S. Korea's Stress-Driven Online Gaming Addiction

techsoldaten writes "The Washington Post is running an article about the ever-increasing problem of videogame addiction in South Korea. From the article: 'The situation has grown so acute that 10 South Koreans -- mostly teenagers and people in their twenties -- died in 2005 from game addiction-related causes, up from only two known deaths from 2001 to 2004, according to government officials.'"

Comments

Acceptable Addiction vs. Unacceptable Addiction

[reporter]

The articles hints at two forms of addiction.

1. One form is simply that a game player likes the computer game. The player might spend hours on playing the game. A good example of an absorbing game is Netrek of the early 1990s. Many geeks at UC-Berkeley spent hours on playing this game instead of working on their Ph.D. dissertations.
2. Another form is a means to escape an abusive household. The article at the "Washington Post" states, "'I can understand my son's suffering,' she said. ' He could never satisfy his father and was failing at school. But when he plays his games, he becomes an undefeatable warrior.'" When parents physically or emotionally brutalize their children, the victims try to flee to safety. In a Western nation, most people oppose child abuse and would offer to help the victims of abuse.

   In Korea, the story is quite different. In Korea, you would consider someone with different blood to be inferior and to be not worthy of your help. The overwhelming majority of adopted Korean orphans are adopted by Westerners. The typical Korean could not care less about orphans -- or abused children. In this kind of cold, brutal environment, an abused child has nowhere to run. So, the child escapes into on-line gaming: a fantasy world where the abused child can have the wonderful childhood that he cannot have in real life.

The first form of addiction is probably acceptable, but the second form of addiction is not. The second form is a terrible cry for help.

Heroin vs RPGs

[Anonymous Coward]

As I sit here I am in my 3rd treatment center for heroin. However, I also was an Everquest addict when I was in high school. In my personal experience, they have had some interesting parallels and interesting differences. I'm going to spell out some of the differences, as I feel that this problem isn't being taken seriously enough. This is just my personal experiences, and in no way does it describe everyone.

-Isolation as a result of everquesting all day was even more severe than my worst run on heroin. Heroin alienated my friends, but when I was everquesting, I didn't have any friends to go back to because they were all online. Heroin could be combined with school, and even if it suffered, I was still making it to my classes mids and finals. Everquest/rpgs and school are mutually exclusive - You are either doing one or the other. If you are gaming all day, that is ALL you are doing.

-Self delusional thoughts on heroin and while playing everquest seemed to be similar in ways. In both worlds you feel like you are the master of your universe. The problem is, that feeling gets so strong, both things seemed to be better than experiencing actual life. A fantasy world was way more enjoyable at the time in both cases.

-Health - Now these two were almost exactly the same. Heroin doesn't "damage" your body (except in cases of overdose), so the health concerns are from personal neglect. In both cases, I would stop showering, brushing teeth, eating as little as I could to stay alive.

I was an everquest addict before I ever tried drugs. I finally quit playing before college after seeing friends fail out because of everquest. When I finally tried hard drugs (ie opiates), it seemed like I feel right into it at once, I had a learned behavior with addiction. I used to joke when I started heroin that smack wasnt as bad as eversmack. I don't have the answers though, I just wanted to demonstrate any kind of addiction is bad.

Hope this is insightful.