Hi everyone! I'm Shuyue, a penultimate year student studying at CityU and the co-founder of this website. Here I'd like to kick start our forum page with my real life story of online game addiction, and I hope my story can somehow give you some ideas. 😎

In high school, I was extremely addicted to online that I spent crazily large amount of time on these games. If it doesn't sound serious enough, what if I tell you that I even had to defer one year to enter college because of this issue? I swear I'm not bragging.

I can still remember it was at the end of the second year in my high school when Overwatch launched. All my friends suddenly switched from League of Legends to Overwatch and asked me to play together. I accepted, obviously, and it was the official start of my addiction journey...😂

I was really obsessed with recording my highlights and this is one of my quadra-kill moments

Online gaming itself is indeed amazing that once the game starts, all the stress just fades away and you can even temporarily forget who you are. This can be a good side, tho. The real problem is how people interpret games in their life. It can also be tricky with our mindset that when we win we might want to win more, but if we lose we still want to play a new round to win. You know, only having such mindset is not enough without some amazing devices. And "luckily", I soon turned 18 in the third year of high school and was able to enter those nice net cafes where you can order drinks and meals, lying on the sofa while playing online games on amazing devices. The frequency of me entering net cafes gradually increased from every weekend to every evening. During the time sitting in the classroom, I wasn't able to concentrate that I played those maps in my brain again and again to find some new battling strategies. And finally, I couldn't even bear sitting in the classroom during the day that I started skipping classes and exams...

I somehow got a sense of me being addicted to online gaming, but guess what, my friends had the same problem too. It was the most usual thing that you saw bunch of students from your high school playing while you entered the net cafes so you might think: mmmm guess I'm not the only one so it's rather normal. I didn't seek any help or treated it as a serious issue until my college entrance examination result told me that I'm not qualified for my dream school. Really, it was only until then that I realized maybe this is a real problem.

While all my classmates went to their ideal universities, I was sent to another city to study in a strictly-managed high school, in which students were only allowed to go out for four hours per week. (yes, per week!!) It was definitely not easy for me, and apparently I always spent those four hours going to a net cafe and play online games. But it really helped me battle the online game addiction effectively. I spent more time on study and building real connections with people around me and I realized that online gaming can be a nice part of your life but it can't replace all. There are just way more things for us to explore, which can be a movie, a book, a new dish, or a song...

I'm very glad that now I'm playing online games only for entertainment instead of satisfying my poor desire to win. One year's left behind with my fellows can make me uncomfortable sometimes, but I'm still feeling grateful for such experience that I can treat online games more objectively. If you are facing the same problem or you think you have the same experience at the moment, don't ignore it like I did before! Share it with us or your friends and family so we can go through this together! 🌞