Slashdot Mirror
Only 15% of Gamers are Internet Addicts
Huckster writes "Jeffrey Parsons - a doctoral candidate from University of Iowa has resently conducted a research on MMORPG addiction. It took a while to get the results - but they are now available.
The study found that about 15% of gamers meet the criteria for Internet addiction as provided by Kimberly Young, a leading researcher in Internet addiction. Using more strict criteria, a minimum of at least 10% of gamers met criteria for Internet addiction. Compared to national studies of Internet addiction, this numbers are somewhat elevated. However, given the sheer number of hours MMORPG gamers spend online (in comparison to the general population), even a 15% addiction rate is somewhat low.
To illustrate the point, the college student spends 10 hours on the Internet per week. The average MMORPG gamer (addicted or not) spends 20-25 hours per week just playing MMORPGs, and an additional 10-15 hours per week in other Internet use. In other words, MMORPG players are spending 4x as much time online as non-gamers."
If 15% of people who enjoyed a cold beer or a glass of wine were considered alcoholics I'm sure the word "only" wouldn't be in the headline.
Trolling is a art,
Internet addiction is a made up/hyped up thing so Frauds can scam money from the gullible.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm
Why did he resent conducting the study? Did someone force him to do it against his will?
To me, how much you do something doesn't make it addictive, it's whether it starts interfering with normal life. I probably easily surpass the requirements, however I still have a perfectly normal social life.
This probably seems obvious, but the important point is, people who become addicted easily can become addicted to anything they come into contact with - drugs (legal or illegal), internet browsing, exercise/fitness, even possible reading Slashdot!
However, I think a disproportionate number of people with addictive personalities are drawn into gaming, especially MMPORGs, and for this reason you have this, actually relatively high figure for addiction.
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Every game made today..
The first level is easy to accomplish.
Second level is marginally harder.
Before long, you have to press the lever 10,000 times to get your treat. By that time, you've grown old, wife left, dog died.. etc.
The games are DESIGNED to addict you. You don't make subscription money if you don't have a good core base of addicts.
MMORPG's are designed to last for years. The more addicting, and the ability to constantly provide rewards througout the game, will keep a guy hemmed up for years.
Slightly OT rant:
Why is every bad habit these days assigned a diagnosis of "addiction"?
I'll tell you why. Because if we can blame our bad habits on a disease, something out of our control, then we can absolve ourselves of any responsibility for it.
Face it, most of these purely psychological "addictions" that plague modern society can be corrected with a little behavior modification and a little willpower.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Is there any form of an authoritative definition of internet addiction? I mean, I spend a lot of time online a day, like probably many of the readers here, so my interest has been raised.
I personally do not believe that it can be determined quantitatively by how long one spends on the net; rather, perhaps some quality of the use may determine addiction.
As a student, I spend considerable quantities of time online performing research and consulting reference materials. For many things, it is just more efficient to do things online as opposed to performing inefficient information retrieval offline.
Even the Politburo concurs with Process of Elimination http://process-of-elimination.net
I'm an addict and I know why. The internet can give me whatever I want (from porn to news) when I want it. I don't have to listen to some idiots opinion on the news but I can get every side of the argument then do my own research to see which is true.
When I get this open else where I might care, untill then the Internet is the best resource for myself.
I like muppets.
In other words, MMORPG players are spending 4x as much time online as non-gamers.
Normal User: 10-15hrs
MMPORG User: 10-15hrs + 20-25hrs
If we're using the low end of the scale:
Normal User: 10hrs
MMPORG User: 10+20=30hrs
That's 3x the internet usage
If we're using the high end of the scale:
Normal User: 15hrs
MMPORG User: 15+25=40hrs
Again, that's 3x the internet usage.
Granted, this article is a few years old, but the main point will always remain. There is no such thing as an "Internet addiction"
I think what I am should be considered an addict. I always tell myself I'm going to stop, but always find myself coming back to it a month later... I really hate this. I wish I could keep a balance between real life and the virtual worlds, but that just isn't what happens.
Thank god I have people around me who notice when I get sucked in... I know there are many others who don't have anyone around to keep an eye on their health.
And no, I don't think playing 6+ hours a day is healthy.
Just a guess, but MMORPG players are probably easier to account for, as the systems are more centralized. The data gathered from the participants can be double-checked: [FTA] "the average number of hours of MMORPG game play reported by survey participants matches data gathered by other online surveys and the data provided by Sony and Electronic Arts."
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
The whole concept of 'Internet addiction' is pretty laughable, IMHO, and certainly using 'hours spent online per week' is completely useless from any scientific point of view.
How do you decide when someone is online or not? When their computer is running and connected to the net? In that case, I'm online 168 hours a week. I better get help immediately!
If you say it's 'hours spent using the Internet', that's no better. When I go to sleep at night, I like to listen to BBC news. No station in my area carries it, so I listen to it streaming from KERA in Dallas to an Airport Express and a small pair of speakers in my bedroom (where there is no computer). Am I thus 'using the Internet' while I'm lying there asleep? Certainly, there's a lot of network traffic going on, but I'm just listening to the frickin' radio!
What about if I'm just sitting at my computer playing Solitaire? Am I 'online' during that hour? What if, unbeknowst to me, my anti-virus fires up and downloads a new set of updates while I'm doing it?
The concept of 'an hour spent online' lacks any rigorous definition whatsoever. And people that spend a lot of time trying to do math with those made-up numbers make me wonder what it must have been like back when the telephone was invented. Surely the business world today is filled with people who would have been considered 'addicted to the telephone system' by similar pedants back in the early 20th century.
This is just academics trying to put numbers on things so they can get funded to do a study. Ignore them, and maybe they will go away.
Being unhappy about something and not being able to make yourself stop are the bottom line in deciding if you have a problem. I think most people don't get that. Thanks for your post.
p.s.
If we just used the amount of time one spends doing something as the criterion for addiction then that makes me a hapless job addict. I spend 40 hours/week doing my job ergo I am an addict.
They go to college, and well, at least one of them is gonna flunk classes this semester due to that game.
This is not uncommon. When I was going to the university in my younger years, I had one roommate who was addicted to Magic The Card Game and played Metroid on the GameBoy and SNES. He did so badly on his grades that his parents made him moved back home to be properly supervised. I spent most of my scholarship money trying to start up my BBS business just before the internet got popular. The business model went bust a few years before the dot coms did and I got kicked out of school.
That's not necessarily bad. Sometimes immaturity needs to run its course before someone can take responsibility for their own life. My former roommate is now a successful freelance web designer. I recently went back to school to learn programming after being a software tester for the last seven years and been getting straight A's in most of my classes.
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
I have no idea how you can say playing CS 10 hrs/day is addiction, but playing a mmorpg for the same is a lifestyle. Semantic nonsense, I'm sorry. 50 hrs/week of gaming period (FPS, RTS, MMORPG) sounds like addiction to me, that's a freakin f/t job with overtime for pete's sake.
I'm a mmorpg player as well, but I would NEVER call it a lifestyle, it's entertainment, that's it. If it's a lifestyle, then it's a sad one.
Reminds me of Dan from the show Night Court who during a fit of self-loathing said "I don't have a life... I have a lifestyle."
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
We have a nation of people who watch tv for upwards of 30 hours a week but somehow interacting with other via a video game is given the bad name? Don't get me wrong, if your major social outlet is Everquest there is an issue, IMHO. But it's better than the millions of beer bellies that can't pull themselves from "the game" or Survivor long enough to help their kids with their homework.
What it comes down to it, dollar for dollar, 20 hours of Everquest a week is your best entertainment value, well, right after copyright infringement.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
If you don't think that quiting an MMORPG during play is an option, then you are addicted. No one's requiring you to complete the raid. It's just a game.
In other words, MMORPG players are spending 4x as much time online as non-gamers
Uh, well, it is an online game, so I would imagine they would indeed spend more time online than non-gamers. I could have told you that.
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
So he has all those personality issues, and they all get lumped into internet addiction?
The guy could just as easily become a gang/frat member, an alcoholic, a workaholic, a born-again Xian, whatever... (note in the last two cases, society doesn't always consider this pathological- though it certainly is a reflection of an underlying pathology in many cases I've witnessed).
Calling this an internet addiction is far too reductionnist.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Nope, the 'G' in MMORPG stands for Game, it's still a game, it's one genre like RTS, FPSs, etc, but a game nontheless.
"to play an MMORPG properly a person has to DEDICATE a LOT more time. He is not ADDICTED to the game, he is simply PLAYING a LOT of the game... because thats how they are designed."
'has to DEDICATE? It's a choice, you don't HAVE to do diddly. Like I said, I've played plenty of mmorpgs, and I utterly disagree. If feel you feel like you have to, then it's a compulsion, hence, addiction.
"On the other hand, a guy who is playing CountStrike 10+ hours is ADDICTED because a CS match lasts 5-15 mins max... in other words, the game has the OPTION to quit."
The distance to the carrot that's dangling in front of you is irrelevant, be it 15 min or 3 hours. You have the option to quit ANY game from any genre, if you think quitting isn't an option, that right there IS addiction my friend. You can quit you mmorpg session any time you please.
"Once you reach high level in an MMORPG, and start facing epic monsters, PvP, etc... even a single raid can EASILY take 4+hours... so, you are REQUIRED to spend that much time. Its part of the game."
Again you say "REQUIRED" -- by what, your own compulsion? You aren't required to do do a raid or play for 4 hours, I've done raids, it was my choice, generally I don't bother b/c they do take too much time to complete - it's a game design flaw imo, one I choose to ignore, 'required 'doesn't fit into the equation, unless you choose to put it there.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
There's a lot of back and forth in here about what addiction is, but no one has bothered to identify the definition of addiction. As with most posts you slashdotters have strong opinions, but a lot of you have preconceptions of what others define as addiction to computers/internet/MMORPGs.
I believe its safe to say if a single man gets up in the morning, washes up, dresses nicely for his job, works 8 hours, eats 3 square meals and keeps his apartment clean, and spends every other hour not doing this playing a MMORPG, that he's not addicted. He's well adjusted, like's his game, but knows his other priorities.
I also believe its safe to say that if a man spends 5 days straight playing a game, skips classes to play it, gets little or no sleep, fails to much of anything, both he and his apartment reek of dead ass, and has problems with his grades and health, then he's probably addicted and needs some help.
The deciding factor is usually how you are hurting yourself or those around you. There is plenty of gray area between the two examples. The report is definitely trying to address the latter, and is not trying to make severe judgements just because someone responsible likes to spend 4 hours a night playing games.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Having sunk the better part of a 120 days into EQ, I've tried many MMO's since, actually wanting to get addicted again with no luck at all. A few of my friends who were playing with me back then that I keep in touch with also seem to have the same 'problem'. I suppose this could be an aberation, but I think what happens is that once our brains wrap around the game elements that keep bringing us back, it grows dull and tedious.
How often you do something has absolutely no bearing on whether you are addicted to it or not. You are only an addict when you are unable to stop.
For example, I spend 35 hours a week answering tech support queries. By the definition of a lot of people here, that would make me an addict. Well let me assure you, I would have no problem kicking the habit!
By contrast, I drink no more than two cups of coffee a day, hardly excessive by anyones standards, but my god am I a cranky SOB before my first cup. I probably am addicted to my morning caffeine hit.
"I realise this is not a very popular opinion but it's the truth, and there for needs to be said" -Bill Hicks