Slashdot Mirror
Coping with Gaming Addiction
Several readers submitted this story in the Washington Post about gaming addiction in adolescents and adults. The main sources of the story are two people who get paid for solving this problem, so they have an incentive to make it sound scary and widespread, but on the other hand, most Slashdot readers probably have a... friend... who spends too much time playing video games.
Here's a hint: if you're one of those idiots who insists on giving your kid a name with "unique" spelling, at least don't pick a "gaye" name.
John
pay me to do a slashdot addiction survey. please.
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insert sig here,here, and here
I have a friend who plays them addictively... I watched him kill bugs for an hour in Everquest to build experience points (I made fun of him till he quit). I'm sorry but that's just a waste of time.
I think he's addicted to these games because it gives him a sense of accomplishment, something that doesn't come so easily for him in the real world.
could be that way with a lot of gamers...
How many addicted gamers do you know who have a life you would call satisfying away from the computer?
Oooh! Doom 3! [CARRIER LOST]
I do quite well with it, thank you very much.
try and play doom3 on a radeon 9200 . that should scare you away from video games for a few weeks.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
but instead, play games all day.
Can have a problem with just about any activity.
If you don't know someone who's addicted to gaming or online chat, I'm sure you know someone who's a work-a-holic - not just a hard worker, but someone completely obsessed with the trivialities of their work.
A lot of people are addicted to television. People who literally can't cope properly without it. You've seen them. I saw plenty them the last time a hurricane knocked the power out around here.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
but on the other hand, most Slashdot readers probably have a... friend... who spends too much time playing video games
:P
Heh. As if claiming to have "friends" would increase the credibility of that claim...
I don't have a video game addiction, I only make them, play them, and spend every waking moment thinking about them ...
This goes with spending all my free cash on them, dreaming about them, and of couse the occasional pleasuring my self over them.
- MOSKIE
Call me when they have something to cure a slashdot addiction.
When I was growing up, a lot of kids spent all day watching TV. They'd come home from school and watch TV. Weekends meant watching TV. Guess what, its not games, its kids. When a young person can find something entertaining to do (homework tends not to be entertaining) they'll stick with it. I'm an avid gamer (at the age of 29) but it is not an addiction. Gaming is more entertaining that any TV show I've ever seen, and at least online gaming involves SOME interaction with other people. Of course the best alternative would be some sort of sport.
Am I the only one who thinks that the best solution is to simply take away the games or the computer?
Gamers anonymous would rock, atleast I could get some cheat codes and strategies while being "helped"
who is dangerously addicted to Warcraft III battlenet games. He works shifts and when hes not working, hes playing the game... and swearing constantly, banging his fists on the desk and using the F word quite excessively. It scares me and my cat. When I've had enough, I log into the good ole Linksys and block ports 6112 through 6120 and the problem is solved for a little while. At this point he does something constructive, like laundry or cleaning his room. This a good solution for those who have control over their home networks. :)
"So the Perkinses turned to Jaysen's therapist, Kim McDaniel, for help."
Uh, he's already got a therapist? Oh boy...
Worked for me when I was addicted to multiplayer starcraft and got myself within a hair of getting my ass kicked out of the University. I told my friends to drag me by my hair if needed if they ever saw me walking down the stairs that went to the computer lab where starcraft was installed in every computer... it's hard to resist the temptation of hours of uninterrupted 8-way starcraft...
I have friends who have quit jobs over games like Everquest... but they always bounce back... when they realize that they're broke, they go get another job.
Unlike other addictions, like hard drugs or cigarettes, there is no physical withdrawl process or health concern (other then getting pasty and fat)
Most of my friends who are heavy into games enjoy it, and are happy to play them... so they don't consider it an addiction, they consider it a hobby or a passion... Like a cyclist or runner who runs every day, and competes in events ever few months, etc, etc...
I suppose in some cases it might hurt familes, if a father or mother is so addicted to a game that they neglect their kids, but in that case there is obviously something more serious going on in that person's mind...
I'm not addicted, I've /quit games hundreds of times
I can stop whenever I want. Whoever says otherwise, I'll blow his head clean off with a BFG10K.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Any advice on how to cope with /. addiction?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
When World of Warcraft comes out. I managed to avoid Galaxies, but it looks like I'll finally be sucked in by a MMORPG. Oh well, gotta do something in those cold winter months.
worst sig ever. . .
Well, at least they don't write anything about C coding.. and I'm definitely not *addicted* to that.. */me goes back to coding*
are prostitutes. Get laid and video games are futile.
I'm sick of there being addictions to everything. Dr Pepper addiction. Sex and the City addiction. The fact is people are lazy and have no will power and allow themselves to form habits.
Want a REAL addiction? Try crack or heroin or be quiet and learn some self discipline.
"Its not a problem until you can't afford to pay for it anymore."
Keep playing them. You didn't really want to quit anyway right? Atleast you're not on the street beating people up for money because you have a $100 a day coke habit.
On the otherhand, if you actually want to try the great game of "life", it can be rewarding as well. Not to mention, when you level up and collect gold pieces in real life, you can buy mroe video games!
(currently addicted to civ)
there would be more to watch
I have been playing EQ for about 5 years now. I think it is a very satisfying addition no my life. I am a computer engineer, have a wife, kids, and a home which I help to maintain.
I resent the fact that peole say Im addicted because I like to kick back every few nights for a few hours and play EQ. I feel its no different than say the Aprentice watcher or the person in the bar hanging out. You are being social and roleplaying... Fantasizing....
Get off of my back, just because you dont 'get it'....
Wasn't it just a few years back that people who played games all day and neglected the rest of their lives were called 'lazy'?
I'm so glad that we now have a label for this kind of behaviour that helps show that it isn't their fault.
.
These are breasts; this is source code.
Why do you have a problem with those two things belonging to one person?
And I like it. Video games are not detrimental to my health, and me playing the games is not detrimental to anyone else's health.
... should I try and cut back? Don't answer that.
Addictions are bad!
I'm also addicted to breathing
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I was looking at their site, and I saw the Eye of Sauron! Run away, run away!!!
Cash prize, guaranteed!
It's pretty simple, parents need to take responsibility too.
From TFA: ``"You're the center of the universe" in more addictive role-playing games, McDaniel says. "Which is very attractive for teenagers without a lot of power, psychologically, in the world."''
I've actually found simple games (things like digger, pacman and xonix) much more addictive. You keep dying, but then you think: "If I had just gone left there..." and try again.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
No problem here as I don't have time for friends, I spend too much time playing video games.
of couse the occasional pleasuring my self over them.
I have dead or alive beach volley ball too. On the upside, I don't buy nearly as much porn as I used to. Hey, different outfits, different locations....
lol, if I only had mod points. I like the way you think!
(as pours himself another bushmills and fires up the computer for some all night gaming)
Cocaine? I know I'm probably out of the loop, but how much do kids make flippin' burgers these days?
"most Slashdot readers probably have a... friend... who spends too much time playing video games."
Wait you guys have friends, where the hell are mine!
but I could use some help with my slashdot addiction.
Say hello to my little sig.
Isn't it slightly obvious when people who play the game refer to it as some sort of incredibly addictive drug (evercrack for example)
meh
Slashdot is exceptionally irrelevant and pointless with their postings today. michael, you're doing a terrible job today. And you other editors, what does some excerpt from a book about money, Sharp, and Nintendo have anything to do with "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."??? It wasn't even a book review! /. has definitely exceeded my expectations of pathetic "journalism" today. Way to go!
Just because something gives you pleasure and you keep doing it doesn't make you addicted.
For example,I engage in sex with my girlfriend regularly. If she left tommorow, I would sure miss it, however, I wouldn't roll up in a ball and die. We have sex a lot. I mean a lot. Why not enjoy it while you have it?
I engage in playing music regularly. That sure is pleasurable. In fact, I spend a lot of time and money in pursuit of that hobby (actually, i've gotten smarter and actually probably profit a modest amount, even after transportation costs).
Athletes get "high" from excercise. I used to be "addicted" to it too. In fact, I intend to start the addiction again soon. After a strenous workout, you feel so so great for the rest of the day. Then the next day you feel in the dumps. This is because of different hormones that are released while you are under extreme physical durrest. Are these guys addicts?
I'd like to reclassify an addict as someone who does something to a harmful degree. Drinking so much they miss work, playing games so much they miss work, excercising so much they injure themsevles over and over again, etc. Otherwise, if I am a hard worker, and I enjoy the pleasure after a hard days work, am I now a work addict?
Or better, lets reclassify it as people hurting themselves by directly chemically changing the chemicals in your body for pleasure. But anything other than this. This seems a weak attempt to make a sensational story. And to make other people live like you think they should.
Easy guys, I put my pants on one leg at a time. The difference is after I put on my pants I make gold records!
He's 38 or so, no job, no money, no g/f, no life. Had a back injury while working at UPS several years ago, and uses that as an excuse for everything - somehow he can manage to sit at a PC and play EQ for 7-8 hours a day, but he can't work a deskjob or get through a few college classes? None of us buy it of course, and let him know it.
Lives in his mom's house, mooches off her, she gives him some spending money I guess, and he leeches off friends when he can - I won't give him a f-ing dime, he's perfectly able to work. I lost all respect for the guy, but it's really sad too.
I did play EQ for about 2 years on and off, I can see the addictive aspects to it, but found the tedium too much. Takes forever to accomplish anything, and they continue to move the carrot further and further out as you progess. I think that's part of the addiction, you are required to put more and more into it to get less and less, sounds like crack alright :)
Now I drop a mmorpg as soon as I'm bored with it, screw that 'you got to earn your uber sword of beyotch slapping' -- by camping something for freakin hours on end or giving up a whole day or weekend for some lame ass raid. The never ending treadmills in some of those games are nuts, but it does seem to hook many people.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
that these are just people who weren't any good at games so their repressed sense of failure leads them to try to prevent others, who are good at gaming, from enjoying themselves. oh and they probably secretly want to marry their mothers. or something like that....
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
From another angle, gaming might be tought of as a healthier alternative to the sheer mindlessness of the boob-tube.
I was saved by a BOFH known as 'troot' (Tom Johnson's Root Account - for some reason at my university, they had many accounts with uid=0). I was running a MUD - an lpmud. A friend wrote a bit of LPC which went apeshit and filled the entire filesystem.
The BOFH discovered this when people whined about 'no space left on device'. My account got locked, and I had to wipe the game from my homedir. This forced me (with nothing else to do on the weekend) to actually finish the university assignment due Monday - and probably saved several future assignments yet to have been set.
Although I was pissed at the guy at the time for being such a killjoy, I truly thank him now.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Who do you think you're fooling? Slashdot readers don't have friends.
Your mileage may vary, but mine is constant.
but i enjoy it more then watching tv because its more entertaining to emulate something then watching yuppies in a reality tv show...
"MC Pee-Pants doesn't just want candy now--that's childish. He needs it, and when you need something, that's a responsibility that only an adult of my maturity--(see boxes of chocolate bunnies behind Carl) Bunnies!!" -Meatwad
I NEED the new Grand Theft Auto. So it's a not a addiction, it's my RESPONSIBILTY to rob EB blind of every copy they have. And knocking up the Mrs. Fields on the way out is just butter.
Slashdot has hundreds of thousands of users, most of which dont pay but come here on a regular basis. If they were into the quick cash they could force all of us to pay in order to post. (not a good long term plan mind you, but big bucks immediately)
Can you imagine thousands of geeks with no direction lost on the internet? It's would be like giving 5000 chimps loaded machine guns in a zoo to play with. All that free time, and no where for us monkeys to direct our attention.
Chaos would insue. What an entertaining social experiment.
Please don't ever cut us off Rob!
An addiction is when your "addiction" creates negative consequences in daily life. An example would be having to play before going to school, and constantly being late for class and failing the class. If you play for 13 hours straight, eating while you play over a saturday night because nothing better is going on or you're going through a social life slump, that is not an addiction.
There's a easy way for parents to get their kids over a gaming addiction: Install Linux.
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
i'm not an alcoholic. i'm a drunk. alcoholics go to meetings.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
I would have read the Article, but I am currently to busy playing a game. I am only replying to this while my character is recuperating from dying. Oops back up, bye....
If firefighters fight fire and crime fighters fight crime, what do Freedom fighters fight?
# OLGA/Olg-Anon is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; neither endorses nor opposes any causes.
So why are they so big on God? I may be addicted to gaming (I'm really not, but play along), but if I need to change my beliefs in order to folow the steps, I'd rather remain addicted. Steps 3, 5, 6, 7 and 11 require a belief in God to follow, step two requires you to get that belief.
If they want to help cure addictions, telling people what to believe will just discourage them, as they have no control over their beliefs anyway.
And of course, the fact that the home page breaks in Firefox doesn't help much either.
I have argued many times that kids who are addicted to video games and play them all day are diagnosed as having ADD these days. Honestly, I know there were kids 15-20 years ago being diagnosed with ADD, but the number has skyrocketed. I have a friend who is a teacher (4th grade) and she says almost 1/4 of her class "has ADD".
These kids just need to get out more, and experience the wonders of being outside, and using their imaginations to play games. When I was a kid my mom only let me play games for a short time after dinner in the evenings. When it was nice out, I had to go out and get exercise. Kids these days are (on average) heavier, lazier, and play more video games. I honestly think most kids who are misdiagnosed with ADD are just not getting enough exercise because they're addicted to games. The 30 second attention span is gone, screw that now we have a 2 second attention span. You see it in games, TV, movies...
Let's get these kids outside and have them exercise and use their own imaginations to have fun, and not make them go on ritalin or some other drug (not sure if they still use ritalin) just because they aren't getting exercise.
Its important to remember that playing games a lot does not mean you are addicted to it. I eat cereal everyday for breakfast. I am not addicted to it. I watch TV everyday. I am not addicted to it. I play games pretty much every day. I am not addicted to it.
FTA
Now, according to Woolley, the group's Web site, www.olganon.org, gets more than 300 visits a week.
I have a feeling that's going to go up a bit.
If we didn't have these gaming addicts, who would write all the free game guides and walkthroughs? Waitaminit... are these studies funded by Brady Games?
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
You can just transfer the addiction to something else. SMOKE.
It's the character development that makes most games addicting. I play Dark Age of Camelot approximately 40 hours a week. I love the game, it's FUN for me. The point that I feel it becomes an addiction is when you continue to play when it's not fun anymore. Think camping one spawn for 6 days in EverQuest, deleting your characters out of frustration and then starting the 6 month levelling process over the next day because you can't stand to not play. I've felt that, it scared me and I quit for awhile. But to be honest with you, I've been more addicted to text-based MUDs, and I know people who have been more addicted to D&D style board games.
I keep forgetting my place. Jesus is for losers. Why do I still play to the crowd?
With all the addictions in the world, drugs, alcohol, porn, someone is worried that they are spending to much time playing games? I guess they would rather you be "addicted" to laying on the couch and doing nothing.
Poor guy. I understand the problem. A lot of sports, when practiced intensely, are linked to drug abuse. This poor kid is probably doped up to his eyes. His parents must, for his own good, take him off these dangerous sports fields and let him stay home! Why not buy him a couple of video games?
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
most addicts -- especially tobacco and cannabis ones in my experience -- will swear that they do it for the joy of it, not as a matter of addiction, so their opinions don't really count. I'd say someone quiting a job because of a game IS an addiction. He's capable of getting another job to recover, so it seems its only a mild addiction, but an addiction nonetheless
My name is Aaron... and I'm a game-a-holic :-(
those addicted to game hacking? I go buy a game, it gets usually no more than 2 hours of attention before I go out to find some way to rip into its guts.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
"I used to be heavy into basketball," he says of his days before Socom. "Now I've been playing basketball again, I've been going to high school football games. I've been going to that youth group with friends. . . . We're trying to keep my schedule busy."
The article doesn't make clear what the difference between being "heavy into" something and being addicted. Isn't this kid just trading one "addiction" for another? Who's to say basketball isn't just less interesting to him than Socom (his video game of choice)? When was the last time you got out your crayons and colored in a coloring book? Perhaps he grew out of basketball?
Parents can discern between misuse and addiction if they notice two important telltale signs in their children: withdrawal and isolation.
Translation: If your child is not interacting with people you can see, [s]he's addicted. By definition you can't play a multiplayer game and not interact with the other players on some level. How many online gamers do you know that sit around in empty games? So aren't they seeking the company of others? As for people playing single player games being withdrawn and isolated, compare with reading a book: both spend hours alone engaged in a single activity and not interacting with others. Why aren't books considered addictive?
She founded Online Gamers Anonymous in 2002, after losing her son, Shawn, to suicide that same year. He had become addicted to EverQuest while being treated for depression.
The depression is what killed her son, not the game. There was a point in my life where I played Counterstrike over 50 hours a week, I just flat stopped one day and started doing other things that had greater appeal to me at the time. I didn't get headaches or a nervous twitch or classic signs of addiction withdrawl. You know why? Because it wasn't an addiction. Pulling the same thing with caffeine is a different story.
An adict is someone that goes over to your house, steals your money and uses it to buy drugs. An adict with a problem is when that same person comes over to your house the next day to help you look for your money.
So gaming isn't a problem if it's a hobby that does not impact normal activities. However if you're skipping school or scheduling your work meetings, family and friends around games then you've got a problem.
Mostly, it seems to stem, in most of the addicts I'v talked to, from a combination of state run education and depression. Most techies aren't preppy, and infact most of them have had a lot of bad problems early on in life, especially with social rejection and the realization, subconsciouncly, that things were fucked and had to cope with them.
State run education comes in when it makes learning boring and monotonous compaired to videogames and TV. Really, the kids who play videogames are far better prone to be self-learners than slowed down by everyone else. Lord knows when I switched to learning on my own I started learning 3 or 4 times faster, and that's been steadily increasing over the past 2 years. Kids who watch TV just learn take what they're given and sit there until ordered to do something.
I think, mostly, it's getting them away from the games, advertising, TV and this whole screwey culture for a good 3 or 4 months. You'll notice that the kids who have no TV tend to have fewer social problems and fewer problems in life in general, namely because their identity of reality is based off of something solid. When you spend 6 hours a night watching TV, it becomes part o your reality. When you play games, likewise, it becomes a part of your reality. Gamers tend to become more dependant on their medium, namely becuase it integrates more throughly into their reality. By playing games (not shitty arcade games or football, we're talking the heavy stuff, doom, quake, evercrack, ect, games that require thought to win), you begin to understand intrinsically how a lot of things work and how to think through situations.
The last reason, I believe it happens, is becuase kids get something, psychologically, they don't get from the rest of their reality. If they have no control over their lives, then they may like playing a major RPG game or engauging in something that makes them feel important and in control. Same goes for adults. Some kids get a sense of social acceptance through the internet by playing games with other people. It can also be a heavily spirtual, if even tribal, experience where kids can hit an almost meditative, sublime minerva-type state. I know that, for quite some time, that was why I played games. It's hard to get to that high, but baby when you hit it is it ever so gooooooood (especially when you've got music pumping).
As for that article, it's truely scary. They're equating videogame addiction to crack addiction (which isn't as nearly as bad, imho, the word evercrack is satire afterall), then talking about "guides" to help parents "identify" the problem, from the sound of the article, it's the same thing with school teachers usingdugs to medicate problem kids. Really, it's about learning to like other things. When you're all consuming desire for 13 years is supposed to be slow, boring learning and sleep, games can become the number 1 thing you do. This becomes a problem, because kids just can't develop into real people like that, unless they're in a gaming clan inwhich older people usually talk to em' and help to set em' straight.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
I attended an instructional technology conference last month where a doctoral student presented her research into Never Winter Nights. A brief discussion followed where several "former gamers" commented, I being one of them.
When the session was over, one of the other recovering gamers approached me and told me going cold turkey was really difficult. He then asked me how I quit. The only answer I could give him was, "I got married."
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
I thought bot-leveling *was* coping...
Another reason to jump on the "GAMES ARE MAKING OUR KIDS INTO PHYCHOPATHS" bandwagon. Damn them all!
):
There are some pretty clear differences between a "hobby or passion" and addiction. I believe psychologists start using diagnostic language like "addiction" when the activity in question starts to interfere with the other aspects of your life, like holding down a job, paying bills on time, keeping up with friends, etc...
Also, just because someone "bounces back" from an addiction doesn't mean they don't have a problem... alchoholics, compulsive gamblers, and others may have a cycle of trying to give it up every so often when things start get get really out of control, then relapsing once they've gotten their act together.
My father in law was an alchoholic, but had been sober for over a decade when he died. He told me that drinking and going cold turkey were both possible for someone addicted to alchohol, but that the sign of a true alchoholic is that they can't drink in moderation. The idea of drinking only one or two drinks per day is inconceivable to them... and I believe this is true for other addictions as well. This is why 12 step programs don't talk about being "cured"... you're always an addict, and you're either clean, or you're not. There is no middle ground.
The measure of addiction is not the impact it has on those around you- it's about your state of mind, and how easily you can quit. Your example of someone quitting a job and playing Evercrack until they're broke is a perfect example of this... outside circumstances (poverty) forced them to stop. I can't think of a better description of addiction.
-R
I grew up with the quake world generation. In college I remember playing 8 hour stretches on CTF servers. Now that i'm an adult 29y/o with a job, bills, kids I just can't have the fun I used to. sometimes it's depressing. My 11 y/o however would willingly mutalate himself for an extra hour of warcraft. The way I solve this is simple turning it off and kicking him out of the house to get an hour or two of ruff housing sun and fresh air. Now that he is in junior high he joined the football team and has learned the fun of interacting with others. He also uses that same competitive spirit that his games once satisfied on the field. so it's all about focusing that energy.
I had tried several, including Neocron and Eve Online. I was a beta tester for several and all I can say is, other than meeting interesting people, I have nothing to show for it.
Besides aching fingers and an almost defunct mouse button from the constant "click click click reward" motion. Perhaps that's what these researchers should call the addiction... CCCR syndrome coz that's all MMORPG is about. The higher you go, the more clicks you have to make in order to get a reward.
Computer games are accessible. You can get the "hit" within a minute.
ok.. so a few short paragraphs into the article i see:
"So the Perkinses turned to Jaysen's therapist, Kim McDaniel, for help."
wait a minute. this kid already has a therapist? so he already has issues?
so much for being worried about such a wide-spread problem.
remember, video game cartridges don't kill people, sticking a fork in a toaster does.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
I think the game industry is already addressing this problem... By turning out derivative, unoriginal crap. All the addicts will get bored sooner or later and give it up.
I've been *trying* to make myself a gaming addict over the summer while I've been out of school, I've always loved and played games, I've worked in the game industry, made games my liveleyhood, but lately I JUST CAN'T DO IT! No matter how hard I try and how much I want to game, everything I play is just so rehashed and uninspired I can't force myself to keep it up. It's gotten so bad I've actually substituted physical activity (weightlifting, powerlifting) and healthy eating habits for gaming. It's CRAZY!
Nick
I'll go thru phases where I'm obsessed with a game and *HAVE* to finish it. That is, assuming it has a "finish". Then, I won't touch any game for a month or so, sometimes longer.
Most recently it has been Mech Warrior on the XBox and NWN: SoU & HoTU on my Linux PC.
It looks to me like everyone I've ever met has SOME form of an addiction. It could be cigarettes, soap operas, "reality TV", blogs, junk food, talk shows, golf, their car, religion, you name it. (Funny how so many revolve around television.)
Addiction is normal, relax and stop enriching psychologists needlessly.
-Charles
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"Ordinary" games such as first-person-shooters provide this sense of progression to a lesser degree. The more you play the better you get and when you perceive the progress you get your serotonin rush. However, after a while you get tired or hungry, your performance suffers and ends the reward of continued play. MMORPGS are less skill-intensive and continue to reward the player for button-mashing until they can no longer keep their eyes open.
The community of MMORPG players can also reinforce this addiction, by providing a surrogate to a "real life" community, thus making it easier to withdraw from personal contacts and harder to start them up again. Cults use much the same technique to make it difficult for members to leave and rejoin the larger community.
How many times do we have to go over this?
BLAME THE PARENTS...
First it was Ozzy Osbourne records, then D&D, now video games.
Case in point... This woolley lady...
The mother of a 21-year old EverQuest addict who killed himself last Thanksgiving morning is filing a lawsuit against Sony Entertainment on the grounds that the addictive nature of the game weakened her son to the point of suicide. Elizabeth Woolley of Osceola, Wisconsin says that her son, Shawn, was so addicted to EverQuest that he surrendered everything - his home, family, and job - to play the game.
Shawn had more than his share of personal problems - in fact, if you've been reading this site for a while, you can practically recite them along with me. He was diagnosed with "depression and schizoid personality disorder, symptoms of which include a lack of desire for social relationships, little or no sex drive and a limited range of emotions in social settings." He was also an epileptic, and according to his mother, his last eight seizures were due to computer use.
Woolley's lawyer is the "colorful" attorney Jack Thompson, who is most famous for the 1990 debacle over rap group 2 Live Crew. Thompson attempted to get the members of the infamous rap group thrown into jail because their album As Nasty As They Wanna Be contained numerous instances of words that he just didn't like.
Elizabeth Woolley wants a label on games like EverQuest, to warn people of the potential dangers of playing them for extended periods of time. This has two problems with it:
Woolley herself had no need of such a label, as she was fully aware of her son's mental and physical problems, and knew that his game playing was getting out of hand.
Neither Woolley nor her son were likely to heed such a label if it did exist previously, since they both seemed to have ignored the epilepsy warning that came with EverQuest - the same warning that is voluntarily printed in the manual for practically every video game on the market.
Lets blame Sony for making the game, Walmart for selling the bullets, Ozzy for making the records, and leave the innocent parents alone.
There are alot of gamers out there... Im one of them, I go to lan parties, have a ton of cyber friends, but I also have a girlfriend, a job, a car, and many friends in RL... because my parents taught me the ability to differentiate between REALITY AND FANTASY
I wish more parents would do the same.
Fire in the hands of the village idiot is no tool, but a weapon of mass destruction
And I'm an addict.
So is my brother, Luigi.
Every month when the welfare queens get their welfare check, the supermarkets are flooded with "the ghetto'.
I swear that most of the little girls are named after cars (Lexus, Diamanti, Kia, Allante, Sonata) and most of the little boys are named after DuPont products or similar sounding words (Jermal, Nylon, Teflon, Kevlar)
It's a shame but when I hear some fat mama call Nylon and Kia, I can't help but laugh.
I'll call a counselor straight away to help me with my game addiction.
Right after I beat this level, I mean.
JMDWhen all else fails, feel free to panic.
http://www.olganon.org/
Talk about having no life...
r id=106777
http://aaotracker.4players.de/usertracker.php?use
9.6 hours a day for the last 256 days...non stop.
Any negative results those people experience are because of social and mental problems they have...not because they play games. If someone took away their computer, they'd spend all of their time reading, watching TV, working out or staring at a wall. They are depressed, suffer from OCD, anxiety issues, self-esteem issues...lots of things.
For example, if you know a man who washes his hands every 30 minutes, gets up in the middle of the night to wash his hands and mostly stays at home so he is able to wash his hands at regular times do you say that he is addicted to washing his hands? No, you recognize that he has a mental disorder and get him treatment. Does that make hand washing bad? No, its not the activity, its the illness that should be corrected.
I've been playing games for years and have managed to get an education, maintain a successful career and enjoy a healthy social life. Why? Because I'm a healthy person. I like myself and those around me, I enjoy my days at work, my evenings with friends and family and my evenings gaming. My gaming groups are just friends I hang out with.
In my time gaming, I've come accross people with social problems, anxiety problems, depression and severe self-esteem issues. I think the reason they turn to gaming is because it allows them to interact with others in a social enviornment where there is a barrier that keeps others at a safe distance and keeps their problems secret. They get a chance to be judged just on their gaming skills and their chat humor. They usually find people who like them and maybe who share their problems.
I spend a significant amount of time gaming and will continue to do so until I no longer enjoy it. I do not consider it an addiction and never will. For years, I've played games or read books instead of watching TV. While roommates and family have come home and watched mindless sitcoms and gameshows, I was in the other room reading or slaughtering my enemies. I think my time was better spent.
It's true, I've played EQ and recently City of Heroes, after those two games i've relized that shelling out cash permounth is just not worth it. Most of those games make you kill rats/bullies for the first few hours before anything even remotely fun starts happening. As for the mounthly fees, I personaly don't see the point. Look at games like the Ut series, new content is released daily for those games and since it's been out theres already been enough content for 2 bonus packs. The game is also primarily online. Now I think MMORPG's could benifit from UT's example: fun game, mostly online, lots of new content, no mounthly fees. Seriously half the time you get these new MMO's that come out unfinished and require you to patch the day you buy it.
WELL AT LEAST I"VE ONLY GOTTA WEAR ONE GOGGLE WHEN I SWIM IN MY POOL
according to Woolley, the group's website http://www.olganon.org/ gets more than 300 visits a week.
not for long
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my hard disk?
At least when you're playing Madden NFL 2004 you know your dad won't yell obscenities at the other team, shit on the ref's car hood after the game, or beat you for not "giving it 110%". There's no chance of your coach molesting you, or of losing your first adult teeth to a cleat in the face. And the other players won't stick pine cones up your butt when you join the team.
Freedom: "I won't!"
What is a life again?
Yeah, right. Outside, there's crime, crack, and cold.
Now if you got the kid a pony...
(If you're going to RPG, go all the way. I used to own a one-ton Percheron warhorse for jousting. Online gaming is for wimps.)
I enjoy each and every bit of it.
Switch to linux, with an ATI card =)
She lives in Canada. Honest!
Internet addiction, gaming addiction, gambling addiction, porn addiction, television addiction, etc.
It seems to me that the term "addiction" can be applied to every aspect of life that is taken to an extreme. To me, its real meaning is "chemical dependency", and that is how I prefer to use it.
Defining everybody with problematic compulsive behavior as an addict does a disservice to everybody concerned: the REAL addicts (heroin, alchohol, etc.), the not-really-addicts (compulsive eaters, gamers, etc.), as well as society at large, by diluting the meaning of the term "addiction".
Nobody has ever died because they could not get their "gaming"
fix.
benzapp is correct, I got my neurotransmitters mixed up.
He plays...*gasp*..."sometimes up to six hours a day."
Amateur.
Joking aside, if he spent six hours a day watching tv it would be considered no big deal. If he spent six hours a day reading slashdot, it would be...okay it would be pretty freaking weird...but still it would be considered no big deal.
But no, he plays games, which, as we all know, are the devil. They have warped his fragile mind. He needs psychological help! Yadda yadda yadda.
Like the violence on TV is different from the violence on a game, and like...seeing...violence makes you an evil monster.
Hell I've been to LAN games that started on friday and didn't end until Sunday around five o'clock. Went to work the next day, did fine. Is it an addicition? No, because I didn't bust down the walls trying to get my fix at any time during the work week. I don't do it often. It's a hobby. It's fun.
God forbid you're not a vapid consumer of "Friends" and "Will and Grace". Games'll rot your mind, you know.
Now go watch some damn TV.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Poor sap. He has three accounts. That's right. Pays for three seperate accounts, spends LOTS of bucks buying weapons, scrolls etc. on ebay, and even payed for three months on another account to try and hook me into it. I played the game when it was first released, but since they patched the cool die-in-someones-house-get-ressed-loot-their-stuff bug it got kinda dull, IMO:) He plays every night at least three hours straight. If he misses a night he gets depressed and call in sick to work. Sometimes he'll call me to talk about his expoits. Oddly enough, he quit drinking almost exactly the same time he started playing the game. UO is almost the only thing he uses his computer for, besides email and ebay. He upgrades once a year. Guess I can;t complain there as he donates his old one to FreeGeek, a local non-profit. If this ain't addiction, I don't know what is.
_____ "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- Orwell
I recently got my wife into (addicted to) playing Diablo 2 (yes it's old.. but baby steps :) Addiction is only a problem when it starts impacting your relationships and life in a negative way.
We stay up gaming together into the wee hours of the morning and I'm not getting fired over it... so it can't be all that bad.
Just waiting for WoW and EQ2 to come out now. Gotta love the womens who play games..
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
Forget gaming addiction, how the hell does everyone deal with all that freakin' pr0n out there??? Seems like I can't log on without a good 30-60 minutes wasted on the latest site updates.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Ob. Penny-Arcade
You probably shouldn't click this.
Cannabis is not addictive. I was a tobacco smoker and it was very difficult to stop smoking for more than a few hours (as any tobacco addict knows).
:D
I stopped smoking cannabis for 8 years and it didnt bother me. I took cannabis all day every day for a year and then stopped one day for three months with zero withdrawal symptoms.
As I am now older I take (not smoke) cannabis for pain relief. Its the herb that keeps giving
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
Pardon my ignorance, but I was not aware that most slashdotters had...er...friends?
The opportunity cost of those 13 hours is in itself a "negative consequence". The time could have been spent in activities which can ameliorate, rather than reinforce a "social life slump". Withdrawal from society has a tendency to exacerbate such conditions.
It's been my observation that gameplay has gotton worse over the last 15 years. Where we had classics like Railroad Tycoon, Civ, and even Duke Nukem 3D is Ye Olde Days, nowadays the gameplay just isn't there. I used to spend hours every night playing the games of yore, but nowadays the emphasis is on pretty graphics that require $1000 of hardware upgrades each year.
My "friend" is not playing games anymore. Too much time wasted. Period.
If you spend most of your free time (free meaning time that you have to do whatever you like with) playing games because that's genuinely what you like doing. Many Americans have this obsession with games somehow being bad. It's ok to spend 4 hours at the bar chatting with people and drinking, it's ok to watch 3 hours of TV, but playing games? Must be something wrong with you!
Different peopel find different things entertaining and for some, games are the most entertaining. There is nothing at all wrong with that.
Part of the problem is we have a cultural overemphasis on being social. Being an extravert is seen as good and normal, whereas being an intravert is seen as bad and problematic. Now it's quite the opposite in, say, Japan. There being a quite introvert is valued and being an extravert is frowned upon.
This isn't to say that no social contact is healthy, we are a social species. However different peopel have different amounts they like. Just because someone is generally an intravert and doesn't want to be in social activities all the time, that's fine.
As the parent noted, it's only a problem and thus an addiction if it starts interfering with your life. If you are late to work and missing important events all the time because you are playing games, you have a problem. If you choose to spend your free time playing games, you do not have a problem.
From kindergarten through 12th grade, my mom yelled at me until my homework got done. I got pretty good grades and ultimately got into Cornell (with my mom also yelling at me to get the applications done all the while).
I went as a physics major since I got a 5 on the AP and aced the regents. Within one year I got so molested by engineering calculus that I was asked to leave for a while. At the same time I was getting sucked into playing the early network games (early 90's, on Macs... Spectre, in case anyone recalls). It got to the point where my friends had an intervention and removed the hard drive from my computer! I still ended up leaving for awhile, joining the USAF, living it up in California for 4 years while traveling the world, coming back to Cornell as a Psych major, and did OK.
My point is- Even though she meant well and I know she loves me, my mom didn't know the first damn thing about how to instill discipline in me at all! All she taught me how to do was to work in response to a very negative stimulus, and when that stimulus was removed (and suddenly), I was completely unprepared. To this day I struggle with motivational issues (and I verge on game addiction, but only when a cool new game comes out for OS X, which fortunately is not that frequently, heh).
So don't be so quick to blame the parents, unless you also have a plan to train them on how to instill motivation/discipline in their children. Unfortunately, there is no "parenting class", and as parents like to joke among themselves, "you are the best parent your kid will ever know." Most parents care a ton about their kids, but the natural skill seems to vary...
Exactly! You show me someplace else I can be a special operator in Baghdad one day, and ruler of a galaxy-spanning empire the next day, and I'll stop playing games as a surrogate and start doing real things. Until my life doesn't-suck that much, games are the only viable option.
I bought a Mac
in bed.
It all stems back to the fact that humans look for shit to try to change, else they feel worthless. The human race cannot leave well enough the fuck alone.
What about people who are addicted to air? I know people that will have SEVERE withdrawal symptoms when their air is taken from them. Some people will even resort to murdering the person keeping them from their air. Sure as hell sounds like a drug to me.
It's more of a reward. If you do your chores, tehn you may play computer games. Time to play games is your reward for doing what you are supposed to. Also gives incentive to do the job expidently. Get your chores done in an hour, have 4 hours to play games. Get them done in 3 hours, have 1 hour to play games.
"cannabis ones"? "opinions don't really count"?
Troll.
Here you go... See "Ariadne" and the end of "Norrathian Scrolls".
I know one who lost his because of his obsession with a game. Putting more hours into it than a real time job. Yet, another who knows the first is headed down the same path.
The games do provide an easy means of feeling as if you have accomplished something. Apparently that is a real danger to some people out there. To find satisfaction is accomplishing something with no real inherent value over actually being successful in life.
I had a period of where I worked dead end jobs but I never let games take over my reality. I have played MMORPGs to the point of addiction but real world responsibilities always won out, ALWAYS.
People like to pretend it is just kids who get addicted to games but there are many 30 year old, 40 year old, and beyond who are just as addicited if not worse.
Who is to blame? No one but the people suffering from it. Granted in the media we constantly see politicians and others tell people how its not their fault and how they deserve everything but that doesn't excuse it in the long run.
It probably does explain the way some people vote, it isn't hard to see what they will vote for when everything isn't their fault and they escape into fantasy worlds which are superficial and far easier to succeed in than life.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
As a parent, I've found that there is no kid-related video game problem that a sledgehammer can't fix.
I was all about developing this ninja monk guy, best HTH, etc. etc. I was going to get the glowing eyes at level 20! Then at some point I realized that I severely f*cked up a major quest somehow which was worth a lot of XP, and pretty much got stuck, and didn't have any savegames to retreat to. I was pissed!
So I found some cheat codes, added a few stats to myself here and there, then got carried away and jumped up to lvl20 "just to see the glowing eyes"... And then quickly lost interest in the game!
So the solution to getting yourself away from a game is: Find the cheat codes, use them, and it will simply ruin the punishment/reward system keeping you playing...
An addiction is when your "addiction" creates negative consequences in daily life.
No, silly, an "addiction" is when you spend more time/effort/money than others think you should, doing something they don't approve of.
Freedom: "I won't!"
I have to disagree. When I grew up, I had no TV. The reasons were two-fold. First, we couldn't afford it, and second, my dad felt it was a waste of time and a destroyer of minds. (I really cannot tell you which reason took precedence.) The phrase "Boob Tube" was often used around my house. But I was not socially adept, or even competent, because of this lack. Instead of TV, I burried myself in books and lived my fantasy life in Science Fiction and Mysteries. (It was not until later that I disovered Fantasy books.) I feel that I made many mistakes and few friends because of this. While I learned more from my books than others did from TV, it was still a less than desirable path for me to take.
As stated in earlier posts, parents must take a role in raising their children. For some, it means taking a much larger role. Others should take a lesser role. Knowing when to guide a child and when to step back and let them learn from their own mistakes is a skill that is difficult to master. I do not have it, and will not pretend to have it. It is something that must be learned by experience.
Great civilizations have lived and died on false theories. Don't mess up mine with a few facts.
I once had some "issues" with computer games, namely StarCraft in the 6th-7th grade. I got it for my birthday and immediately became obsessed with it. I would spend 3-4 hours a day on weekdays and 8-10 hours on weekends playing. I hated doing ANYTHING when i felt that i could be playing starcraft then. One incident that comes to mind is one day when my dad and I were doing yard work. After an hour or so, he said, "let's take a five minute break." I immediately ran upstairs and started playing starcraft.
I was helped because my parents really loved me and made me stop using the computer entirely for 3 weeks. During that time I remembered all the stuff I used to love to do, like read and go bike riding.
Was I "addicted"? Maybe. I personally think that the term is too ambiguous; there's no distinction between mental addiction, physical addiction, or simple compulsion. All I know is that you don't need any therapy or psychologists to help you get over this kind of stuff... you just need parents (or if you're not living at home, very good friends) who are willing to pull the plug on you.
Come on, parents. Take some responsibility for your kids and don't let psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, counselors, etc. do your job for you.
Love the Third Amendment?
I still don't know who is more to blame: the children's parents, the game creators or the whole society ?
:x
:) Our society is evolving, lately there's been an explosion in the computers field. It made the Top 3 news, I might say. What are news about? Politics, social events and technology. The technology field is mostly covered by IT. There's plenty of geeks in the world. This phenomenon, severe game addiction, is not something particular that occured in just one place, it's something global that's affecting the whole human society. Parents should do "something about it." Children are given too much freedom. It's a dangerous world we live in! I'm definately not saying you should never let your kid out of the house. That would be the stupidest thing ever but you should try to understand why other children aren't smoking and make sure yours won't either. Same goes for drugs,
In many cases, games are similar to drugs because they are drugs, exactly as the article said. They give the player just what he needs: power!
Only today a friend installed Wolfenstein - Return to The Castle and I started playing for a bit, to see how it would behave on her hardware. Result? I tried to get past the same guards for 3 times and still didn't make it. I wanted to try again but she reminded me there was no time to play. When Doom came out, I had no idea that there were "cheats" for games so I finished it on my own. Few people believe me and that gives me a bit of self-confidence, I did things that others couldn't. In Wolfenstein, I only wanted to pass those guards, then I would have quit the game. Killing "the bad guys" and destroying monsters, saving the world and sometiems getting the girl sounds like fun, doesn't it? Who wouldn't like to be able to do that? The idea is that games tend to give you a reward for anything good (according to the game story) that you do. Delightful! The moment you do something good, you're rewarded. The moment you do something bad, you're punished, but it's OK, you can start over again. That's the world of the games, a perfect world. If you take the ability to replay a scenario, your game pack will never even reach the shelves. How many times have you done something very insignificant but very wrong? Wouldn't you like to go back and fix that? I have a feeling even the Pope wants to repair some things he did. In the real world there's no such thing as on-the-spot satisfaction. The story of the game moves on very fast, otherwise it wouldn't be playable while in the real world it takes a lot of time to get the reward for your actions.
Games can contain cool monsters, blood, weapons of mass destruction, space ships and abilities you never had. Let's face it, very few people will deal with any of the above in a life-time. This is what makes games attractive. Let's not get too Matrix-ed, but our actions are based on cause and effect. Our minds can hardly comprehend the fact that for something good that you've done, you'll have to wait days, months of maybe years to get the results. If children would understand that, everybody would have straight-A's in school, wouldn't they? They'd understand how useful what they're being taught will be in the future but there's no such thing as waiting days/months/years in games! Everything you do is rewarded on the spot, in a few minutes or hours. There's no greater satisfaction than doing something constructive and quickly seing the results, that's something basic in human behavior. This makes games similar to drugs. Their purpose is to relax you. Drugs do about the same (apparently). The results should be about the same
Sometimes games cause addiction, it's fun to save the world and get the girl, isn't it? In my opinion, everyone is to blame but in different manners. Game writers shouldn't make games so addictive, but they have to make money out of something, don't they? Blaming them is like blaming the tobacco industry for the fact that your child is smoking (which I'm doing right now
And that's where the problem comes in. We've blurred the use of addiction in society until the abstract definition of addiction - the need to perform some behavior compulsively - determines the connotation of the word. The only meaning of the word addiction that applies to physical reality is that version that arises from biological adaptation to the ingestion of substances, which some people (alcoholics, for one) are much more prone to. Continued use develops continued need, and soon, their bodies (literally) depend on the substances for normal functioning, as they have stopped producing sufficent amounts of affected neurotransmitters on their own.
The other connotation of addiction is the one we refer to in common speech - when a person repeats behaviors, regardless of the consequences or his/her own inclination to do so. So we speak of those addicted to shopping, grooming, sex, or any other behavior a person focuses on for what others would deem an unhealthy period of time (this behavior is almost always a vice, or capable of becoming one in excess). This is where our definitions overlap and the problem first appears. Any thought or behavior is necessarily biological. What's more, for all of human history, people have tried to resist pleasure, such as eating or sex, that is innately tied with both biological reward and negative consequences. And in this way, the reward and the strong drive to perform the behaviors that bring about this reward are abstracted on the basis of their biological similarity (the same brain rewards both behaviors) and the strikingly similar behaviors of those deemed addicted (when you want to do something, you do it). But when we do this, we overstep the bounds of the word addiction, and soon we start regulating all human behavior associated with pleasure, negative consequences, and an obsessive quality (games, sex, etcetc) into the category of addiction. Now, if you think that a reasonable definition of addiction is one that can apply to any pleasure-deriving activity, including every vice, that's your opinion. It just happens to be a very wrong one.
Listen, it's hard not to do the things we like. They make us feel the same (happy) as heroin makes heroin addicts feel (happy). And for all of human history, we've been trying to figure out how to supress the human tendencies towards pleasure that can hurt and destroy us. But when we talk like this, we cheapen the real meaning of addiction and blur the only real use of the word, and we replace deeper understand of human action with trivial and shallow definitions we read in magazines. I used to smoke cigarettes, I occasionally smoke pot, and I love math. When I quit smoking, I felt nuts, like I was losing something that my body depended upon. When you're a smoker, you can't remember what it was like to be a non-smoker - to go a day without thinking of a cigarette. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and if you non-smokers could imagine that suffering, you'd know what we mean we when talk about addiction (and why we get angry when this pop psychology bullshit shits on our plight). But when I stop smoking pot, I feel upset that I'm not doing what I like to do, I feel urges to smoke, and very often, I will smoke once or twice again before starting my real month off. But I don't feel like I can't think, that my head is being smashed, or that I can't register anything other than my shaking and desire for a cigarette. There is a biological reality to real addiction. The rest is human behavior and the same old virture and vice discussions we've lived with for years. While this is necessarily biology, it comes naturally from human behavior, and is not caused by physical adaption to external agents and chemicals that act upon the biology of the body. This is a critical distinction, and not one easily understood by half-rate scientists, people who read magazines, and those who've never wanted a cigarette.
I spend 4-5 hours a night smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and betting on my CoD matches. And they're trying to call that an addiction?
Games are simply better than real life! In computer games, I can kill dragons, rescue Princesses, become a rich intergalactic trading tycoon, conquer armies and destroy worlds. I blew up the Death Star this morning while the people who wrote this were at work. Enough said.
Where is Jon Katz when we need him! Save us from ourselves, Jon!
If you are maintaining online friends over real ones then I would call it insecurity rather than living alone. I have seen this justification before, but it always ends up being a delusion. See, it is far easier to be someone other than yourself when you don't have to meet the other person face to face.
/. to be the equivalent of some people's MMORPG addictions.
That leads to all sorts of "justifications" as the emotional needs are VERY powerful. The only people who truly live alone are rare and defintely don't tread forums such as this. Consider forums like
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It's important to know that addictions take many forms yet thy all stem from the same sources. Those sources are one or more of the following: physiologic, genetic, mental, spiritual, abuse (in it's many forms), and trauma. All of these can be treated, some more than others, through combinations of medication, therapy, and individual or group support.
I think the one thing that prevents these maladies from improving is prejudice and ignorance (lack of education) from society as a whole. The same FUD that affected the response towards AIDS is present here as well, but it's being treated as much less of an epidemic.
One of the highly moderated posts refers to parents being the blame. I have mixed feelings about that. It's not just the immediate parents, but also those before and around them that all contribute to this issue. Parents who have little or no education regarding child rearing can't be expected to raise "normal" functional adults.
Examining our culture, it's easy to see the massive influences _away_ from nurturing and maturing people into truly evolved beings. Instead, we promote so many choices all the time that it's probably overwhelming for many people to assimilate all those influences gracefully.
Many of those choices involve drugs, sex, gaming, achievement, food, etc... All of these can be part of a healthy lifestyle, and in fact many of them are absolutely necessary. Many addicts are introduced to some of these too early in their development and are consumed by the experiences while unable to keep perspective (sex being a great example). Obviously, food is a necessity, but addicts use their drug of choice to excess.
As I said before, judgementalness and FUD are terribly non-productive towards the rehabilitation of addictive behaviours. These negative attitudes often evoke shame and guilt, both of which can turn the addict away from possible solutions.
Imagine a person with an eating disorder. Regardless of the reason for it, if their appearance is ridiculed rather than accepted, the message equates to scorn and rejection rather than safe trustworthiness. Food may be one of the person's few options for comfort and security. If part of the solution to a person's hurts involved discussion or seeking help of some form, how can they be expected to seek help from a culture that has already judged them based on their appearance?
There's much more to be said about this, but I'm at work right now. Please be considerate of those who deal with life in ways that are unfamiliar to yourself. The world has enough trouble on the large scales without needing to burden or shun people's feelings and life situations.
errrr....you're basing your obvservations on slangterms derived from game titles?
Remind me never to give you a research grant...
Makes me think to the quip about putting monkeys in a room and over time ending up with a novel, just by chance. Too many people now looking for ways to make their mark in the world. Some people will try to draw anything to a conclusion, whether it is right or wrong. According to this guys theory, anything that causes you to not maintain his level of social interaction would cause you to considered 'sick' or addicted to something. If that is the case, then most of the people in this world are sick. If the majority of the people in this world are sick, then maybe statistically, being sick is normal. Then doesn't that mean that those who are not 'sick' are abnormal. Maybe it THOSE people who need fixing. See it's all logical in it's own way.
Real life just sucks.
Seriously. In real life I'm a loser with a dead-end tech job and future prospects that can best be described as, "depressingly limited." In games, I get to be a badass, or, even better, an inch-tall prince who rolls a sticky ball all over the Earth picking stuff up.
Why wouldn't I spend a lot of time playing games? Fix the real world and then tell me I have a problem.
If you spend six hours a day watching TV and I am your friend then I am going to tell you to get out more. I don't consider that normal. If you spend six hours a day reading Slashdot then not only am I going to tell you to get out more but you are also a good candidate for one of those internet addiction programs. In fact the only situation I can think of where it is considered normal to sit there like a vegetable for six hours or more is work :)
This is different than someone who goes to LAN parties, which is basically a social function. Like you said, you went to a LAN party and then went to work the next day. This is like a late night party with a lot of drinking. It doesn't necessarily indicate a drinking problem because there is no pattern and it isn't necessarily interfering with the rest of your life.
Kids who spend six hours a day playing video games are missing real life experiences. I know this from experience, because I was a compulsive gamer when I was young. I think this problem should be recognized so that kids and their parents can starting doing something about this problem.
Alcoholics Anonymous also emphasizes belief in a higher power as an integral part of stopping drinking, and they are not allied with any sect etc. Maybe they do it just because it works?
"this addiction" only occurs in a small percentage of the population and we should let them alone and let evolution continue to weed them out.
If we didn't coddle addicts, they'd be serving society through example by discouraging 'the children', who all this feel good crap is justified as benefiting, from following the same weak minded, momma will take care of me if I screw up, path toward easy serotonin production.
The tiny percentage of addicts who owe their addiction to boocoo sigma variation from the norm, if left alone to rot with their addiction, will fail to reproduce thus evolving themselves out of the picture.
For crying out loud, SMOKING is one of the most addictive pursuits on the planet and smokers manage to quit when they want to.
"we are the girls from, Norfolk Norfolk
we don't drink, we don't smoke, Norfolk Norfolk"
there's an example of self control if I ever saw one
henceforth known as a "Ghetto Name". A Ghetto Name implies a lack of education or sophistication
on the part of the one who gave the name. By no means is having a Ghetto Name indicative of anything
negative about the individual unfortunate enough to bear it.
The list applies only to those of us who are native born black Americans. I will leave the list of Red Neck names or
Trailer Park names to Jeff Foxxworthy or someone else. This list is mine.
#1. If your name is misspelled, it is a Ghetto Name.
#2. If your first name includes an apostrophe, it is a Ghetto Name.
#3. If your first name includes the sounds "eeta", "ona", "eekwa", "onda" or "eesha", it is a Ghetto Name.
#4. If your first name is an adjective or an adverb, it is a Ghetto Name.
#5. If your first name is the last name of a former president of the US, it is a Ghetto Name.
#6. If your first name consists of a regular name preceeded by "Ne", "La"
#7. If your first name begins with the sound "My"/"Mi", "Ty", or "Shy"/"Shi", it is a Ghetto Name.
#8. If your first name consists of a monosyllabic word repeated two or more times, it is a Ghetto Name.
#9. If your first name is the same as a City, State, Country or Emotion, it is a Ghetto Name.
#10. If you have never known of another human being who bears your name, it is a Ghetto Name.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Oh, wait...
nevermind.
People who are addicts all have the same type of personality, the need to fill a void of some type. They will do this however they can, if you're lucky, it becomes something more socially acceptable like exercise or being a workaholic. It's a hole for whatever reason and it will get plugged, whether you like it or not.
...can I join?
Adulthood & Responsibility
Anyone who spends six hours a day reading slashdot must read slow, or read things more than once.
Simon's Rock College
True all that. I'm a gamer and i've got my share of mental problems too (social anxiety). When I was kicked out of my circle of friends in high school, I turned to gaming and the internet (which I was already big into before) because it was the only safe place I had left. The world had suddenly become a very scary place for me, and I needed a sanctuary. I know during that period of three or so years, I WAS addicted to the computer/internet/games. I'd go into withdrawl without it. I'd get cranky if I couldn't have it. When my parents removed the computer's power cables because my grades were sliding, I actually went out and bought my own set of cables. I was into it waaay badly. But I seriously think the computer kept me alive during that time. When I was away from my computer, I would slide into depression very quickly. My whole world had collapsed, and the only thing I could think about besides the computer was suicide. But put me online and I could dissapear into whatever fantasy I wanted; a complete little world of its own, seperate from my 'real' life. So in that respect I think its a very, very good thing. I can honestly say that if I didn't have those fantasy worlds to clothe myself in, there's a very good chance i'd be dead right now.
Of course, the bad news is crawling back out of your hole. It's been like five years now and i'm still not anywhere near 'normal'. I still game, just not obsessively like I did before. I love computers and gaming, and i'd like to try and make a career out of it. I've got a few, very precious real world friends, but i'm still a very guarded person (which is a stark contrast to anyone who knew me before). I'm actually making progress (or at least trying to) on dealing with my anxiety issues now. I don't NEED the computer like I used to, though I still enjoy it very, very much. I can go outside again if things need doing. Being out in public doesn't bother me nearly as much, and i'm a lot better in social situations too. My life is slowly moving forward again, though admittedly I have a few years of catching up to do. I've got my ups and downs of course, but with the help of friends, familly, and what little motivation I can muster, i'm getting a life back.
So in that light, are games a tool? A drug? I'd consider them my shield, but whatever they are i'd just like to echo the sentiments of the parent post: Address the problem, not the result.
If you enjoy mindless games I suggest you try listening to audiobooks at the same time. You can have fun and justify the time spent because you're educating yourself.
Also, while on the subject.. if you listen to a lot of audiobooks, I highly recommend checking out pacemaker for winamp. Most books are narrated way too slow, this plugin is a godsend.
My parents are always saying I'm addicted to stuff, but only certain stuff. Here is my life-story of "addictions":
1> I was first addicted to television. I'd wake up in the morning and a large portion of my day was spent watching television. Boy did they dislike this. I'd watch lots of tv.
2> I was then addicted to reading. I'd spend nearly every waking moment reading and reading and reading. It was a lot of fun, they never said I was addicted.
3> Then came my addiction to a friend. I'd spend time with him all day every day (before I was a teenager so no, there was nothing sexual). They never said I was addicted.
4> Then I was addicted to roleplaying, but I didn't know it was roleplaying. I'd play with toys and play a story. I'd play with my sister and/or cousing and roleplay a story. I'd spend a lot of my time doing this. No-one said I was addicted.
5> Then came video games. I'd spend a large portion of my time every day playing them (sometimes alone, sometimes with my friend above). This "addiction" came and went in bouts. When it came I'd play it in my entire free time. They sometimes said I was addicted.
6> Then came the internet. They say I'm addicted to this. I hop on it for a large portion of my day. They say I'm addicted to this.
7> Then came talking to people on the internet. I'd do it for a large portion of the day. They said I was addicted to this and it was unhealthy.
8> Then came soccer. I'd play it in my free time ALL THE TIME. They never said I was addicted.
9> Then came ArmageddonMUD. I'd play it exclusively in my free time. They said I was addicted.
9 seperate "addictions" in 20 years. I call them all addictions because people said I was addicted to tv, video games, the internet, online chatting and ArmageddonMUD. They never said the other things were addictions, but they were just as much addictions as the others. I'd watch tv just as much as I'd read books, I'd play video games just as much as I'd play with my friend, I'd be on the internet just as much as I'd play soccer. Why is television and the internet an addiction when soccer or reading books isn't? I blame technophobia on people labelling me as having an addiction. There was absolutely NO difference between reading and playing video games.
At the moment I hop on the net a lot, but not to the detriment of school work. I give up Armageddon while I'm at school and play it exhaustively during the holidays. Am I an addict? If so, have all the things I've mentioned been addictions? And if not all of them have been, explain why some of them are and why some of them aren't.
When I was a kid I did kid things...throwing rocks...pellet fights
:P
Frankly, kids like you should be locked up inside infront of a computer
No-one's ever lost an eye playing FPSs. Collapsed dead from exhaustion with blood running from their nose, yes. But lost an eye, no.
And I'm going out on a limb to say that games are not only not addicting or damaging in any way, but that they yield positive effects on gamers.
Since the popularity boom of video games in the 80s, there has been almost nothing but negative press about how destructive and damaging video games are. They have been likened to vegetating in front of the TV which is wrong because you're not doing any thinking when watching TV. They have been called a tool of Satan by religious fanatics, but that's wrong because I know plenty of good (and religious) people who play games and continue to be good people. They have been blamed for murders and sociopathic behavior, but for every Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris out there, there are millions of well-adjusted and intelligent people playing games. They have been called an illicit source of pseudo-violence for a testosterone drunken society, but plenty of females play too. They have been blamed for laziness and weight problems, for lower intelligence, for addiction, for every evil under the sun, and yet, as a long-time game player, I have never had a single game-related problem in my life, short of running out of quarters when I was a teenager.
And you know what's interesting? I think back to all the kids I knew growing up. The most successful ones now, the ones who are the most productive, well-educated and generally happy, are the same ones who played video games. Imagine that. And some of those video game players let their interest in games blossom into an interest in computers and technology, and we've seen computers and the Internet change society in profound ways. Is there any way we could credit those video gamers, even just a little for what has happened in the last decade?
Gees, it all seems so sinister, doesn't it?
I have allowed my 8-year-old daughter to play video games (ones appropriate for her age, of course) since she was 5 and you know what? She's consistently at the top of her class in terms of reading, writing, spelling, math, etc., etc. She's well-adjusted and sociable and intelligent, just as I imagine lots of gamers of all ages out there are. A few days ago, her third-grade teacher gave out homework with a problem-solving story that was supposed to take three days to figure out. My daughter had it solved in a matter of minutes. The story problem was very similar to problems she has solved playing computer games over the last few years. Games have honed her problem-solving skills. They've sharpened her ability to analyze information and arrive at conclusions about it.
Oh, so damaging to her frail little self, huh? Imagine if she were an addict to problem-solving! Ohh... scary.
With all the real evils in the world, people shooting each other over different interpretations of God, over disagreements over land, over skin color, you would think this kind of agenda-driven fear-mongering would never find its way into print.
You would hope at least.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
When I was in college, I played volleyball when I wasn't in class. Yes I was on the school team, but after practice or in the off season, I played for recreation.
Now, there were days I would go to the beach, play from sun up till sun down, and go back and do it the next day. I would frequently blow off social engagements, simply because I made a choice about how to use my time.
I loved it. I could have played less, and probably done a bit more socializing, but I dated, had girlfriends and got laid plenty (it helps that I look like all the other beach volleyball players)
I also went to Europe 3 times on someone else's dime, traveled all over the country to other schools, and partied with their teams. I found a way to live life.
The point I guess is that if you had been an outsider, and you applied the same standard as these idiots, I would have been a candidate for treatment. Stupid people.
Also, addiction is no longer a term used by professionals, it is "abuse" and "dependence" . The fact that these people use the term when it doesn't apply speaks volume about their credibility.
If you play too much, you either ebay lewt if you're playing a MMORPG, or you go to paying tournaments if its another multiplayer game.
Theres nothing wrong with massive amounts of gaming, because eventually you DO get enough of it. I speak as a long term gamer who's stayed up 3 days in a row to play games at times.
Video games hone skills too, which you can't say of TV
BTW God spoke to me:
www.geocities.com/James_Sager_PA
God spoke to me
it always amuses me to listen to gamers go on and on about television. just because television might be more braindead than video games doesn't justify video games themselves. television does have its perks, such as staying up to date on news, documentaries, and who could forget the history channel? well, i could actually, but that's another story.
:/ turned out i really liked it though. i also decided i wanted to make games that told stories and had battles.
to avoid all of the typical flame posts, i wanted to share my experience with games. when i was about 8 years old, i saw a commercial for zelda on the tube. i got really excited, and i wanted to buy it with the money i had saved up. i didn't remember what the game was called, but i knew the package had a sword on it. i ended up purchasing final fantasy 2 (4j).
essentially, video gaming got me into all sorts of stuff. graphics design, creative writing, physics, computer programming, software engineering, math, and music to name most of them. i ended up gaining enough interest that now i am at a nice private university majoring in computer science and math, with a minor in vocal music. of course, i'm sure my experience is a bit more unique than others. however, in a world of apathy where it can be hard to get people interested in things, it would be a rash decision to remove the one thing they are passionate about. i've been addicted to games (not online games, mind you), but to eliminate them seems silly. i considered my addiction an opportunity to balance my life better. it would be wrong to say addicts can't be cured. with a bit of self-discipline and some encouragement, you can learn to set bounds on the things you love.
but then again, maybe i was not as addicted as others.
There's much to be said for the damage TV can cause (mostly to do with spoon-fed repetitive messages hitting your ears), but video games have their own distinct type of brain-abuse. My discovery of this was realized this last year when I connected my old NES (after not having played any games of any kind for about 10 years) and experienced nostalgia by plugging in my old "Contra" cartridge (which I'd spent 14 hours a day in front of for years as a kid). I started to play it and it was like I'd never left the damn thing - I hit evey jump, killed every enemy and basically finished the game on 1 try, without a certain code from the old days :- )
This was 10 YEARS LATER!!
My point is that (according to psychological theory) the way we learn is by developing pathways through our neurons which give us reflexes and reactions to certain stimuli. Video games (the old ones at least) have VERY specific reflex requirements to VERY specific stimuli (How many seconds do have to kill that alien - usually less than 1/2...how many different ways to kill him...without the EXACT same thumb twitch?)
This obviously results in focused but deep pathways in your neurons which will never be overwritten - a permanent fixture in your brain.
So while some people may not call being a master at "Contra" for the rest of your existence a waste - I regret it and would much rather know how to play the piano (for example) in exchange for that mental real-estate.
Spell it with me, now: A L C O H O L.
There's only one H. I don't see why people keep spelling it ALCHOHOL.
Yeah, if I could, I'd play games all day too. My solution was simple enough:
I got a 1-hour kitchen timer. If I want to play games and I know that I should be doing something else, I set the timer to one hour. When it rings, I set it to one hour again. I can't play games again until it rings.
Pavlovian? I suppose so. Effective, though, at least for me.
~Ben
Look, any person's parents and their assumed neglect can put a child/teenager in the position of being 'addicted' to video games if they play them long enough or its the only outlet they have for entertainment beyond running around in the yard in their underwear.
The thing is, a child/teenager can make their own choice to put the controller up or down. The more pervasive aspects of whether or not playing games becomes full blown addiction usually comes from the temperment of their environment, and their genetic disposition to form addictions of certain kinds.
Ultimately, the choice is still with the individual.
Every time I try to plan a night alone with the computer and a game it gets in the way. I just can't seem to stop!
How can they be so stupid. The key ingredient is people. You don't hear about people being addicted to offline games. It's online games like evercrack, diablo ii and socom ii that are addicting to certain types of people. The other games run out of stuff to do eventually.
If someone doesn't have something more fulfilling in their life besides an online-game, then the problem isn't their addiction to the game, the problem is their fear of taking risks to make the rest of their life worth it. If you were to compare it to a relationship, you're spending all of your efforts and money into this game, and all it's giving back to you is small neural responses that have a half-life of about 4 minutes (no pun intended). It's just not worth it.
I think people have to start examining themselves and decide what's more important, their future, or Urukul's Flaming Sword of Fury.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
Yeah, someone once told me to get a life, so I did. RL is as boring as the Sims, but it's even slower-paced, and the speed-up key can only be used once a day, and it only works at night, when you're at home trying to game, rather than you just pusshing fast-forward during the day when nobody's home!
And there's no fucking save/restore feature either! Sepend six weeks setting up a menage-a-trois with you, your boss' wife and just one lousy goat, and you might as well pull out the old .45 and reroll.
RL is teh suck. I wouldn't even warez it.
I used to get it bad but now a new game will keep me for about 3 days usually. You gotta get out of that cycle where you're always looking for your next fix, it helps to break CD's in half and delete things (delete and over-write, recovery tools will be the first thing your doped up brain will try). Instead try getting addicted to things like learning flash and c#, as much as we hate it, they're fun to play with and you might be able to get a job whoring yourself out for dot NET services.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The main sources of the story are two people who get paid for solving this problem, so they have an incentive to make it sound scary and widespread
This is true, and the same applies to just about any and every government department and/or authority. Be it the feminists, police, child protection and any number of other groups, their future security relies solely on there being an ongoing continuation of whatever social problem they are there purportedly to solve. Because of this fact you are almost certain to find that they have no interest whatsoever in solving the problem because if the were to they would all be out of a job. So what you find is that they do just enough to keep themselves in the public eye and nothing ever gets solved.
If a government wants to make a social problem worse, the best thing they can do is build a department full of social workers to look after it. It virtually guarantees that the problem will go on forever.
Yes, I read TFA. Been there, got the "Easy Does It" and "Sh!t Creek/up-and-back" t-shirts...
p icID=4.topic
t ml
Ninety five percent of all US "Treatment Centers" are really 12-step indoctrination centers, and websearches bring up vast numbers of 12-step glurge sites by anonymous members. Virually everyone you ask will say "I don't know anything about it but AA is where you go if you have a drinking problem." Here are the needles in the haystack for anyone who is considering ot has had any 12-step involvement:
http://www.aadeprogramming.com/
I'll write my book on it someday, but meanwhile read the books online on this site:
http://morerevealed.com/
http://www.orange-papers.org/
http://www.peele.net/
If you're not familiar with 12-step programs, here is the "On-Line Gamers Anonymous" version of "How It Work", taken straight from the first three pages of chapter 5, "How It Works" of AA's "Big Book", "Alcoholics Anonymous"
http://p198.ezboard.com/folgafrm31.showMessage?to
This is the original AA version (as originally PUBLISHED, not the "original manuscript"):
http://www.recovery.org/aa/bigbook/ww/chapter_5.h
With organizations such as http://www.ncadd.org/ and judges ordering defendants to AA without revealing their own AA memberships, most other "high demand" groups would give up the equivalent of personal body parts to have the same PR and good image as AA. But at least the other cults, er, "high-demand coercive groups" have at least some negative images in the minds of the public.
One more link:
http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/
Click on "Religious Group Profiles" for a list of just about every group you've probably heard of.
It even lists multilevel marketing schemes under "Para-Religious Movements."
Excessive drinking or other activity done to excess can create substantial problems in one's life, but 12-step groups are NOT the answer.
Tag lost or not installed.
Some of these shrinks need to get together and learn what a whole hell of a lot of AA, Compulsive Gambling, and other addiction specialized counselors and therapists already know, and most will tell you.
;)
Anything can supposedly be addictive, depending on the thought processes and emotions involved.
I don't necessarily agree with that opinion myself, but it's the only explanation that I can think of for sadism, masochism, and some of the other "out there" forms of what most will classify as mental illness.
Sure, games are addictive, but imho only as much as anything else out there. I tend to recognize some very addictive behavior in myself - have spent too much of my past doing drugs, drinking lots, and other nasty stuff that generally isn't considered too healthy or productive.
I like games too - but only nicely complex ones that are well though out and internally consistant - and sometimes I can go a bit overboard.
I'm generally too much of a pragmatist to see it as anything else but escapism though - which is almost a sure sign that something else is wrong.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to directly compare games and street drugs, we could easily be talking about quilting here, or maybe something more physical like exercise if that helps people to understand. Whatever calms or makes you feel "comfortable". Runner's high anyone?
It's just that I happen to enjoy and be relatively good at games and game theory.
What is really surprising about them growing up around me and my brother, is how they watch our behavior. (Here it comes), Regarding gaming, I got my first consoler (n64) , when i was nine, and me and my brother were of course hooked. So we have my little cousin watching us throw away a few years of our lives to things like Ocarina of Time, and now, he Just got his first ps2, at age 7.
This kid loves the thing, but every time he plays, he sets his watch for 45 mins. When it goes off, he saves, he gets up, and turns off "Hulk" or whatever he thinks is a good game. His parents didn't teach this to him, even though they always thought me and my little brother spent to much time gaming. The fact is, he doesn't want to become us. A bit insulting, but understandable. He only plays it once a day, and will just put on a movie if he has some free time.
I'm glad I got off my gaming habits, I don't have time for my day-to-day activities, let alone the newest fps. Not that I don't game, i just choose my battles a lot more (heh, HL2 is going to rock). I guess its a mixed blessing, means i have no reason to touch my windows box until November :p.
Can't post right now! I almost have level 10 done on the SCO game, I am about to slap IBM with a 1 Billion dollar law suit!
"The fantastic element that explains the appeal of dungeon-clearing games to many programmers is neither the fire-breathing monsters nor the milkyskinned, semi-clad sirens; it is the experience of carrying out a task from start to finish without user requirements changing."
-Thomas L. Holaday, "The Guru's Guide to SQL Server Stored Procedures, XML, and HTML (With CD-ROM) " by Ken Henderson, ISBN: The Guru's Guide to Transact-SQL, page: 119
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
FIRST, there is an activity enjoyed by a relatively small segment of the population. This activity is mysterious to the mainstream, perhaps it's a little beyond their ability to adapt to.
THEN, the activity becomes more popular. What was once a relatively minor thing becomes a phenomenon. The people currently In Power (tm), being old farts who have a hard time adapting to change, notice the phenomenon and are threatened by it. It is mysterious and strange, and like The Thing, it must be destroyed.
THEN, despite their best efforts, they fail to destroy it. People really like it, and tell them to get stuffed. They assume that people just don't understand the terrible thing they're doing to themselves, and they try to figure out a way to frame it so that they can bring social pressure down on the phenomenon.
THEN, usually, they invent some imagined syndrome, some terrible ailment caused by the new phenomenon. Recently, thanks to Hollywood's fascination with Heroin, "Addiction" is the popular ailment. The mainstream applies the ailment to the social phenomenon in an attempt to stigmatize it.
THEN, the stigma makes the phenomenon more popular. Inevitably, the phenomenon becomes mainstream, and the mainstream gives up trying to kill it off.
Examples: Rock and Roll, television, education, marriage (really! back in the years of the early church, it was considered bad for the soul), bathing, reading, printing books in the vernacular instead of latin, Science Fiction, video games, disco, folk music, and new age thinking.
Extreme example that hasn't gone mainstream yet: porno. Porno may never go mainstream in this country because of the puritan curse (the mindset passed down from puritans for the past several hundred years that sees sex as dirty and dangerous and sinful).
Interesting side phenomenon: goody-two-shoes types who were never really into the phenomenon (whatever the phenomenon might be) who deal with their guilt by buying into the ailment theory, and who try to claim social status by telling everyone within earshot that they've "overcome" their ailment.
Amazing irony: television, which is now mainstream, is considered "okay" to spend six hours or more a day with, remote in hand, brain in neutral. But when a person plays a video game (which engages their mind and imagination) for six hours, they are immediately pounced on by the "gaming as addiction" idiots.
Interesting side result: kids raised in gaming-friendly households will end up happier, smarter, and more alert than their television-addled counterparts.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
" How many times do we have to go over this?
BLAME THE PARENTS..."
No. Let's not. For a change, let's look at the issue as something complicated that can't be explained away by scapegoating somebody for it.
Articles like this always drive me nuts. When I was working on EverQuest Companion, one of the chapters was devoted to game addiction. My research for it entailed reading approximately 300 pages of psychology papers, interviewing people affected who had family members addicted to EverQuest, interviewing a psychologist who is working on game addiction (something only a handful of people are working on in North America, by the way), and reading a book by Doctor David Greenfield (who has so far conducted the largest study on Internet addiction). The research for that single chapter was massive, and longer than the entire manuscript for the book.
When I read this article, though, I can tell that all the reporter has done is interview a psychologist and throw in some pop psychology. And, as a result, a lot of wrong impressions have been given, and expressed.
Let's begin by dispelling a couple of myths:
1. There is a certain personality type that is more susceptible to addiction.
WRONG. The larger studies have actually confirmed that this is not the case, and that any personality type can become addicted. The only determining factor that seems to make any difference in how easily one becomes addicted is technical knowledge - it's easier to become addicted to the Internet if you know how to use it.
2. It's actually a simple matter, and there is one cause.
VERY WRONG. Every case of addiction is different in some way.
3. Game addiction doesn't really exist, and it is just people being lazy.
WRONG. Game addiction is a psychological addiction, and it is not only very real, but can be very damaging.
So, from my research, game addiction can be defined as this: a coping mechanism gone horribly wrong.
Computer game addiction is very similar to gambling addiction, but it is a coping mechanism. It just isn't a good one. There is no single reason for computer game addiction, simply because everybody who becomes addicted has a different trigger.
For example, in the case of Shawn Woolley, his trigger seems to have been mistreatment at work. He had epilepsy, had been playing recreationally and had a massive seizure, and then his boss (whose wife had epilepsy) forced him to work overtime even though Woolley could barely function. Woolley stormed off the job in disgust, and the addiction started shortly after.
(I know this because in my research, I got a full timeline from Liz Woolley, who is actually very grounded in reality. All of those problems that Woolley was suffering were actually symptoms of the addiction - the one thing that just about never shows up in articles about the case is that the Woolley family spent around a year and a half trying to get Shawn help, and NOBODY would recognize that it was even possible to get addicted to a game, and those who did only treated the symptoms, and not the addiction.)
The addiction cycle works something like this: You have the trigger. For argument's sake, let's say you're a student and you have a late assignment. This is very stressful, so you play some game X to relieve it. But, when you finish playing, since you were playing a game instead of finishing the assigment, it is now even more late, and the situation is worse. This causes even more stress, so you play a bit more to relieve the stress. And thus it becomes a cycle, and soon you need to play the game just to feel normal.
It isn't a simple issue, and there isn't a broadstroke cure. It also isn't some sort of disease, where everybody who plays a certain game will probably become addicted to it. That's horsesh*t, quite frankly. In fact, statistics collected by Nicholas Yee regarding EverQuest indicated that more people believed they had a problem than actually di
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
Well, around here electricity is pretty cheap, and Nethack is free. So I guess my 8 hour a day nethack habit isn't a problem. Schweet.
/. Time to go work on my ascension.
Enough
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
but an entertainment addiction. I'd say we could group gaming addicts along with Internet junkies (e.g. chronic Slashdotters) and with television junkies (people who think Friends is them). While these each have different levels of interaction (TV least, gaming middle, on-line discussions most), the levels aren't so dramatic to really differentiate them. The amount of instant gratification is the same, for example. Worst are people who are addicted to all three and spend all their time watching, playing, or posting and can't pay attention to their other responsibilities.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
Lets see,
You are 29. Your son is 11 years old, which means that you had him when you were 18.
So while you were in college you had a child. This necessitates additional income.
You either had to work yourself (most likely), or found a sugar mama to support you.
So, you were able to balance work, college, spending time with your s/o and play CTF for
8 hour stretches at a time all the while raising an infant, doing diaper changes, midnight feeding, etc.
No wonder you had no difficulty with a CTF addiction:
CTF was nothing compared to the outrageous smack addiction you had.
I used to be addicted to games growing up, so much that it got a bit embarassing. What finally got me to quit? The fact that my friends were addicted, and compared to them I sucked at all the games I ever played. I still can't beat even the easiest of games on it's lowest setting, and since, I've gone out and starting coding, writing, playing music, etc, and I'm generally happier than I ever was before. I guess sometimes sucking can be a good thing, eh?
Travel around your house and collect dust. Once you have a lot of dust (in a bowl, perhaps) turn off the "addict"'s computer, open it up, dump the dust inside the case (especially all around the CPU, memory, and graphics card), and then close up the case. Within a week, their computer is going to overheat, and then they will be forced to stop gaming for a while. Fitzghon
I'll readily admit I have a bit of a problem with chemicals - everything I do is to excess. If I'm drinking, it's like a rock star. If I smoke, it's like Snoop Dogg. I only smoked tobacco recreationally while drinking or to finish off the day's fourth or fifth marijuana episode. To be honest, nicotine never had a big enough kick to get me interested - it's not like you can smoke an entire pack of smokes to get "really blasted" or anything. Cigarettes always seemed like a waste of time/money to me.
So yeah, I have a bit of an issue with excessive chemical intake. When I decided to grow up and quit smoking myself stupid every day, I found it very difficult to give it up. It wasn't like I craved it, but it was impossible to turn it down if it was available.
I finally moved to a new town, got a new circle of friends, and don't have a problem with it. It took me about 9-12 months to get to the point where I can deny myself weed when it's available, but I know that I'd cave in under the slightest pressure. As for liquor? Forget it - I gave up THC, the chemical replacement for contentedness, happiness, and satiation for legal/employment reasons. If this nation's founding fathers gave me the right to liquor, the chemical replacement for arrogance, self-loathing, and sexual responsibility, then fuck all. I'll drink my way through life.
Anyway, I'm not properly refuting your opinion. I'm just saying that quitting weed was very difficult for this guy. Oh, and the next time you hear of alcohol being involved in domestic violence or a car accident, think of all those times you've heard of marijuana contributing to domestic violence or a car accident. I'm so glad we keep dangerous drugs off the streets... I'd rather be toking than drinking.
Given that our education system is a major source of the problem, and considering the grammar/spelling abilities of the poster, one might assume that the poster is a gaming addict.
Right?
Chicks dig my good /. karma.
Are games like Counter Strike and Everquest addictive? Yes, no doubt in my mind. However, the same thing could be said about watching TV, reading, working out, etc..
I personally stopped playing CS well over a year ago after being too involved in the game. Now maybe I was indulging, but what about people who spend twice as much time in front of a tv? What about workaholics? Gaming is no worse of an addiction than most others and at least it involves doing something rather than sitting lifeless staring at what is mostly advertisements.
In addition, it's not really the gaming that I enjoyed. I really liked the people I knew through the game and I still maintain contact with them.
Finally, the true cure to gaming is having a child. You barely have time to peruse Slashdot, much less play any kind of game.
THIS is the icing on the proverbial cake:
If you're a parent and your child is withdrawing, you might wonder if your kid is getting into pot or cocaine," says Hilarie Cash of Internet/Computer Addiction Services in Redmond, Wash. "The symptoms are very similar."
where do I start? this woman's NAME is Cash, for fuck's sake. she works for this ludicrously named 'Internet/Computer Addiction Services', which has got to be the stupidest place one can work at. and it's in REDMOND. yeah, some experts live down there alright. and then she comes out with DA BOMB: the symptoms for pot and cocaine are very similar. Er...no. And by that I mean just that, NO. she has obviously spent too much time studying, er...internet addiction (whatever the fuck that is, said he who keeps Firefox with three different RSS feeds open some 14 hours a day), and has yet to get around to studying proper gear, and its real effects.
bloody Yanks. a shrink and a pill for every problem.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- G.B. Shaw
do your own research, it's been used to help alcohol addiction, and I feel its a large part of the reason someone I *ahem* know is completely non-addictive in nature...
"Video games not a drug. I used to suck dick for coke. Now that's an addiction. You ever suck some dick for Halo?"
I used to play rogue spear a lot during college, especially online. However, I seemed to always manage to get homework and papers completed well enough to finish 158 hours in 4.5 years including summers. But the thing I liked about Rogue Spear was I could get on and play against the computer or others in games that typically lasted less that 10 - 15 minutes. So after reading a chapter or a handout, I'd play a game or two, then get back to work. Or read while people were messing around and the game loaded. Play, get killed and go back to reading until the game was finished.
Last year I used to hang out with people every saturday night that would Role play from about 6PM until 9 PM. I never saw the point and usually played Risk, watched a movie, shot the bull with others that didn't RPG and then they would order out pizza and break out HALO about 9 - 10PM and we'd play 4v4 halo until midnight or 1PM.
However, two people that continueally played online games and halo failed out of school. (most had graduated and had full-time jobs or worked part time and were in Grad school). They both ended up selling their X-boxes and one got to come back this fall. His present from his grandparents: an Alienware Laptop. A $1000 Dell would have been fine for school use, but Alienware is designed for gamers.
I was engaged at one point. I worked as a free-lance web designer during college and continued to do so to pay bills, but I was burned out of doing it after 8 years. I kept applying for jobs in the morning. Sending out resumes online and in paperform to local companies hiring, then in the afternoon I'd sit, watch TV, and play Rogue Spear: Black Thorn. Oftentimes forgetting to do chores like vaccuum. Ticked off my fiance (that worked a part-time job and was trying to start a wedding planning business that I helped with in the evenings and on weekends) to no end. Sometimes when she had a big wedding or was sub-contracting with someone else, I'd spend my nights playing the online game.
In pre-marital counsiling (required by the Church), she would bring it up. Ultimately it really wasn't a factor in our break-up. That was due to my Majors being International Business and German and to find a job meant leaving Springfield, Missouri which she didn't want to do.
Its something I watch out for. I like to play computer games, but anymore I get extremely board playing the same games. Its been fun dragging out TIE Fighter this past week. I've been thinking of getting an X-box, but I even hooked up my old Sega Gensises to the 65" HDTV I have and played it for about 4 hours one night just for kicks. (Okay two-nights, an old friend came over and we drug out mortal kombat).
I can remember playing Knights of the Old Republic and it logging I spent 48 hours playing the game over about 3 months at my friends. Then someone said I needed to play it again and do it dark side and I said, "Yeah, just tell me what happens because I've spent about 40 hours too long playing this game." I know someone else that spend the combined total of 120 days straight of EQ and had to quit. That certainly becomes and addiction.
At least when your playing Basketball, or in my case ice hockey, you are interacting with real people and getting excercise. I'm sure a lot of childhood obeseity these days are linked to kids doing nothing but watching TV, playing video games, as well as diet.
What really broke me was I spent 1 semester in Europe, Germany specifically. I had my iBook, no games, no TV in my apartment (I wish I had a TV so I could have listen to more German), but went out almost everynight for dinner from 7PM - 10PM and either watched Soccer or revived the lost art of conversation and debate over a smoke, tea and/or wine.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
It's pronounced Ozz-wee-pay!
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
i play so many games that my friends have made up a name for my keyboard config.
they call it 'the claw'
and they say that it hurts their hands.
left ctrl for left strafe (pinky finger)
left shift for crouch (ring finger)
w for forward (middle finger)
x for jump (index finger)
and left alt for right strafe (thumb)
to be honest, it took a broken leg back when half life was popular to develop the necessary muscles to do this without my pinky and ring fingers going numb... but now... but NOW ITS THE BEST.
in a studio apartment with no furniture but a futon matress i laid down at my laptop and played so much last summer that i pulled several back muscles.
yes, i pulled muscles from too much relaxation.
now that i have the power of the CLAW, when my friends mock me, all i have to do is raise my hand from the keyboard and its already in the shape of a nice 'fuck you'
-mick
Social problems and gaming streaks are a bit of a chicken and egg problem. It's not always clear which caused which.
A minor setback in the social agenda can cause a spree of gaming, which removes one from the loop further, making it ever harder to get back into a pattern of interacting with friends.
It's really a downward spiral which, for most people, has a rebound at the end.
I've gotten used to these cycles, and as I age they grow fewer and farther between. Now when I see a game coming that I'll expect to play, I warn my friends ahead of time. I spend a few weeks in a cocoon, play the hell out of it and don't feel guilty, knowing that it'll be gone soon and I'll be back to normal.
This kind of play hard/cold turkey cycle works very well for me, but it's difficult to learn and only works with games that don't require serious long term committments (not EQ).
If I am a gaming "addict" and I game 2 hours a day, every day, at times that don't interfere with some other part of my life, who the hell cares?
If someone smokes 3 cigarettes a day, who the hell cares? That guy is smoking less than a pack a week! I get more secondhand smoke than that!
So no, my argument is NOT faulty. Time and quantity is the heart of the whole issue. If your "addiction" doesn't interfere with your life, your job, or alienate your family, then its not a big deal, and YOU should get to worrying about something that actually matters, rather than spending your dissaproval on a moderate and in control habit.
Makes me sick. I've seen alcoholics that can take a quart of vodka A DAY, or a pack of cigarettes at ONE MEAL, and you talk about fiddling nothing habits? Addicts don't stop. Thats practically the definition. A smoker doesn't HAVE three cigarettes if he's addicted.
If you can't drag someone from his computer, if he gets the shakes when the power goes out or freaks out when the cable dies, yea, get him some counsiling, but just because he games 6 hours a day, that means NOTHING.
So spare me your moralistic babble. If I read 12 hours a day, which I do sometimes, you'd think it was great, but I've had a hell of a lot more trouble putting down a book than I've ever had turning off a damn computer.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I was addicted to this one game until my old machine died. I can't remember the name of it, but I would play for hours. It was a top down perspective shooter and you basically shot the hell out of these onrushing aliens, trying to stay alive and gain power-ups. If someone knows the name of this game, please let me know.
Wow, nice debunk; no topics, no use, just pointing out that I don't grammarcheck/spellcheck my posts and have slight dyslexia. A big F: F for FAILURE to get the point, and a FAILURE to add something meaningful to the discussion.
As for being a gaming addict; loud n' proud, but it doesn't take away from me studying or me getting out for walks (which hopefully will turn into running within a few months, heh) every night. Everyone who took salvation in videogames instead of a needle as a teenager has to get out of the videogame reality and into real reality; my solution was computers and nature walks, and learning a fscksum of skills. I still play games to relax and to sulk, and I find it's a good coping mechanism compaired to, say, beer. Even better if some guys are on Ven and we can go fuck shit up on a server. I use slashdot and essaying to give ideas form and think them out, and get people to bitch back.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
Anything worth doing, is worth doing in excess 8)
I just installed FC2 on my old XP/Game box so I would stop playing BF1942.
It didn't even say his grades were slipping, which is a more common video game problem
Thus sayeth the article:
"Jaysen Perkins used to spend up to six hours a day running missions with the U.S. Navy Seals. Until it started hurting his social life. And his grades."
Sony ha
For a long time I had compulsive gaming behaviour and wasn't really going anywhere in life, but after dropping some acid, I decided to take charge and have swapped my obsession to the more productive world of coding & hacking.
Anything that fills a need can be addictive.
I've got a theory, just a personal one, not a scientific one, but it's that addictive things don't actually fill the need they seem to be a response to -- they blunt the edge or feel like they fill the need. Thus you're constantly actually hungry for the real need, but habituated to the addiction as a response, and that's when you're trapped.
Tweet, tweet.
This sounds much like the situation I'm in right now.
You've just convinced me to stop my Civ3 game.
btw: I never turn Civ3 off - it's always running in the background and I play a "few" turns here and there...
Anyway, I completely agree with you. Overly paranoid "activists", overly paranoid media, and an overly paranoid government have convinced many otherwise reasonable people that the world is much too dangerous for kids to be kids. (Lawyers don't help.) Not only outside activities... but chemistry sets, electronics sets, darts, pool, anything that requires pointy objects or "dangerous chemicals" to do... the list goes on and on.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
This has been going on for years. Thing is, it was those who read extensively that were neglecting ttheir social life and/or their schoolwork. Since reading extensively for long periods of time takes patience and brainpower. Thus generally people who read a lot were classified as nerds and were considered an estranged group already. They had found their escape from reality and were happy with it. Now that there is a way to escape reality that doesn't take intelligence or especially in the case of D&D, great imagination, it is showing itself in those considered "normal". Suddenly, the fact that these kids are not satisfied with this oh so joyous and friendly reality of ours is a major problem because these kids were POPULAR. Quite funny really.
Hello, my name is Richard, and I'm a game addict!
(The first step is admitting you have a problem.)
Internet Chess (ICC) is extremely addicting although this account is a smidge jive:
The Internet Chess Addict's Home
Another addicting game that saps my time when I'm waiting for my next internet chess opponent to arrive is BlogShares. A market simulation game where you can aspire to "own" Slashdot and other blogs on the internet.
I've just created another legion of internet addicts, so sorry.
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
As games get more interactive, and more online MMO games come about, I think things will only get worse sadly.
http://www.techsupportforum.com
"If you're a parent and your child is withdrawing, you might wonder if your kid is getting into pot or cocaine," says Hilarie Cash of Internet/Computer Addiction Services in Redmond, Wash. "The symptoms are very similar."
That is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever read. Comparing the withdrawl symptoms of pot and cocaine would be plenty stupid alone, but comparing either of them to videogames takes a kind of ignorance of the world around you that boggles my mind.
That's why my friends and I used to joke that Tetris was worse than crack. At least with crack, you'd bottom out at some point. Most of us were playing copies of someone else's game anyway, so we didn't even pay money in the beginning.
Boy, I guess I'm dating myselfy by using Tetris and crack references...
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
You hit the nail on the head. Thanks for spelling it out so well.
Growing up sucked, and fantasy worlds of legos and other toys (complete with social structure, political intrigue, military action, dramatic dialogue) filled in with my imagination what my reality couldn't supply. Computers were nice to dink around with back in the late 80s and early 90s, but for me they didn't really hold anything really captivating. Then came this really cool game: Myst. I was hooked. Then I started finding RPGs like Realmz, FPS's like Doom and even more engrossing, Marathon (such an excellent storyline). Along came C&C and Warcraft II, Master of Orion, Escape Velocity, Diablo, Myth, Civilization, StarCraft, Baldur's Gate, etc. Hours and hours of exploration, experimentation, hacking (after I finished games, I'd pick them apart), FIGURING OUT. That was the bottom line: figuring out what I could do in the game and what I could make the game do.
School, well, school absolutely sucked. I gained everything I could learn from school quickly, and then I went home and learned on my own. The only worthwhile class in high school was debate. I competed in foreign extemp, and my coach gave me the leeway to do all my own research, to put together my own files, to learn on my own and then bring that knowledge I gained to competitions. I used the class for practicing my debating skills, but I was really in it because it was finally something that stretched and tested my knowledge. And yes, I was pretty good. But I still spent a lot of time reading and playing computer games, hours each day on games. They were the mental stimulus this artificial reality of school moved too slow in providing.
If school had delved into really teaching symbolism and structure (from linguistics to algebra to science) early on, rather than spelling exercises, reading silly books 5 grade levels behind what I read in my spare time, arithmetic tables, and "white man is evil, indians are good" history, and delved into more advanced topics from there, there's a very good chance it could have kept my attention. But it didn't, and I was in seventh grade helping freshmen with their algebra, continually demonstrating to myself that I could do absolutely no homework and still be more skilled in all the subject matter than my peers. Is it any wonder that computer games were so attractive? They offered stuff, even made-up stuff, that I didn't already know.
That's the problem with public or any mass education: they try to use the same formula to teach all of us, and the formula is only tailored to one type of temperament: kids who care about authority, like to have stickers saying "Great Job!" on their assignments, and really think their teachers know what they're talking about without finding out for themselves.
At which point does the average idiot realize these two simple facts:
1: Any given activity is just about as good as any given other so long as it isn't causing anyone direct harm.
2: There isn't anything wrong with being focused on a couple of hobbies and be good at them instead of trying to indulge 1000 different activities and suck at all of them.
Playing games is what these people like, but they are supposed to switch to supposedly "normal" activities that they only spend a handful of hours a week on... for what? Just to be "normal"? Because their past time "isn't healthy"? Please. There is a reason "normal" people don't have anything they like to do more than 5 hours a week other than watch tv, because "normal" activies simply aren't that god damned stimulating. It's fucking true. If you manage to fill all your free time with taking walks or just "hanging out" with friends, fine, but don't push it on other people. You can be your "normal" simple self and not bother people who aren't into that crap. Thanks.
Sigs are awesome huh?
I have what would probably be termed a mild compulsive behaviour problem, if there is such a thing.
:(
When I was younger (11-16) I played games -- sports and video games -- to the detriment of *everything* else. I didn't socialise outside of the football pitch, the tennis court*, or someones room huddled around a computer game of some sort. Why? Because playing games/sports, even though they don't matter, even though you're not particularly good, makes you feel happy.
And you know what? My behaviour was seen as quite normal at that age. Yeah, I was seen as a bit strange -- mostly because the rest of my free time was spent consuming books and I'm a deeply introverted person -- but overall I was accepted. It was only when my peers turned to underage drinking, experimenting with drugs, and clubbing that I was left behind to a certain extent. Yes, I did try these things but I got a bigger serotonin kick from sports and games.
Of course my life segfaulted before I could resolve these issues
* The most popular sports at my school. YMMV.
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
That involves knitting, right?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Addiction is overrated. Everyone says find something else better to do with your life. Do you not think they are happy with what they are doing, I mean they are addicted to it?
hah.
This story ties into some of the same hype that happens when some poor soul captures the media's attention because of a tragic incident. The witch hunt then begins and the tried and true attention getting tactic of "fear" is harped upon.
;) ).
One part of the article that leaped out at me was that the Online Gamers Anonymous website purportedly gets 300 visits a week. When read within the flow of the article, this number was supposed to impress upon us that the organization had grown and was very popular. The former is true but the latter is false. They went from no hits to 300 hits. So, yes, they did grow. Yet 300 hits a week is, quite frankly, a pitiful number for a website that is supposed to appeal to players of games that have had up to 50,000 people playing simultaneously. That number is just for one out of several online games. The total number of online gamers past and present is most likely close to a million.
Additionally, hits to that site do not translate into support for the website maker's cause. I visited that site a long time ago when I first heard about it. But my interest was more academic and not because I believed I might have a gaming addiction problem.
I happen to think that devoting too much time to video games can indeed be harmful and certain people with the predisposition for addiction may very well become addicted to gaming. However, I do not agree that games should be avoided by everyone because of this potentiality. I also believe that games can be beneficial for many people.
I am biased of course. I'm a gamer with a long and varied online gaming career and have made many "real life" friends out of people I first met through video games. I am so emmeshed in the gaming culture that I am key member of a gaming website and I also run a store that carries video gaming merchandise. I constantly think about games and the gaming industry.
Yet...am I addicted? I've played for hours on end, even skipped meals or had them while playing. But I have also had breaks of months of no play. And I've played all night then gone out and went rock climbing all day the next day (not a recommended course of action for the novice climber btw
Gaming has postively impacted my life. My social circle has expanded. I have traveled more. Even my job opportunites have been expanded. If I wanted to, I could string together some statistics that would "prove" that gaming was good for everyone but that would be as misleading as some of the articles saying that online games are evil.
~Fricka
OffLineTshirts.com
As in when GTA3 San Andreas comes out... I'm sure that there will be a lot of people not coming into work/going out/studying/sleeping to play the MF. I'll probably take a few days off.
I used to be heavily addicted to games. Used to play every day for a couple of hours a day for a decade - all night sessions with 8bit, 16bit and PC games. Then I reached 18 and decided to give that time to beer, girls, study and work.
Still, when I find a game I like, I can spend days playing it, regretting the time spent on other pursuits (including sleep). However, nowadays, I hardly ever find a game I like. After playing CIV, Deus Ex, Fallout, Planescape Torment, Shogun, GTA, I find it hard to find anything of comparative quality or novelty. RTS and MMORPG games thankfully bore me to hell and back - though I've been enjoying Adventure Quest during my lunch breaks. A game has to allow me to release tension in a freeform environment (GTA) or challenge me intellectually (Civ, Shogun) or tell a compelling story (Planescape, Fallout) to get me to disengage from real life for a while.
Mostly real life offers more emotional, intellectual and physical satisfaction. However, I can understand people who don't have a girlfriend, a nice job or a snowboard, making up for the lack through games. As long as the game doesn't become the cause, not the substitute, for the lack.
'Addiction' can be a result of the subject not having any other interests simply because they don't fit in to society and can't take part in other activities. Or it can be a result of the reward mechanisms built into games. You spend time on a game and get rewarded with your character gaining a level, your civilization gaining a tech or wonder or your doll getting a new dress. Your brain rewards you with pleasant chemicals for achieving something. It doesn't know that the sofa in the Sims is virtual...
Same with posts modded up in Slashdot...
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
See! I can stop playing for... for... ok I am addicted.
After spending a great summer intereacting with Real People in the Real World, I'm out of money. After the initial expense of a computer, playing games heavily is a very cheap way to spend your free time :)
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
"If you're a parent and your child is withdrawing, you might wonder if your kid is getting into pot or cocaine,"
I lived for playing soccer (for you American folk) and touch football (still American) with my buddies as I was growing up. I got excited during the week knowing I had a big game coming up that weekend. Obviously I must have been addicted to cocaine or crack. There's no other explanation why I would be interested or excited about something I liked or cared about...obviously I was snorting the yard lines on the field.
I am hoping they tried other forms of control before taking their kid to a shrink. In all seriousness, isn't part of parenting taking part in guiding your kids and helping them out, showing them the way through life?
Ban use of the computer 24/7 straight, it's not like he's allowed to get up in the middle of the night and watch telly or anything. Just establish some reasonable guidelines and stick to them.
Take responsibility for your kids, parents out there. Don't just send them to a shrink when it's too hard.
If I only had the time! Niggling things like work keep pulling me away...
On a more serious note, on the scale of addictions, gameaholism has got to be one of the least worrisome. Possible health effects? I can come up with eyestrain and RSI, which don't hold a candle to health risks from smoking or drinking. Social effects? Possible (and I know this is _very_ arguable) social isolation, as opposed to secondhand smoke, or all the potential trouble that public drunkenness can lead to.
Lastly, I'll go out on a limb and say that all subjects of addiction serve one or more purposes for the user. For example, alcohol is a significant element in our social fabric, in addition to having potentially appealing chemical effects. Even a game-hater has to admit that games can be a means of anonymous communication, mindless entertainment, stress relief, and external validation. Some of us would claim that games can have much more important benefits than that, encouraging creativity and critical thinking being obvious examples.
Maybe time would be better spent thinking about addictions in general, and what if anything society needs to do about them, instead of picking a bogeyman du jour to vilify?
I'm going to give my two cents on this issue, because I think there's a lot of FUD surrounding this issue.
When I was six I got a NES for christmas.
I've been playing games ever since.
As long as I've been playing video games, I've enjoyed myself enormously.
As long as I've been playing video games, people have been telling me I'm addicted and should stop playing them and do something else.
Quite frankly, I'm sick of this sentiment. Am I addicted to video games? Well, I don't get the shakes if I haven't played a game for a week. I don't spend vast amounts of cash on games, I prefer to spend less on good games. Can I give up games? I have given them up, for large periods. Did I go 'back on' them? Yes! I was bored and they were entertaining.
If I am addicted to video games, then others are addicted to soccer and soap operas. What's the difference between playing, watching and supporting soccer for 20 hours a week and playing video games 20 hours a week? Does simply enjoying something make you addicted? Or is it only when that something is disapproved of.
Have video games affected me?
Hell yes!
I'm a better person because of them.
Wait? Back up OMF. You say that violent, blood ridden, manic video games have made you a better person? No! That view is the typical sterotype made by people who don't play games, yet feel that they know enough about them to critisise.
I play RPG(Role Playing Games), platformers, strategy games. A lot of the games I play have stories, stories with morals. And a hell of a lot more morals than you'll find in 90% of TV and movies. Are all games like this? No, of course not. But a great many are. People seem to only consider the negatives about the effects of games on people. There are a large number of positives. No-one who plays through Final Fantasy VII can come out the other side unaffected, usually for the better. All of my friends who are into video games, are usually more thoughtful, more insightful, more tolerent and more understanding people than those who spend their time on 'normal' hobbies. I'd say that avid game players are actually better members of society than 'normal' people.
Of course most of the public have never heard of an RPG. All they hear about is Doom and columbine, usually in the same sentence. The industry is to blame for this as well. Their advertisements are usually along the same lines ass crass hollywood trailers, appealing to the LCD. In recent years, the idustry has been throwing out a lot of games based solely on graphics, sound and other fluff, hoping that the initial impression will be enough to get people to fork over their cash. It is. And the best impressions are usually made by games that feature guns,cars and sex. just like the movies really. But ask anyone who's into games what they think of these titles, and they'll tell you where to shove them. Which is not to say that all such titles are poor. Or that all other genres are superior. It's all down to taste, and my tastes are not what sterotypers think.
I'm not a 'gamer'. A 'gamer' is to a hardcore video game player, what a script-kiddie is to a hacker. Someone who's only scratched the surface, is in it for the glamour, and ultimately appreciates very little about games and will only dip into the hobby now and again. The casual gamer is the one that spends $60 on a bad to mediocre FPS or racing game, and is satisfied with their purchase. I'm a game player. I look for quality, because games are my hobby. I'm not junkie, but I do binge when I want to. I've played violent games, I've liked violent games, but I, and other game enthusiasts, are less violent than the public at large. I spend money on games, but I never spend over my budget.
And I never criticise other people for their choice of lifestyle. My chastisement at the hands of the ignorent has taught me to never run down other people interests, especially when I'm ignorent of them.
I play video games. Don't tread on me.
May the Maths Be with you!
Ah, but since most of the native Spanish-speakers one meets here are darker-skinned (and therefore "the Other"), most Northern-European-descended Americans don't consider that culture "white."
Rednecks are just as much 'the Other' when it comes to slashdot users, but somehow I've never hear their social experience given this kind of consideration. Somehow. 'Orientalism' is just not supposed to apply to West Virginia.
he was happy, he was not {getting drunk, doing drugs, making babies, killing, thieving, raping, pillaging}
Are we supposed to spot the one which does not fit in? I found it. Making babies. Am I a genius?
Come on. When you typed "making babies" in a list of disasters that include "killing, raping, doing drugs etc...", didn't anything stop you? Didn't the thought occur that creating life is not as bad as destroying it?
And the worst is that your post has like 6 replies and nobody seemed shocked by that. Am I the only one?
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
No doubt by "making babies" he was refering to teenage pregnancy. The babies made via teenage pregnancy tend to be a burden on society, even moreso than thieving. Since "thieving" was on the list, I would argue that "making babies" should be as well.
"Feel a glory in so rolling / on the human heart a stone" --E. A. Poe, "The Bells"
ADDICTION - compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly : persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful
It is in my opinion, that by today's social standards, nearly everyone is looking for a scandal the might lead to any amount [big or small] of media attention.
Bush versus Gore in the presidential election of 2000. Was the system screwed up? Sure. How much media attention did it receive and how many people stay glued to the TV for hours upon hours awaiting a decision from Florida? Too many.
Ellen DeGeneres admitted to being gay and publicly announced it on TV during an episode of her TV show Ellen. Have we honestly heard the end of it?
So here we have this kid who played Socom for hours on end. His need for playing has been dubbed an addiction. How? Did it ruin his grades in school? Did he get fat in such a way it became a health hazard? Did he become moody and violent due to lack of social interaction? Did it start to ruin his life so that his future looked so bleek he needed professional help to save him?
First off, I am gonna point a finger or two at the parents. I am going to assume that he played late at night on a school night. With that assumption, what the hell kind of parent lets their kid stay up till 2am for example to play a video game? More importantly, was this late night playing having a direct effect on his grades and school attendance? If so, why didn't they step in. If not, why the big deal?
Scandal is the answer. "My son is addicted to video games. Oh hey look my name is listed in an article on the internet with a troubled child."
It is kinda like the kids who shot and killed that girl. They were shooting at cars passing on a road because they supposedly thought it was okay because you could do it in Grand Theft Auto. Nevermind the fact that the game has a listing for extreme violence and adult content. Nevermind that the parents were not watching their kids behavior. It is Rockstar's fault for making such a violent video game and therefore must me sued for a few billion dollars. Two hundread billion if I am not mistaken.
Scandal. It isn't the fact that you can blame yourself for being a bad parent. However if you can point responsibility elsewhere then it is a goldmine. My child is addicted because I won't pay attention to his behavioral pattern until it is two late.
It is in my opinion (but strong opinion) that many parents today are parents because it was the order of things. Go to college, get married, have kids. They completely disregard the responsibility that you own when you take on this endeavor. For 18 years you claim the responsibility for your childs actions as a direct result of your parenting ability. This technically goes on for life. You as a parent build and mold the childs persona by giving them the environment to grow up in.
I thank my lucky stars I had good parents. When I tried my hand at 20 straight hours of the original Metroid, come hour five my mom stepped in. Made me shut the game off and go outside. Why? Because I played the game for 5 straight hours and I was 8 years old! When I tried watching TV all day for a whole summer. My mom came in and shut the TV off and told me to go outside. Why? Because she was keeping her child from falling into a life of apathy.
Scandal my friends. Don't blame yourself for your lack luster abilities. Blame someone else so it looks like you are taking a proper and just step.
Lets even get started on the kids and Columbine. Who's parents not only allowed their kids to make videos with violent nature and threats and listen to socially distorted music but allowed them to buy and keep multiple guns in the house.
Allowed? Damn right they allowed it. It was under their roof. One of the
Game addiction? For some people, this might work.
I know of an organization. Fill the form with your name and address at:
http://www.bsa.org/usa/report/Reporting-Form.cfm
They will help you get rid of software you didn't really mean to use.
A guy I used to work with told me this story too. His mom used to work as a nurse, and a woman named her baby the same thing. Though in this case it was spelled the same way: Shi-thead. Due to the similarities in stories I wonder if this is one of those things that we always hear about third hand, but never see for ourselves? My brother in law's name is Michael Hunter, though not exactly Mike Hunt caliber. It dosen't stop my brother from calling him that.
So now, games don't just cause people to run out and go on murder sprees. Now, everyone who plays video games is "depressed" and "avoiding social situations".
Let's see. I work a full-time job, I have a fiance, I've got a lot of friends I hang out with multiple times a week, I'm the happiest I've ever been and I still play video games.
Why? Because I hate dancing. I hate clubs. The mall is only so fun. And I'm a geek.
Hello people! Video games. Note the second word. Games. Something people do to have fun. Not always done in groups.
Thank you and leave me and my precious Sims2 be.
Considering kids could be addicted to worse things than sitting in your house, rampaging on a virtual killing spree, be glad you know where they are.
As a long time gaming addict myself, last night I suffered as my gaming box went through hardware failures. After a few hours of trying this and that, it was painfully obious that giving up the ghost was the only solution. Here I am 6 hours later, middle of the workday, still have 4 hours of school after that and my day is crap, because I know when its all said and done I cant go home and blow off some steam in my favorite gaming server.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Great post - very honest and somewhat mirrors my own experience.
As a gamer, I've been playing since the 2600. I've played them all. Hell, I own a Jaguar!
When I was in high school, I found myself as an outsider - going from one group to another, but not really belonging to any one of them. I had very few real friends. I don't know if I was picked on any more or less than anyone else, but compounded with the depression I was experiencing, it sure felt like it. I needed an out - for a while that was video games...and to an extent it still is. But I would hesitate to say I was/am addicted.
Eventually, I discovered the local BBS scene and eventually IRC and the web. This was in...probably 93 or 94. That was a wonderful thing! A place where you can be yourself, with no "body" to interfere with people's perceptions! You were judged on intelligence, humor, and maybe your ability to acquire 0-day warez. Of course I created an avatar for myself. This was like therapy, I would say the things I wanted to say rather than think them and say nothing. It was like a great big RPG where all the characters were real life people. (hmmm.....)
The final step was going to college. I knew essentially no one there and no one had any preconcieved notions about me. I was able to take the persona I created...or rather...the persona I always kept tucked away inside, and brought it out. It was wonderful! I kick myself in the ass for not doing it sooner, but I'm convinced that without the net it wouldn't have been possible.
Currently, I do not play any MMORPG's, but I'm tempted on SWG. I have friends who play and it would be good to commincate with them more.
Running around knocking up "girls" without any intention of maintaining them is just as destructive as thieving and pillaging. I would be very happy if my son was at home playing video games instead of playing games on the girls on my street.
This organization was referenced in the story:
Here's a sample:
The Twelve Steps of On-Line Gamers Anonymous
These twelve steps are guidelines for members of On-Line Gamers Anonymous to live by. Regardless of which step you are about to enter, the support of the twelve step program will help you recognize and conquer on-line gaming addiction.
1. We admitted we were powerless over on-line gaming, and that our lives have become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure, them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other compulsive on-line gamers and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
___
And compulsive online gamers aren't in touch with reality?
Happy goldfish bowl to you.
at leat the parents got involved in the kids life. most parents nowadays would have been happy that there was something keeping their kids attention and that they didn't need to interact with the kid
http://www.npcgaming.com Dedicated Gaming Servers
If my children start to follow in my adolescent footsteps and enjoy gaming, I am going to push them to have other children come over. One problem with addiction in games is losing tough with reality and missing out on human interaction. I plan to use a "the family that games together, stays together" approach if that is their interest. TV generally is a disappointment to me, only few programs are interesting/educational enough to watch and usually are available only at certain times of day. So I will always be playing games in one form or another. Instead of pushing my family out, I've tried to include them and use the hobby to make more friends. This has led to more non gaming social situations were we go out and bowl. There are many dangerous things in this world. TV, Games, Alcohol, and even Star Trek will affect people differently. To some moderation is the key, to others it may not be the way to go. The article was about gaming addiction. However onesided it may be, perhaps it could do some good in getting parents to monitor their children. Each child/parent combo should decide what is necessary for them; every situation is different.
~~~~ No One knows What It Is Like To Be The Bad Man, To Be The Sad Man, Behind Blue Eyes. ~~~~
funny, very funny. What about us that don't have any friends, because we spend all our times playing vid games? And people on my "EQ Friends list" are not my friends, I don't even know most of their real names.
Don't need friends, have games.
Be seeing you...
Introversion is not a sign of abnormalicy. You extroverts think it is some sort of insult or a sign of mental illness when an introvert like myself doesn't want to spend time with you. It's not. I don't want to spend time with anyone because I don't enjoy the company of people.
There are plenty of extroverts in the world, socialize with them and leave me the fuck alone!
You are a CS Major? What do you know... so I am I. I usually can own pretty good on cs_assault on !!!CT!!! how bout you. ROFL...
eye ham sofa king
wee ta did
Those addicted to Computer use, Gaming, or Internet use may have a more serious problem.
When this subject came up in 2000 and 2002 no one got it right.
When serious mental outcomes happen associated with gaming or computer use, the problem is more likely an engineering design problem discovered over fifty years ago.
A conflict of physiology related to the vision startle reflex caused sudden onset dissociative or psychotic episodes for workers using the first close-spaced workstations. The solution by the 1960's for the business office was the Cubicle.
VisionAndPsychosis.Net, a psychology project, argues that when the stimulation in Subliminal Peripheral Vision is not enough to cause the full mental break other psychiatric symptoms can happen.
Unknown to most of us in the United States is that the same conflict of physiology also causes psychotic episodes for Qi Gong participants. Case histories from China say that the victims seem to become addicted to Qi Gong and can't stop gathering others to exercise with them.
When Qi Gong is performed in groups each person can subliminally detect movement of others near them. This is the same phenomenon that caused Everquest Addiction. When the computer workstation is incorrectly designed the concentrating victim can subliminally detect repeating movement around them to cause repeating reflexes. Although humans can ignore those reflexes we cannot stop seeing the movement subliminally. We cannot tell our brain to stop attempting to generate the vision reflex.
Psychology texts say that this causes a conflict in the mind that builds to a mental break.
The Everquest Connection at VisionAndPsychosis.Net explains the psychology of what happens and relates it to MMORPG players. Shawn Woolley's mother sued Sony believing that Everquest Addiction caused his suicide. The Qi Gong and Kundalini Yoga psychotic episodes pages demonstrate a 3000-year history for this phenomenon.
http://VisionAndPsychosis.Net