Television has the same effect. Why do people tend to watch TV instead of doing their work. Easy. It’s because the brain tends to subconsciously drift towards actions that warrant positive rewards. So procrastination is not caused by video games, but without discretion is could be.