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Game Addiction Clinic Swamped
Via the Gamers with Jobs Press Pass, an article on The Australian site claiming that the Dutch gaming addiction clinic is swamped with fearful parents and glaze-eyed children. From the article: "Although experts are still debating whether excessive game playing counts as an addiction, Mr Bakker has no doubt that the symptoms are the same. 'If we see a car burning outside, we don't sit around wondering what to call it,' he said. 'It is not a chemical dependency, but it's got everything of an obsessive-compulsive disorder and all of the other stuff that comes with chemical dependency.' Tim, a 21-year-old from Utrecht, said he had hardly left his bedroom for five years because he was so obsessed by his computer games. "
Why did it not 'mean' anything in real life?
;)
Are the people on the other end of those guildies not real people?
Did they not enjoy your company/help/etc?
Perhaps they needed a connection with someone as much as you did?
Seems like you could be affecting real life, possibly more lives than otherwise.
That's the exact line of reasoning I used to justify what I was doing. That EQ wasn't simply a game, that it meant much more than that, especially given that my gf and I would use it as our form of dating between cross country flights. I would help my friends through hard times in their personal lives and likewise, they would help me.
What would be real life then?
Anything past eating,pooping,sleeping ? (and sleeping doesn't even FEEL all that real
Bowling with friends is more 'real' than questing with guildmates somehow?
I was the most important person in my guild for a couple years... not only was I the guild leader and raid leader, I ran the website, took care of all the DKP, etc. Every time someone took a few months off and came back, I was the person they remembered. If I wasn't in game (though it often sit there running 24/7 with me being able to see the monitor in case someone wanted to talk), I was fielding IMs from up to 10 different guildies at a time...
I still have 34 guildies in my friends list. I talk to two regularly and have been contacted by another 8 or so since I left. In the end, I wasn't really much of a part of their life. That's out of a couple hundred people, many of whom I knew on a first name basis. I may not see a lot of my old real life friends anymore, but we still occassionally bump into each other and we'll chat, have lunch or whatever. The vast majority of my EQ "friends", I'll probably never talk to again simply because EQ ceased, at least for me, but real life doesn't.
Also... the relative anonymity made people act in ways they never would in real life or pretend to be someone they weren't (beyond the roleplaying inherent in the game). Greed was rewarded. Stabbing your friends in the back was rewarded. Using people was rewarded... People would use other people as stepping stones to get a better piece of gear, access to a zone they didn't have, etc and then once they got what they wanted, would leave you high and dry. Yeah, same thing happens in real life, but in EQ, it happens to a much, much larger degree.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
You know, a lot of people watch television in excess of 4-6 hours a day. I've never once heard any of them referred to as "addicts."
That's because very few of them have any obsessive compulsion to watch TV. You put them in a room with a TV and they'll watch it... its the path of least resistance to entertainment for a lot of people; for most of them its just lazyness.
If you give them something else to do they won't get all anxious and grouchy until they can sit in front of the TV again. They might have a favorite show or two, or go out of their way to catch specific event... but they don't habitually miss work & school, stay up all night, skip meals and showers, and abandon their friends, just to put little more time in with the TV. If "a lot of people" started doing that then we probably -would- call them addicted.
With video games, particularly MMOGS, however, this is exactly what they do. They'll spend every available waking moment playing them. They will give up their friends, they will skip meals, they will skip school & work.
They aren't "lazy" at all. Laziness requires a certain level of passiveness. "Addicts" aren't passive. Quite the opposite - they will go to great lengths to keep playing as much as possible for as long as possible as often as possible.
Whether or not its a chemical addiction with pysiological withdrawl effects or purely psychological doesn't really matter. Like compulsive gambling, it effects a surprising number of people, and it hits them hard. It is a real problem, and ignoring it or pretending its not real because theirs no obvious chemical dependancy isn't going do anyone any good.
Before Everquest existed, I 'was somebody' online - ran a guild on a MUD (although not as big as yours), and eventually even ended up running the MUD itself. There were definitely some stretches where I'd often spend 16 hours a day on the computer.
I had over 200 days played on just my main character over the course of the 927 days that I played. I had a further 60ish days played on my main alt, 120ish on my bazaar mule (of which, I was probably present for at least 50% of) and another 20 or so on my other toons. That's approximately 340 days played out of 927. Roughly 37% of my life devoted to a game on a consistent basis, roughly as much time as a 9-5 worker puts in. Factor in another 33% of my time sleeping (give or take 8 hours a day). I work approximately 30 hours a week and that's another 18% or so of my time, leaving 12% of my time to doing other stuff (daily life activities, reading, going out with friends, etc).
People need to understand what an addiction really is. If you are COMPELLED to do something so much that it interferes with your ability to pay your rent, feed yourself, or maintain relationships that are important to you, that's an addiction. If it consumes all of your free time, that's just recreation. And I think it's a tragedy to try and label someone an 'addict' just because of their prefered form of recreation.
I couldn't go downstairs to clean without bringing my laptop with me so I could keep an eye on the game. I'd cut trips off early so I could check in on the game. I scheduled my work, visiting friends, etc around the game. The game utterly dominated every facet of my life. The only reason why I never called in to work for the game was because I controlled the activity of both - I was the leader of the guild and the manager of my workplace (nobody to answer to but the owners).
About a year and a half before I quit, my best friend quit playing EQ. During that time, I think I saw him about five times and talked to him on the phone, via IM, etc maybe twice per week. I mostly lost touch with all of my other friends, both online and off, since they didn't play EQ and I couldn't control the times they wanted to spend with me (thus interfering with EQ time or the work that I scheduled around EQ time). I stopped doing almost every other activity I enjoy (wood working, tabletop gaming, learning the guitar, programming, etc) and frequently only did the minimum of what was required of the stuff that I didn't necessarily enjoy (mowing, balancing my checkbook, fixing the inevitable problems you encounter when you own a house, etc).
I couldn't be away from EQ for more than a couple hours without "twitching" as most EQ junkies call it. First thing I did when I woke up was check in on the guild, whether if it was when I was supposed to get up or if it was in the middle of the night. I may not have gotten as bad as some people do, probably because of the necessity of caring for my father, but my life revolved around EQ for a solid two years... and that was despite throwing up, getting physically stressed out, etc over the need to quit about a year into playing.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
A bit of my background: I played WoW for about a 1.5 years (just recently quit). WoW took up way too much of my time and I neglected other things in my life to focus on WoW. It was a fun diversion and I enjoyed playing a lot. However there were times when I simply hated it also. For myself, MMORPGs are something I shouldn't do. I tend to be pretty goal oriented so in a regular game once I beat it I'm done with the game and move on. In fact in the past two weeks I've finished two games and have no desire to play them again. The problem with WoW (which was my first MMORPG) was that there is always something else to go for...
I could never run out of goals so I would keep playing. I even leveled cooking, fishing, and first aid to 300 at a time when only very few guilds were in MC since I was looking for things to do. One of the reasons I stopped was because I really couldn't progress anymore unless I was with 39 other people in some high-end instance for 6 hours and then if I had enough dkp I may get a drop for the night. The time vs rewards was way too much out of proportion so I ended up selling my account and have found myself with much more free time.
So my theory on why games (WoW in this case) are addictive: I think most people continue to play or play excessively due to the power or recognition they receive from the game. This is what I think is addicting. Because WoW tends to award players for grinding and spending a ton of time the people in the best gear will be the ones that play the most. These also tend to be in the best guilds and if you are one of them you will have opposing faction members run from you by just your guild tag. You will also have same faction players constantly whispering you or inspecting you in awe as they remark on how leet your gear is. This makes the players feel good so they continue to do what it takes (mainly time) to keep at it. If you don't play as much, others will advance past you and you just won't be as "cool" anymore. If you quit you become a regular joe again doing the same stuff as everyone else. Sure your fame is only virtual but it's fame nonetheless and since you probably won't get it in real life you might as well somewhere.
You can relate this to games, sports, academics, whatever. People tend to do things for power and recognition. Once you get it is is addicting (varies depending on the person). I'm sure this causes chemical reactions or whatever to happen in the brain/body so that you could explain it in some scientific way, but I can't so I won't.
I'm guessing if the researchers at the clinic rigged the games the patients used so that they could only lose or the players couldn't interact with others (for example chat is garbled or not allowed) then the players would very soon lose interest in playing and would look for other activities to spend their time doing.