Gaming addiction and the HSC

[legorgo18]

The World Health Organisation recently released the latest draft of its International Compendium of Diseases, two of the most important updates to such draft, is the addition of “hazardous gaming” and “gaming disorder”. This means that gaming addiction is near the same level of substance addiction and is a serious issue.

As children and teenagers, our childhoods are coated with layers of relaxation, one of which includes gaming. Like everyone else, I fell into the trap of gaming addiction myself, and truly understand the effects it brings onto your grades, potentially ruining your future. Hence, today I would love to share with you my junior school story, and how I turned out victorious during my senior years.
In my honest opinion, gaming addiction often roots from complacence, arrogance and of course the misconception of the junior years being insignificant.
This often results in students, especially those like myself in a lower ranked public school, to invest countless hours into multiplayer games (league for me). The wonderful time that should’ve went towards building that solid foundation in mathematics (ie algebra, geometry) or English (ie essay writing or vocabs) will inevitably be wasted.

Now you may ask, well don’t they teach you those again in senior school anyway? Whilst true, those peers who have put in hard work during those years will outperform you in every single assessment task, and of course will obtain those desired ranks. Then there is you, attempting to successfully apply the theory taught in year 10 and imagine combining it with the senior course content…
As the above situation snowballs, the cycle of re-learning -> applying -> learning new theory will just destroy your hsc, and your dream career since 5? Kiss it good bye.

Luckily for me, I realised the importance of education in today’s society, and as such have decided to stop the addiction, but how?
Uninstalling that game is obviously the very first step, but is inadequate. You will think about those wonderful times you’ve had with the boys during the days, you will be ignored during recess and lunch for ‘dogging the boys’. Then you will start and question yourself, is it really worth it?
AND THE ANSWER? YES. Just thinking of coming out 10+ ATAR higher than all of them (actually happened to me) and getting that uac first preference? SO WORTH IT!

In order to stop you from re-entering the trap, you must treat it like a drug addiction, find replacement activities (volunteering worked wonders for me), do more past papers (never enough) or if you are really addicted (like me), then the method below works:
After you get home from school each day, turn your modem off, pull out that Cambridge, Shakespeare or whatever it is until dinner (Asians: no tv during dinner thanks). After that, do another session and when its near bed time, reward yourself with a highlight video of your game. Eventually, you will get into the habit of studying, which also indirectly allows you to anticipate the freedom the day hsc ends (trust me, it feels so good knowing that you smashed every paper and can have your life again).

Another key element after quitting is to rebuild that foundation for your year 12 assessment tasks, where you need to sharpen your weapon to fight for the top ranks. Tutoring (if your parents care about you) is basically essential, as it not only focuses on how to gain those marks in the hsc, preventing silly mistakes, marks your essays/creatives, but it also allows you to have studied the content twice before each assessment task. If not, well the AN community is here for you 😊

However, only going tutoring is not enough, you need to be highly motivated with passion to study, my parents once said to me, if you are as motivated in your hsc as playing league of legends, we will have our first lawyer/doctor in the family easy. With that said, you need to treat those notes and past papers as your only habit, each day, you need to continue in that routine mentioned with no distractions.

I understand that procrastination is a huge issue and has been addressed in multiple posts and hence I will not go in much detail, but although you can hand your phone over, deactivate social media, it is up to you if you are being productive during those study sessions. You can proudly say you ‘worked’ 6 hours today but really you day-dreamed and played with the atar calculator for half the time, no. You are just lying to yourself, you are not improving at all and as a result? You leave your work till 12am+ to complete, not getting enough sleep, starting to not concentrate in class and as this continues, your atar goals that you stuck on your wall at the beginning of year 12, your pride, your future? Gone. (It also leads to weight gains too!)

You may ask, how can I overcome this last hurdle, the answer is, its on you. Its up to you if you use your time efficiently or not, it’s up to you if you are willing to put in the hours to write, memorise notes and do past papers, no one can help you, but as I said, thinking of the possible scenario, ie when you return to school, the glory, your teachers calling you ‘mr band 6 advanced english’, ‘you did the school proud’, the nod and smiles from your parents then you think of the garbage game you were addicted to 2 years ago that almost costed you all this?

For those that are interested in my ending, yes I achieved ok marks (signature) despite being a gaming addict since year 7, and yes I did reinstall league after hsc, but soon I discovered hatred for this game and uninstalled again after a period of suffering (rather than the beauty anticipated).
Thank you everyone for reading this boring guide, but the intention was to help those of you out there, requiring help. I don’t know how much my post can do, but stay tough and motivated, as the hsc is not a race, it’s a marathon.

P.S. Thank you to that special person who gave me this idea

If you have any questions, I am only a pm away!

[The Special One]

I know it's 2 am but I'm going to chime in anyway.

You can get addicted to anything really if You had an addictive personality.

I think games like anything in moderation is a healthy hobby to have and is great for relaxation and  depending on the game itself can actually be beneficial.

I myself got a high ATAR while playing  video games in moderation and I plan to continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

The key to anything is balance.

[Bri MT]

Like you, I've seen people spend vast amounts of time and prioritise this over academics. I think it's great that you found out what your priorities were and enacted a plan to ensure your actions reflected them. Congratulations on following through with it! Thankyou for sharing your advise to AN to help others who wish to embark on a similar journey.

However there was one part of the post I was quite uncomfortable with, and that's this bit

Tutoring (if your parents care about you) is basically essential, as it not only focuses on how to gain those marks in the hsc, preventing silly mistakes, marks your essays/creatives, but it also allows you to have studied the content twice before each assessment task.

1. Tutoring isn't essential at all. I, and many others, have achieved our goals without the use of any tutoring in their education.  I'm glad that you had a positive experience with it, and there are people that it really helps, but "basically essential" - not really
2 There are parents who care about their children, and won't provide tutoring for them. Sometimes they can't, sometime the financial pressure isn't worth it, and sometimes other factors come into play too.

That being said, I know your intentions were purely positive in writing this and overall thankyou for the post

[jamonwindeyer]

Definitely don't want to derail this thread, so if anyone ends up responding to this post or wants to discuss this separate issue I'll do a post split

Another key element after quitting is to rebuild that foundation for your year 12 assessment tasks, where you need to sharpen your weapon to fight for the top ranks. Tutoring (if your parents care about you) is basically essential, as it not only focuses on how to gain those marks in the hsc, preventing silly mistakes, marks your essays/creatives, but it also allows you to have studied the content twice before each assessment task. If not, well the AN community is here for you 😊

Procrastinate! HSC is easy. I know some people who got over 90 atar with little to no study outside of school. Definitely just understand the stuff, remember and recite. EZ . Just focus on your weakest subject and improve so it doesn't drag down your average.
...

Tutoring is stupid. Especially if you are doing the old syllabus. It is no surprise what you need to do for the HSC; they basically tell you what you need to know. Once you know it you can relax. There is a reason they state 120 indicative hours for a 2U course. That is ALL you need if you focus intensely during those hours

Personally, I think the ideal is probably somewhere in the middle of your two viewpoints. For one, I didn't do tutoring and I was totally fine, and tutoring definitely isn't a measure of how much your parents care about you. A member of my immediate family was dealing with cancer and treatment in my senior years, money was scarce, no chance we could have afforded a tutor. It's just not an option or priority for a lot of struggling families, and it's not a necessity for HSC success in the slightest.

On the other hand though, tutoring isn't stupid. Ultimately, no one gets through their HSC without needing a hand. For some people, their teachers are enough. Lots of people need a bit more, and stuff like the AN Forums and other online resources is enough for them. Some people need more on top of that, and tutoring is fantastic for them. Tutoring, when the student needs and wants it, is fantastically beneficial and unquestionably improves many students results.

Everyone is different. Some people need tutors, some don't. Some people need way more time than the allotted 120 hours for a course, some people need way less. Some people find the HSC 'easy' and can do it without much stress, for some people it is literal hell and causes them severe anxiety and stress. I guess I'm lucky, having been in the education industry (even in this weird and wonderful AN sector of it ) for three years I've seen both ends of this spectrum. I think a bit of empathy and a recognition that there is no "one size fits all" is really important. We're all living our own life, after all

Bringing it home, legorgo's guide is a great example of a unique HSC experience, different to anyone else's, and I thank them for sharing it! I'm sure many will benefit from it