Games And Addiction - A Cynical View

Thanks to Forbes for their distinctly acerbic look at new scientific surveys that make claims linking videogames and addiction. The piece suggests: "Pick a popular consumer technology and there's probably some overpaid academic expert somewhere who's calling it addictive", and goes on to query definitions of addiction, suggesting: "...pretty much anyone who uses the Internet in the course of their work day... could meet some arbitrary early-1990s standard of [Net] addiction." The article concludes: "When was the last time you heard of a case of 'newspaper addiction?'"

Comments

Addiction is physical.

[ClioCJS]

Addiction is physical. Your body develops a dependence on a substance and you need more and more of it to get that same feeling. Even the bad emotions associated with some addictions (ie cocaine) are phsyical -- they are bad feelings caused by a pysiological process in the brain.

The whole concept of so-called "mental addiction" is something that has been created by the prohibitionists and moralists.

If you do something you enjoy, like seeing a movie, or fucking, you will probably do it again. It was fun, so you do it again. Is that an addiction?

Some on slashdot have commented right here that it is an mental addition "if the behaviour is harmful". So now the criterion has nothing to do with the behavioural process, but with the morals associated with the behaviour!?! What a load!

If they are right, I guess I am "mentally addicted" to having sex, masturbating, listening to music, watching cartoons, playing games both video and real. And I am physically addicted to food and water.

Let's get real people. If something is fun, we're going to do it again. And again. And again. And again. It would be stupid to ever stop.

P.S. Marijuana is not physically addictive, but DAMN is it fun, or so I hear.