Video Games helped my depression and anxiety but the media only has negetives

Going through so many years of pain video games was the first thing i reached to that i could get into a stable relationship with.

Moving and doing different controls gave me some self esteem to break out of the rut i was in.

why does the media demonize video games? and they never speak about the positives ?

Probably because videogames are only important enough to hit the news if they get tied to a negative event or a spectacle like some sort of festival or large scale tournament. Same goes for music, movies & books to be fair. If a murderer is caught, and it turns out that he's really into a certain bookseries that features dark themes, the media in it's quest to understand what shaped this persons views, would point at that bookseries and wonder if that's what set the person off. Or maybe it was that darn metal music in which Satan is worshipped?!

It also doesn't help that the media still believes that 95% of videogames are based around violence & shooting eachother with guns. Not the most logical kind of activity to help with depression & anxiety from an outsiders point of view. Now if an scientific article surfaced that came to the conclusion that gaming is the most effective form of media to battle depression & anxiety, that would be a surprising result to the mainstream media and turn some heads perhaps.

I mean, you seldom see stories about how wonderful TV, movies, or sports are. Like games, that’s relegated to entertainment and sports sections or specialty media.

The media covers games when something bad happens or when there’s a gaming event, like E3. Same with movies from not so long ago. In the 90s, you saw movie coverage when someone was apparently inspired to do harm by copy catting a movie (Money Train, The Program), and during award season.

Games are also still relatively young. I was an 80s kid. Back then, video games could make you an easy target for other kids. Give it another decade or so and it’ll be more accepted, still.

Look at comics in the 60s and 70s, claims of TV rotting your brain, scares around subversive films, etc. This is all normal reaction to entertainment.

Media has helped push people to often in general misinterpret mental health and use it as something to make someone look terrible and awful and has reinforced this for decades. It's easier to just blame something else than actually put effort into helping others.

Whenever the topic of video games and mental health comes up i always think of this.
https://kotaku.com/yes-this-is-an-86-year-old-woman-who-plays-grand-theft-5977627
Yeah, sorry for linking a Kotaku article but it's the best version of the video i could find.
I saw someone above mention bullying and that was definitely the case with me, i was in secondary school in the early 2000's and feel like i just caught the tail end of the major "video game nerd" bullying scene, before everyone began playing games on their phones, it didn't dissuade me from playing games, it just made me appreciate them more for being MY thing.
I think games are harmless, but as with anything individual circumstances need to be looked at.

because bad news travels faster than good

After the loss of my father, games help me cope with it.
Especially Senua's Sacrifice and Spiritfarer. Both games deal with loss, Senua isn't ready to accept the loss of her beloved and she's ready to go to hell (literally) in order to claim him back.
Spiritfarer actually made me shed way too many tears and I actually think it had a huge impact on me since it's about dealing with loss, accepting it and remembering all the good thing about the person you lost. And how to say goodbye.

If you want to know why I don't pay attention to how mainstream news and non-tech sites talk about video games, Google search "Mass Effect Fox News".

The negativity is usually out of ignorance and scapegoating.

Negativity gets more views. And it's not because we are naturally bad and cynical, it's because genetically focusing on the negative was what kept us alive in the past. Knowing if a saber tooth tiger was in the area gets more attention than aweing at the beauty of the sky etc. News media caught on to this and in order to get more ad revenue, they focus on negativity about 10 to 1. I would say 90% of people are good and the world is still on an upward trajectory of positive movement, however the news media (whether games or anything) will make you feel like everything is terrible

And the media's not wholly negative. BBC currently has an archive on their website about console launches and they all seem giddy at it. Especially when concerned with the business end.

On the bright side, we're at the very tail end of the "Are video games literally sneaking into your child's bedroom and holding them at gunpoint!?" fear cycle, it seems. Not nearly as many pearls have been clutched over the medium these past few years. Personally, I just want to see what the next big scary medium will be. Maybe we'll circle back around and panic about "the rock and/or rolls" again.