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
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
But that's not a meaningful test, at least not for many people. They have this concept that "online" and "offline" are discreet experiences that you log in, and then do nothing but the Internet. Well, not since I got a multi- tasking OS, actually, and I've literally pretty much never logged out since 1999 when I finally got broadband.
For many of us, the Internet is just another part of our computer. We use it when we want, and go on about our bussiness. I don't "log in" to check e-mail, I just run SSH if I want to see it (or look at my Sunblade if I'm at work). I can be writing a paper, have soemthing I need to look up, access JStor, and go back to writing the paper in less than a minute.
Seems to me that these researchers have a severly distorted view of how the Internet works for many people. It's not a special, seperate thing, it's just another part of computing.
I particularly notice this if my connection goes down. Even though I know it's down, I'll find myself perpetually trying to access something online because I just don't think about it. Like I'll be reading a PDF on something, and want more info on a topic and pop open a browser and try to search for it, before I remember that no, can't do that right now. It's just natural, just a part of being on a computer. It works basically like any other tool on the computer, just use it when you want it for something.