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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
It took a while to get the results...
Perhaps somebody was fooling around on the INTERNET when they should have been working?
Jeez, I'm one to talk...
Gotta do something to fill the void of loneliness. And sometimes a steady regiment of Hotpockets, Mountain Dew, and cigarettes simply won't do.
The net mean age in the survey is more telling, I think, than the subject of the survey: MMORPG gamers.
~ 23 or 24 appears to be the net mean age of all survey groups, and in my experience, and as someone from that generation, we spend a lot of time online for many different reasons.
I'm a programmer and an information junkie who's never played a MMORPG in his life. When I was interviewed for my job last year, I was told the company was looking for someone who "lives on the web." All these people focusing on games don't realize the most obvious phenomenon: the web as a lifestyle.
I Want To Believe
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.
Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
Most Americans are addicted to driving their cars.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
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.
I'd say that in many of these cases, the 20 some hours a week in the game is just displacing the 20 some hours a week previously spent watching TV. The games are not inherently evil, they just give us something to do other then watch the idiot box...
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
Women gamers were more likely than men... to have children
In other news, male gamers are more likely to pee standing up.
I used to scoff at Internet addiction until I witnessed it firsthand. My roommate in University was hopelessly addicted to MMORPGS. It got to the point where he was skipping class to play. Shortly after that, he started asking everyone to call him by the name of his Everquest character (I think it was StealthDemon or something rather lame like that). It was *extremely* uncomfortable when he got up in front of the Stats201 class to "announce" his name change. It didn't help that he was wearing a cape and a huge plumed hat at the time, either. Before I moved out, he had actually started keeping a pail under his computer desk to urinate into so he wouldn't have to miss any action. Pretty sad, really.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
The Kimberly Young definition of internet addiction: http://www.netaddiction.com/whatis.htm
When someone tells you that you have a problem because you played a game (MMORPG or not) between 6:00PM and 10:00PM the night before. And what did these people do during the same timeframe last night? They watched TV.
Gone on the road for two weeks, working 14 days straight for a total of 145 hours. Come back and play with friends on an afternoon, what's the verdict: I play too much videogames.
It really is mainly about some people's perception of valid use of your free time. My rule of thumb is not to tell any woman born before 1980 that I even know what a computer is.
I unsubscribed from world of warcraft yesterday. I'm a weekend player, but my friends/roommates are truly addicted to the game. Seeing them play day in and day out just made me hate the game. They go to college, and well, at least one of them is gonna flunk classes this semester due to that game. I have work during the week which leaves no time for the game, and well, I want to do something other than stare at a screen on the weekends. Anybody else unsubscribe from WoW for this reason?
You can find out for yourself what the criteria are as defined by Kimberley Young, and find out if you too are an addict, by taking the test (20 multiple choice questions) here. Apparently I'm not addicated to the net though, so the thing must have a flaw somewhere...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Go read any of the BBs out there for mmorpgs, some people call 30 hours/wk 'casual' -- that's pretty much a job. They will adamantly talk about how I'm not an addict, I have a life, a job, etc. Well, so do lots of gambling addicts and alchoholic, doesn't mean a thing. Plus they are often posting to the boards that are filled with fellow junkies, looking for reinforcement of their behavior. And there's a lot of the 'well I only play 30 hrs, so and so plays 40, he/she is clearly out of control, but I'm fine'
I am a mmorpg player. I've played a ton of the d*mn things (EQ, AO, DAoC, CoH, WoW) they can suck up all your time, cut into sleep, etc etc. Luckily, with each new one I've played I found I quit them sooner and sooner and get bored more easily. Nonetheless, I still play them WAY more than I should, they are clearly unproductive timesinks, nothing more. Yes, I've had fun and met some cool people - but mmorpgs can get in the way of more important things for sure.
Some people though, live in these things. Sad but true story - there's a friend's friend who has been playing EverCrack ever since it came out like 5(?) years ago. He's late 30s lives with his mom, has no job, and plays EQ like 8-10 hours a day. He threatens to go back to get his college degree every now and again, takes one or two classes here or there - but usually has some excuse on why he can't finish, goes back to playing f/t and just lives off his mom (who should clearly kiss his a*s out, but that's another story...)
While his story might be a bit more extreme than most, I don't think his is unique.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
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.
Fellow slashdotter nbCaffeine and I had Kimberly Young as a professor for our "Intro to Business Information Systems" class, which, as CompSci majors, we were taking towards an easy minor in BIS. The course was really more of a 100 level thing, as we discussed the various components of computers, basic network topology, and server-client basics.
Throughout the class, she would constantly venture off on tangents about her work in studying "Internet Addiction", and what a terrible thing it is... She's published a few books and papers on the topic, but in real life, she doesn't seem to be that big a superhero researcher. In fact, she's really quite amusing, whatwith the curly-afro like hairdo and the subtle woman-moustache, not to mention the thick rimmed glasses she wore. She always told stories about how internet addiction leads to marital woes, citing examples of women and men who confessed to her that they had been cheating on their spouse via online relationships. Given that that's what she mostly talked about, I would propose that her professional interest and expertise with regard to "internet addiction" predominantly center around the affects of chatrooms and IM on personal "offline in the real world" relationships. Now, with MMORPGs, one must consider how applicable Kimberly Young's research is. I can see how there would be an argument that there are parallels between say, the interactions you have with other people in a MMORPG and those with people in a chatroom.... However, if you're really into the RP aspect of those games, you might be TOTALLY different in that regard than say the person you'd be in a chatroom... You know what, maybe we could do a Slashdot Interview with Kimberly Young, if somebody tells me to go ahead, I'll send her an e-mail and then submit the idea.
Isn't it interesting how you come to recognize posters based solely on their sigs???