English Listening Practice: British English Podcast - The Gaming World

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Hello, listeners, welcome back to the English Like a Native Podcast.

We are on Episode 50, so I thought, why not, with this fantastic

milestone, talk about addiction.

Are you a gamer?

Do you play video games?

Do you have a PlayStation, a Nintendo Switch, an Xbox?

Perhaps you play games on your PC or mobile phone.

Now whether you participate in video games or not, you likely know

someone who does, with 3.9 billion active video gamers worldwide.

In general, gaming is thought of as being pretty cool.

Yeah. Gaming is thought of as being pretty cool.

If you're a talented gamer, then you almost automatically

gain the respect of the masses.

And some of the most popular and successful YouTubers are gaming YouTubers.

For example, PewDiePie has over 110 million followers.

Which certainly beats my 920,000 followers by a long way.

And it's not just YouTubers.

Gaming also has many associations with sports and athletes,

which are, you know, cool.

The famous sprinter, Usain Bolt once revealed that he was hooked on

the game Call of Duty and that he couldn't go to bed without playing it.

He even went as far in one interview as to state that the

game helped make him a winner.

Now, to be hooked on something means to be addicted to it.

So if you are hooked or hooked on something, then you're addicted to it.

You can't stop consuming it.

You can be hooked on anything.

You can be hooked on an activity or a show, a substance, or even a

person if you like them that much.

For example, if I try a new sport like netball, and I enjoy it so much

that I instantly know that I'm going to take this sport very seriously,

so I buy all the kit, I attend as many practice sessions as I can,

and I sign up for every competition.

Then I might say,

"From the moment I set foot on the netball court, I was hooked."

"I am hooked on netball."

Now, in this example, to be hooked on netball doesn't seem that bad.

Being addicted to a sport is a good thing, right?

But is it healthy to be hooked on video games?

And what's the difference between a love of gaming and an addiction to gaming?

Now, my earliest memory of a computer game was from when I was at primary school.

I would go to my friend's house occasionally after school, and

she had an Atari gaming console.

Now, this is a really old console that you had to insert a cassette tape into,

and so you put in the cassette and you would start the loading process, and

I have this very clear memory of just waiting for this thing to load the game.

It would take probably about 15 to 20 minutes to load the game and there were

all these funny noises going on, all this.

And then you would get to the point where the game would load.

You're like, finally, let's play.

I remember the game I was obsessed with at the time was Bomb Jack, where this

little chap had to go around and collect all the bombs within a certain time.

The problem was, besides having to wait for so long for the game to load

was it would crash within minutes of starting to play the game and the whole

thing would freeze and you'd have to take out the cassette tape, unplug

the machine, plug it all back in, put the cassette back in and reload.

Oh, it was a disaster.

So it is understandable that we avoided having a gaming addiction

when I was at primary school because the games just took too long.

It took too long to load and it was boring.

So we easily got distracted and went to play with sticks

and stones and balls instead.

But that was my earliest memory.

And then once I hit probably 12 or 13 years old, I got my first console.

My first console was a Sega.

I think it was the Sega Mega Drive.

I got it for my birthday and I was so excited because at that time I had a

little tiny TV screen in my bedroom that I could hook my console into.

So I could just close the door and shut the world out and just be alone in my

room, playing on my Sega Mega Drive.

And the game that I got at that time was Sonic the Hedgehog.

So there was lots of time spent with this blue spiky hedgehog jumping

around collecting golden rings.

And then after that I have memories of being a teenager.

And my very first serious boyfriend had a PlayStation and he was a real

serious gamer, so he had a PlayStation with lots of games, including

Tomb Raider and 007 GoldenEye.

He had many other games, but these are the two that we played a lot, and I

remember that was the first time I felt like perhaps gaming could be unhealthy.

Because we would spend our entire weekend during the summer...

we'd spend an entire weekend where we could have been outdoors socialising,

we would spend the entire week locked away in a very small kind

of box room, which was his bedroom.

So we'd lock the door.

Well not lock.

We weren't allowed to lock the door.

We were teenagers.

Our parents were like,

"What are you doing in there?

Don't lock the door."

So, we'd shut the door and we closed the curtains because we

didn't want to let the world in.

I mean, realistically, it was probably because the sunlight was reflecting

off the screen, and so we didn't want to affect the gameplay whatsoever.

So we would shut out the day by closing the curtains and we'd

closed the door and shut out our parents and annoying siblings.

And then just focus on playing games all day, both Saturday and Sunday.

And we probably played late on Friday night as well.

And so the entire weekend was just staring at this little TV screen

playing the same thing over and over and over and over again.

We would emerge from our little cave in order to go and get a cheese sandwich and

a bag of crisps, but it was at a push, like we would be starving by that point.

So we'd come out wide-eyed and hungry and grunting for food.

"Hungry.

Give me food."

And I remember thinking, this is really not good.

I don't feel good.

I feel groggy.

My eyes hurt.

I've got a headache.

I'm thirsty.

I'm not moving my body.

I feel pretty gross.

And it's because I can't stop playing this game.

And even knowing that it made me feel bad and I should probably do something else,

I just couldn't peel myself away from, from the, the doing this with my fingers.

What do you call it?

Uh, controller.

I couldn't peel my fingers off the controller.

They were glued to my hands.

Oh, terrible.

So I was definitely addicted.

How did I break that addiction?

Well, I broke up with my boyfriend.

I broke up with my boyfriend.

Or did he break up with me?

I think maybe it was mutual.

We had a big fallout.

We broke up with each other.

And because it was his PlayStation and he was the one I played with all

the time, I just stopped playing for a while and then life got in the way.

You know a young teenager heading out into the world trying to find your

place, trying to, you know, find work so that you had some money, and then

trying to find places to live and figure out what you're gonna do with your

life, what your career path should be.

So gaming kind of went on the back burner, and I'm glad it did.

There were some moments.

I remember being at university and having a little bit of a penchant for

Minesweep(er), which was on the PC.

Spending probably a little bit too long playing that game.

When, I should have been doing like my thesis, doing my work for university.

But yes, that was that.

And then with one of the phones that came out, I can't remember

the model, but with one of the phones, someone listening will know.

With one of the phones, there's a game called Snake, which I was

quite addicted to playing that.

But nothing was ever as bad as the GoldenEye and the Tomb Raider years.

I'm pleased to say.

So, you know, I had my little dalliance, my little dilly dally.

I had my little dilly dally with a gaming addiction, but luckily I pulled myself

away from the brink of addiction despair.

And now as a mother, I'm slightly nervous about my sons becoming addicted

to video games when they are older.

Because gaming now has advanced way beyond where it was back in the 80s, early 90s.

Gaming is incredible and there's so much out there.

There are so many consoles, so many games, so many ways to access gaming.

You could be anywhere and you can be playing a game online, offline, with

a phone, a tablet, with any device connected to the internet or not.

It is just...

It's so accessible.

And I can just see it now, the two of my boys locked away in their man

caves, gaming for hours on end with a sign on the door saying, "Keep Out".

And me, at my wits end, wondering how I can coax them out of their rooms for

some fresh air, food, and exercise.

This is the reality that many parents face, and it's a problem that we can't

easily solve, given that this gaming world is the new norm for socialising,

many games are played online, connecting people from all over the world.

Many kids hang out with their school friends online after

school while playing these games.

So how can you tell your 13-year-old that they can't spend time with their

friends if that's the way that their social group is coming together?

On the other hand, gaming gives players an opportunity to learn many skills

around logic and problem solving.

Minecraft, for example, teaches coding and many team player games

require, you guessed it, teamwork, which is an important life skill.

My children are two and a half and four and a half, closer to five.

And I recently bought them their own iPads.

Now, I agonised over this decision for a while because screens, especially

for younger children are not good.

They need to be interacting with the world and building, you know, skills

physically and, and developing in a very natural way, but, screens can

be very useful if used moderately.

And I really wanted my older son to have an iPad, but I can't give one without the

other because anyone with children will know it just causes chaos in my house.

If one child has a toy that is super-duper, the other child must

have it and all hell will break loose if that situation ever occurs.

So I thought, well, I can't buy one without the other.

I must get them each an iPad.

So we've got these iPads and we set time limits on them so they

can only play for a certain amount of time within a 24-hour period.

But we also have times on them so they can't play after a certain time in

the evening, for example, they can't play too early in the mornings, and

in fact, they only get their iPads for about 40 minutes a week anyway.

We use it for very specific times.

When it's better for the children to be quiet and sitting still to keep

them safe and in a certain location.

Other than that, they don't really have their iPads as much as they ask and

whine, and moan, and beg for their iPads.

They don't get them.

But what I learned from having these iPads with my children is the

times when we've been travelling and decided to allow them to have

their iPads for an extended period, maybe an hour and a half, two hours.

It really has affected their mood and behaviour.

And then they tend to mention their iPads more over the

consecutive days that follow.

So if I give them their iPads for an extended period on a Monday, they are

asking for their iPads later that day on the Tuesday and then on the Wednesday,

and perhaps even on the Thursday.

The longer they're without the iPad, the more likely they are to forget

about it and not ask for it anymore.

But their mood is definitely affected when I've allowed them

to have extended periods of play.

They become more agitated, easily frustrated.

My older son who's known for being very polite and kind and

thoughtful, will become very short-tempered, forget all his manners.

Forget how to talk to people in a kind of polite way.

I've seen more tears from them on those occasions as well, like

easily resorting to breaking down into tears when they are frustrated

rather than being able to handle the task or the problem that's at hand.

And so now we do restrict the time because we've noticed this

behavioural change in them.

But what I would say about the iPads is there are many benefits besides

the benefits that there are for the parents who sometimes just need a break.

My children have gained a lot from some of the programmes and the

apps that they use on the iPad.

So for example, they're learning things like phonics and the iPad has

been teaching my boys how to read.

They have great ways of teaching numeracy and problem solving.

You know, the hand eye coordination, the fine motor skills, being able to to pick

things up and move them across the screen and tap moving objects on the screen.

I've seen those skills improve very quickly with the use of an iPad.

So I think like with everything, moderation, moderation is key.

My grandma used to have this saying, and she used to say,

"A bit of what you fancy does, you good.

A bit of what you fancy does you good."

So basically saying if you want something, having it in small amounts,

so in moderation is good because you want it, it'll make you feel

fulfilled, and that's a good thing.

It will release endorphins and make you happy, but too much of it.

Well, too much of anything, is never a good thing.

Now, my grandma was talking at the time, probably about a little

chocolate or a bit of cheese or a bit of wine or port or something.

Something that you like actually consume with your mouth.

But it can be applied to all things, everything in moderation.

"A little bit of what you fancy does you good."

If you like watching soap operas, if that's how you like to spend

your time, then watch soap operas.

If you like playing video games, play video games, but don't

allow it to take over your life.

So some of the problems that do arise from a video game addiction when you're

playing too much is that you might end up spending too much of your time

with the game at the detriment of your social life, your family, your

intimate relationships, your health.

So you might be neglecting yourself.

Maybe you don't go to the toilet when your body says you need to go to the toilet.

Maybe you'll hold on.

Maybe you neglect your personal hygiene so you decide not to bother brushing

your teeth because you are too busy playing a game or you skip your shower.

Maybe a few days in a run because you're too busy playing and so you start to

stink, but you don't care 'cause you're alone in a room and no one can smell you.

Maybe like me when I was a teenager, you don't listen to your hunger cues

when your body's saying, I'm hungry.

You wait until you are really, really ravenously hungry before

you emerge to go and get some food.

And the same with drinking.

It's highly likely that if you have a gaming addiction, then

you're not drinking enough water.

I remember playing a game more recently, I think it was some sort of racing game.

It was a high speed game, and both my partner and I realised that every time

we had a round of this game, our eyes would be really sore and we'd be rubbing

our eyes, oh, my eyes really hurt.

I don't understand why, and then we realised it's because we didn't blink.

We were so obsessed, not obsessed.

We were so focused on the game.

We didn't want to miss a beat.

We didn't want to crash the vehicle.

I think it was like one of those racing games with like a spaceship, and you are

racing on a very thin strip of racetrack and even the slightest move in the wrong

direction and you'd explode and fall off the edge of the racetrack or something.

And so you would play for a two minute race and not blink.

So you're just staring, staring, staring, which would cause your eyes to dry out and

your eyes would get really sore and itchy.

Yeah.

So how do you remember to blink?

Anyway, yes, so you might neglect yourself.

You might be missing out on socialising with your friends.

You might decide to go home to play another round of your game rather than

actually spending time with your friends.

I always thought with the game, Pokemon Go, which is designed to make you

get up and go out of the house and walk around to try and find Pokemon.

It's also designed to try and get you to meet up with other Pokemon players.

Now I can't speak for all Pokemon players, but I know someone who was a

little bit addicted to Pokemon Go and that person, when I'd spend time with

them, they would often be listening to me, but then get their phone out and I

could tell that they weren't 100% with me.

I was like, what?

What are you doing?

What's going on and then say, I'm sorry, there's just, there's a really

rare Pokemon here, or I'm trying to get a shiny, or it's community day,

which means there's some important Pokemons that I've got to catch.

And we'd be in some amazing, beautiful places and they would be I down on their

phone trying to catch these Pokemon in these amazing places and, and that

made me wonder about how they can sustain meaningful quality relationships

when they aren't fully present.

Anyway, so you might miss out on socialising properly with people and

building relationships and gaming often makes you stay up very, very late.

So you know you should go to sleep by 10 o'clock.

But 10 o'clock comes and you are really close to the end of a level,

and then you get to the end of the level and you think, oh, I'll just

play a little bit more, just five more minutes, which turns into an hour.

And before you know it, you are hitting on one o'clock in the morning and you're

like, oh, I really should go to sleep.

I've gotta get up early for work.

Then when you get to work, you can't focus because all you're

thinking about is getting home to complete the next level of your game.

So this is what a gaming addiction looks like.

It makes you into a shell of yourself.

So ask yourself if you are a gamer, do you just enjoy gaming?

Is it a part of your life or is it your life?

Do you have a gaming addiction?

Is it having a negative impact on your health, on your

relationships, on your work?

Okay, so that brings me to the end of this little discussion

into gaming and gaming addiction.

I do hope that you found today useful.

If you're a Plus Member, then I'll be deep diving into some of today's

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I will leave a link in the show notes.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Until next time, game on.

Or should I say game over.