How much online gaming is too much?

With China imposing limits on the amount of time its citizens spend on online gaming, many people are asking whether the rest of us should follow suit.

There are reports in the US that students are missing classes and consequently failing subjects due to the large proportion of their time spent online gaming. World of Warcraft has received especially bad press of late in this regard. Many believe it is the main game responsible for drawing people into online gaming and playing for huge amounts of time which in turn has increased the number of students dropping out. Online gaming players love the sense of adventure and of escapism when they enter the virtual world.

It has even been reported that some media organisations and their recruiters will not consider employing online gaming players that play World of Warcraft as they are well known to have disrupted sleep patterns and therefore a lack of concentration during the day.

World of Warcraft is certainly one of the most popular online games of 2008 but others believe that the above is overkill and that its effect on players is not that detrimental. Online gaming has been discussed in depth in the UK but there are no plans at present to restrict the amount of time online gaming players are playing for.

Many ask whether this is not just the case for online games but also for other sorts of games as well, either way it will be incredibly difficult to enforce such a rule wherein some argued that it is a violation of civil rights.

It is, however, important to remember, to take adequate refreshment breaks from online gaming as time can pass much more quickly than you think when you are online gaming in the ‘virtual world’.