BOOM! Headshot!

6277 kills. 6106 deaths. Top kill streak of 20. 2 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes logged.

Games; crushing the boredom of people around the world since the 1950’s. But are these games addicting, do they hurt grades, inhibit the student body, or control the lives of those who play them?

In the eyes of those accused to be the “game addict” the answer is no. Senior Michael Forney has been playing the game Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 since its release.

“I stayed up playing until about 5 am,” Forney said. “It was just so fun.”

Forney had an economics test that day.

“I did really bad on that test,” Forney said. “Although, that was all my fault, not the games.”

There have been many studies done which have reported that increased game playing lowers studying time, inhibit social lives and perhaps grades.

Junior Omar Talukder is one of the cases that prove otherwise.

“Games can interfere with schooling,” Omar said. “All you have to do is to do your work before you play, then you will have no problem at all.

Omar plays Modern Warfare 2 almost every day for 1 – 3 hours, and sometimes stays up until 2- 3 in the morning on weekends, yet he still maintains a 4.0+ GPA. He loves the game, but does not wake up to play it, and said that sleep is important.

The key word, Forney and Talukder both agree on, is moderation.

“You don’t have to play all day to be good,” Forney said. “Once you get that first run out of your system, everything goes back to normal. Everyone wants to enjoy something new that they got, games are no different. I do think that some games like World of Warcraft and other games that are really level based, can be addicting because the people that play it spend all their time trying to level up, but first person shooters are not addicting.”

6277 kills. 6106 deaths. Top kill streak 20. 2 days, 14 hours, 22 minutes logged.

Grades- Fine.