Games make you feel better/worse?

There have been moments in my life where I was depressed, really at the point where I didn't even feel like getting out of bed and just waste the day away doing nothing because I didn't think it would matter anyway. As a gamer I often jumped into a game just to escape the misery of reality and lose myself in the fantasy world of the game. But is that really such a smart thing? I mean you don't really solve your problems this way, you're pretty much evading them and what's bad can become much worse.

Games can make you feel better?

I love playing games, they often help me escape reality and help me get into an exciting adventure or just some random multiplayer fun. It's a great escape of the boring reality or sometimes help you get through painful moments in your life. I've heard from other people that games helped them through rough moments as well. The loss of a loved one can be a very tough moment for some of us, but a friend of mine got through this thanks to playing Skyrim. You might think that he was running away from life but in fact he found a way to go forward again thanks to a game. Eventhough whatever you do in a game isn't real the feelings and emotions you experience while playing a game are real. So sometimes games can actually help, they can make things easier for you or if you feel like it help you run away from certain things in your life. Just keep in mind that sooner or later you will have to return to the real world and that games are just games, eventually you have to deal with your problems or face your fears.

Games can make you feel worse?

Games can be like a drug, you feel good or at least better when you play them but the moment you stop playing them you don't feel so good anymore. This is often the addiction and this can lead to some serious problems where you ignore things in your life and just waste a lot of time playing games. As much as I would recommend playing games as a hobby, you have to be careful not to lose yourself in this hobby. It's easy to lose track of things in your life, lose your friends and even lose yourself while playing games. Games don't solve problems for you and even if you feel better because you're playing a game it's not the solution to dealing with your problems. I like to see games more as a distraction, for example when I'm having a bad day I play a game to get my mind off that bad day and just have fun playing a game. But you shouldn't expect it to automaticly make you feel better, because the more you start to depend on games to make you feel better the less effective it will be. You probably just end up buying more and more games just to keep yourself busy and try to keep yourself from experiencing the negativity that is in your life at the moment. Don't forget that there are also people in your life that can help, family and friends that care about you and hopefully are there for you when you need them.