What Started As A Way To Relax, Has Now Become An Addiction
Another controller thrown and broken – another kid loses a game in one of the most popular yet addicting games.
Fortnite was launched in 2017 but didn’t become popular until mid-2018. As of 2019, there are over 250 million people who log onto this game.
Two anonymous sources (we will call Jon and Cooper) have decided to come out and speak about the game.
People play for many hours on end. Jon is one of them, he explained that he played “on average 5 hours [a day].”
Others would disagree saying that a student shouldn’t spend more than a couple of hours a day playing this game.
Stephanie Gray, a counselor at Valley Middle School stated “… young brains are developing, high levels of screen time can affect psycho-social judgment.”
Playing for multiple hours on end can affect a student’s performance in school and how they act socially.
“It did affect my schoolwork [causing me to have] multiple zeros.” quoted Jon.
Popular YouTubers/Influencers post videos of themselves playing the game. A lot of people will watch these games daily to learn tips and strategies. Now they’ve invested time into not only playing the game but watching others play also.
People became very invested in this game. Such as wondering when updates will come out and watching videos online of famous YouTubers playing the game and winning by a hair.
People started to become worried and suspicious in mid-October when Fortnite was randomly shut down. People thought it was the end of the game, while others thought the company Epic Games was making some new updates to the game.
People couldn’t help but think the worst of the situation. “I was bored during that time period,” said Cooper. He didn’t know how to pass the slow 36 hours it was down.
After 36 hours had gone by people had once again logged on to the game to not only find it back up and running with a new look. This new look for the game and map had made people even more interested. People were wondering if they had added new weapons, skins or, vehicles.
YouTubers/Influencers had encouraged kids to spend money on the game to have the newest skins and dances. “The average Fortnite player who coughs up money spends $
84.67…” said Dave Gershgorn.
Some would say that it’s very difficult to have an addiction to a game. Although with all of your friends around you and the number of videos showing up on your homepage on YouTube it’s hard not to want to play once. And when you play once it’s easy to continue to play the game for hours. This game is made so that you will lose by a hair. Which is why people play for so many hours. They’re always waiting to be the last person standing.
Gray has given some helpful tips on if you simply want to stop playing or if you want to cut down on the number of hours you do play. “…invest in other activities that are outside the home.”
Overall, this game has shown to be very addicting and is mostly used by younger kids with developing brains, showing how kids should learn time management so they make sure that they spend fewer hours on the game and more time doing their homework and getting exercise.
why ◊ Feb 5, 2020 at 1:38 pm
fortnite is the worst game ever created i agree. fortnite takes no skill, and only noobs play it. if you don’t want to play a 4 year old game i recommend arma 3 milsim , war thunder, post scriptum, verdun and other REALISTIC war games that take SKILL
Christian Rocha ◊ Dec 17, 2019 at 9:23 am
This is dumb. There is no way to play 5 or more hours a day unless you have no homework and your parents do anything for you. We have too much work to spend that much time on video games. As much as I would like too you just cant. Video Games like Fortnite are not relaxing as they drain you mentally. You have to pay attention to a lot of things for a long time. Also no one plays fortnite anymore as well so I doubt you know much about video games. I want to talk about this quote: “I was bored during that time period,” said Cooper. He didn’t know how to pass the slow 36 hours it was down.” this is obviously from a middle or elementary schooler that hasn’t played any good games before and has only played fortnite. Other great games exist. Also video games alone are not the only issue. People spending hours on Netflix, Disney, Instagram, Reddit, Crunchyroll, Snapchat, YouTube, and other things are not a issue? This article sounds like it was written by a 45 year old mom that doesn’t understand why her son doesn’t get off Fortnite. You said that people would become so invested in fortnite that they would watch people play it??? Have you ever heard of youtube or twitch. Gaming Videos are the most popular type of videos and have been made since youtube came out. People don’t watch gaming videos only because of the game. They watch it because the people playing are funny or really good at it. Going back to the main focus of the article Video Games are addicting however they arent so addicting that people most people would play them instead of doing important school work. And if they do then they consciously chose to not do work. They do not care if they fail and if video games weren’t there they would substitute it for something else.
Sofia Aloia ◊ Dec 15, 2019 at 12:19 pm
I’m confused about the article name. What does it mean Fortnite started as a way to relax? Video games are about entertainment, not relaxation necessarily. The title doesn’t fit at all.
Braedon ◊ Dec 13, 2019 at 8:24 am
There is and was, all this fuss about how “Fortnite was bad because it makes kids rage!” or, “Fortnite is addictive because one girl peed herself in bed instead of going to the bathroom!” but all of these compliants, including in this article, are missing the big picture, what’s this got to do with the game. Every rage has been someone’s choice. Every dollar spent has been a choice. Every hour spent, or every argument, has all been a choice that the people did. A game cannot “make” someone do something. Only the person who is making the choice, can make the choice to do something, whether it’s breaking a T.V. or peeing them self in bed.
Bill Zhang ◊ Dec 12, 2019 at 11:52 am
I want to ask, what are the ages of Jon and Cooper? If both are in middle school, then it should be obvious on why both are spending hours each day. Middle schoolers have time and their grades don’t matter as much. Us high schoolers have already grown up through these years so we should have a good understanding of time management with video games, given that we are given much more homework, in which procrastination will haunt us. Honestly, an article about how Asian college students living separately from their parents (who in this case don’t let their kids play video games) can end up gaming all day instead of working on college homework and it could be more relevant for us Sage students. Why? Because this is a possible daily situation that we might face. Not all our parents let their kids play video games. In the long term, one of us might be in college, away from our parents, in which we are given all the video game freedom we can get. For the ones who have never seen such freedom in terms of video games, then it is a possible that the individual would spend all day playing video games instead of doing college work.
Also, the addictions faced by high school students are much more different. (e.g. social media)
John Tucci ◊ Dec 11, 2019 at 11:05 pm
no one plays fortnite anymore. us sage students dont have time.
Darius Rahmanian ◊ Dec 11, 2019 at 7:31 pm
So binging Netflix isn’t an addiction but playing video games is? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Chris Kathman ◊ Dec 11, 2019 at 1:31 pm
ok boomer