“Today, I learned that I have carpal tunnel syndrome. I got it from playing too much World of Warcraft. I got a disease in real life by living in a virtual world. FML”

I had to laugh a little bit, mostly because the author of this quote had written that FML blurb cleverly, but I then decided to look into this concept–of becoming injured in the real world due to playing in a virtual world.

Well, it turns out that  games like World of Warcraft often cause injuries and diseases, such as arthritis and carpal tunnel syndrome. The World of Warcraft company even has a forum titled “Worst real life injury suffered from WoW.”

Most of the injuries that I read about on that forum are due to little scares that result in the gamer’s knees being hit or their elbows being slammed down. (Don’t get me wrong, I hate hitting my funny bone, but there are more pressing injuries in the world than hitting an elbow.)

However, playing World of Warcraft can injure a person seriously. One of the people in the forum wrote that because he had been sitting with such bad posture, his lung collapsed, and he was left to recover in the hospital for three days.  Another person was playing WoW too much and ended up increasing his blood pressure so much that he had to be rushed to the hospital. What made the situation even worse was that he thought that he was having a heart attack and this anxiety ended up with him spending a year taking medication and seeing a psychiatrist to help him with anxiety attacks.

So, if you are really into gaming, be careful! Try to take a break once in a while and stretch your body. Keep your heart rate down, eat healthily, and keep drinking water!

Happy gaming!

And the best things are yet to come for WoW with its second expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, coming out later this year.

You need to get on, start slaying some dragons, and be part of the wave!