My Hobby: attractions and drawbacks

My Hobby: attractions and drawbacks
Every person on this planet likes to do something other than work or study all the time. And that is why everybody has his or her own hobby. I never thought I ever had a hobby. As a matter of fact I wasn't even sure what a hobby actually is. Then I got to thinking and I finally realized that my hobby is gaming. Yes, I know that to some people gaming is not considered a true hobby and they think that it is a “useless” hobby; but the way I see it, if I enjoy gaming and spend my precious time doing it, then I have every right to consider it as my special hobby. Of course, as each hobby does gaming has its pluses and minuses.
Firstly, many games are very sociable, either playing against your mates on the sofa or online with other people. Games are aimed at making people to cooperate and chat with each other. So, gaming simply socializes you, as you learn how to communicate with people who have different characters, view points, etc. Also it improves your command of language, as many games have a multinational audience and there is a great opportunity for a person to talk to an Englishman, American, Chinese, German, etc. As for me I just turn on English language in the setting of a game and expand my vocabulary playing it.
Secondly, games are intellectual and educational, not all of course, but there are plenty of examples. And, actually, I have a good one from my own experience. This is about, how one particular game changed my life. Generally, my attitude to car driving and cars was quite neutral. It did not bother me and I was not interested in it. But since I have played “Grand Turismo 5” I changed my attitude, opinion, and point of view completely. Creator’s passion that shines through every aspect of the game, incredibly detailed cars, slick presentation and spot-on physics, all these things, made me fall in love with cars and everything related to it. And now I am going to get a driver’s license. Pretty nice change in life caused by the game, isn’t it? Thirdly, playing challenging games develops not only one’s mental skills and abilities but also physical as it improves eye hand coordination and reaction for playing those fast action games, where you need to make decisions and assess the situation very quickly. Also gaming is plain fun. We all know that games were created to entertain people. It is a well-known fact that fun prolongs our life, so play games live more. Simple truth. But of course not everything is so bright, because every coin has the other side. This other side includes such things as live in the virtual reality, physical problems (blurred vision, even obesity), big expenditures (gaming is not a costless hobby as if you want to enjoy games you should have top hardware which is not cheap) and addiction (you know once you have played computer game it will be difficult to stop. But for me listed above disadvantages are smoothed out by a big number of advantages. To sum up I would like to say that gaming is not a “useless” hobby. For me this hobby is not only a way to relax, to get rid of negative emotions, but also it is a strong tool that allows me to improve my command of language, communicate with people of different nationality and just have a fun.