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On Online Backgammon And Gaming Addiction

Posted by simoniker on from the detox-with-yahtzee dept.

Thanks to the New York Times for its article (free reg. req.) discussing game addiction as it relates to playing backgammon online. The author, who found "a deep, narcotic satisfaction in online backgammon" at sites such as Itsyourturn.com and DailyGammon, tries to discuss what gaming addiction is, and whether it's healthy. Dr. Eric Hollander, the director of the Compulsive, Impulsive, and Anxiety Disorders Program at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, argues with regard to this addiction: "Everyone has their own optimal level of arousal... If you're understimulated, you're bored, and if you are overstimulated, you're uncomfortable. This is a way of regulating that process." [However, Dr.Hollander did also say "I recently got a BlackBerry, and I have this compulsive e-mail checking [habit] now."] Can you relate these 'casual game' addictions to more often discussed MMO addiction, and if not, how do they differ?

4 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. They have the internet on computers now? by vehn23 · · Score: 4, Funny

    What a terribly written and postulated article of what can only be a horribly bored person who just recently discovered that when you "wire" a "network" of computers together, it can be used to play games! Wake up the president!

  2. Slashdot by complete+loony · · Score: 4, Funny

    I suppose most of us would include reading Slashdot.

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    09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
  3. Yes, I suffer from this too by dancingmad · · Score: 2, Funny

    Reloading slashdot...over and over...

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    "There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
  4. Modern society... by Hard_Code · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...has made us all neurotic bastards.

    Now excuse me while I go wash my sink faucet 10 times.

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    It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?