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Experts Oppose Classifying Gaming Addiction As Mental Disorder
News.com reports that despite earlier rumblings that addiction to videogames could be classified a mental disorder similar to alcoholism, experts have stepped back from that analysis. The decision by the AMA is that psychiatrists should make further efforts to study the phenomenon, while addiction experts strongly opposed the idea at the organization's annual meeting. "Even before debate on the subject began, the committee that made the proposal backed away from its position, and instead recommended that the American Psychiatric Association consider the change when it revises its next diagnostic manual in 5 years. The psychiatrist group has said if the science warrants, it could be considered for inclusion in the next diagnostic manual, which will be published in 2012. While occasional use of video games is harmless and may even help with some disorders like autism, doctors said in extreme cases it can interfere with day-to-day necessities like working, showering or even eating."
Eating ... curses! I knew I forgot to do something today.
Philosophy.
Psychiatrists have found a strong correlation between videogame addiction and restless leg syndrome.
Bah! Since when is showering a necessity?
Miren al Pepino! Los vegetales invidian a su amigo, como él quieren bailar. Pepino Bailarín!
I thought they had proscribed all decisions that might negatively affect prescriptions.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
You just have to think positively. Sounds to me like a cure for obesity.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If the uncontrollable desire to play games of chance (gambling) is classified as an addiction, how is an uncontrollable desire to play games of any other sort not? Can online gambling be considered an addiction?
The only meaningful difference is the money involved. And even then, between gold farming and monthly fees for WOW, is it really that different?
My psychopathology is a bit rusty, but won't the DSM IV already diagnose gaming addiction under another classification? Probably a compulsive addiction I guess. Do we really need a special diagnosis for gaming addiction?
to compulsively play videogames is a habituation, not an addiction
it would be misleading to the point of propaganda to lump videogames and heroin under the same umbrella "addiction". something like heroin actually manipulates the biochemical pathways of reward in the brain. videogames can be extremely pleasurable and habit forming. but to think about how videogames are habit forming with the same terminology as how heroin or cocaine or methamphetamine manipulates your brain chemistry directly is extremely misleading
likewise, i would say a number of other "addictions" are really just trendy bullshit terms in order to decrease the stigma attached to being weak in character. such as "sex addiction" or "gambling addiction"
no: something that manipulates biochemical pathways directly is addiction, something that works on reward pathways via psychological stimulus is habituation
if a psychology wonk begs to differ with my terminology, fine. i may have the exact meaning of the words wrong
but everyone from the casual layman to the hardcore professional needs to understand that something that acts on the brain directly via biochemical manipulation needs another word to describe what it does that a habit forming activity that sucks you in via simple sensory stimulus. there's a simple bifurcation of meaning here that needs to be addressed if indeed my terminology is wrong
there are certainly highs and lows with both habituation/ addiction, and there are plenty of similarities, but the terminology should be different, to address how these habits form
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Push a button a hundred times... wait for the payoff.... DING. Yay!
If anyone thinks there's a difference between gambling and WoW they just don't understand either....
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Does that mean I am have a mental disWOOOOHOOOOO I'm a teapot!! I'm a teapot!!!
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Having a baby too can interfere with day-to-day necessities like working, showering or even eating. That's why I think it's a mental disorder !
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Can you imagine suddenly having to provide coverage/counseling for people who spend all their time on line? It would cost a fortune. Besides, the last thing te government wants is to have all the people now addicted to gaming to suddenly wake up and start aying attention to what their doing? Imagine if they all started reading daily kos or something? In the book Brave New World, Aldus Huxley described the population as being quieted by a drug called SOMA - WOW and SL are not really that different.
21st-Century-Citizen
The affliction is called 'addiction' and can be caused by or fixated on any number of things. There is absolutely no reason for yet another flavor of addiction to be spelled out.
This does remind me of a funny thing I read years ago. It was an article about Internet addction written by a psych professor. The punch line was the link to the online support group. Online support group...for Internet addicts. Isn't that like having an AA meeting at a keg party?
Is gaming flavour of the month or what? I can't wait for the wind to change so that the Morality Police can go back to picking on dangerous dogs, paedophiles, death metal or whatever.
While occasional use of video games is harmless and may even help with some disorders like autism, doctors said in extreme cases it can interfere with day-to-day necessities like working, showering or even eating.
So can watching TV.
Or jacking off
Or mowing the lawn.
This definition is so broad it's useless. Anyone can be addicted to anything. Why the need for special categories?
Gamers do not become physically addicted to their games of choice, so it makes no sense to lump their behavior with that of alcoholics or heroin addicts. Mental addiction? Possibly -- seems similar to gambling. Obsession? Sure. Physical dependency? Nope.
You must be joking. It's absolutely no coincidence that so many addictions and psychological disorders suddenly started getting diagnosed at the same time the pharmcos started churning out happy pills.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I'm not opposed to making it an addiction at all. I think sometimes people get way to wrapped up into games, and it affects their school, work, or social life (offline, of course). Then again, electronic addiciton in general is a pretty big addiction (IM, IRC, blogging, etc etc).
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
Perhaps the American Psychiatric Association should consider opening a shrinks office inside second-life to deal with this problem.
What about those of us who can't even start their day without reading slashdot? I usually need somewhere between 6-7 fixes a day. It's frustrating; everyone always complaining that my fingers smell like nerdy news, the green stains on my teeth. It's a real problem.
The belief that you know a thing is a most perfect way to prevent learning.
Wow -- this article has been up for an hour and I haven't seen any psychiatry-bashing postings yet. Where are all the Tahm Crooz fans?
It's a physical one. Alcohol withdrawal is a potentially fatal state where you lose control of most of your motor-neuron system while your seratonine levels go bezerk. Trust me, I've had it, and it's really not funny. There is a mental association aspect of it - being drawn towards pubs - but no gamer would experience detectable physical withdrawal symptoms, except minor agitation. You certainly can't get hospitalised by going "cold turkey" on games.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
It can interfer with working, showering, and eating.
What if you weren't working to begin with? If you're not working, how are you paying for your gaming account (assuming it is one of those MMORPG)? If you are working, no harm, no foul.
How is showering daily considered a necessity? Will skipping a day or two per week really affect your hygiene if the most activity you're doing in a given day is getting up to eat or use the restroom from your gaming?
So gaming may prevent eating? Great! Now we have an obesity cure for all those fat gamers out there. More gaming!
Experts oppose "classifying-gaming-addiction" is a mental disorder? Because I can't agree more, and no wonder experts oppose that (it'll make them all with mental disorders).
I mean what's with the "xxx addiction" classification addiction. It's the very same psychological addiction - repetetive actions that you get used to and are the first escape place when you have the smallest problem at all.
For example: you have an exam tommorow and you gotta study, and that makes you nervous. So what do you? Study? NO, your're nervous,a nd when you're nervous you go play games. That's your addiction. You don't work, study, go out, you may even consider eating, drinking and sleeping too hard, so you just need to play some more to "get ready" for that. To sleep.
But the experts aren't less ridiculous. Because how is gaming addiction different from browsing addiction, or by extension even gambling addiction. Why do we need separate names for the exact same thing.
It's getting funny just like patents, where context is where it's all about as of late. "Patent describing a button... ON TEH INTERNET". That makes it a totally different button. "Patent descirbing a button.. ON A MOBILE DEVICE!", and the next one is "Patent describing a button... ON A *PINK*/*BROWN* MOBILE DEVICE!".
Regards, a Slashdot addict.
I'd be willing to bet that as the number of "addictions" classified rises, the amount of grant money allocated to addiction research increases. If that is the case, it stands to reason that researchers would try to get as many compulsive and/or destructive behaviors classified as addictions as possible.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
There are actual physical changes involved with alcohol addiction. In extreme cases sudden withdrawal can even lead to death.
Still, some time in the past we went from requiring these physiological dependencies for a diagnosis of 'addiction' to mere abuse. Mental addictions, if you will.
This is how gambling became to be known as something you could become addicted to. Yes, they can spot changes in brain patterns when a person is gambling, but there's no neurochemicals being introduced or interfered with like with a drug interaction.
These addictions have been found for many things such as gambling, shoes, clothing, porn, soap operas, internet, internet chatting, and now video games.
Given the similarities that I've seen between many of these, I wonder if they're not just different manifestations of the same syndrome. Many people would have it, it's just that intervention is much more necessary when it's otherwise ruining the life of the person and his/her family. Being 'addicted' to gambling is much more hazardous, for example, than being obsessive about the 'days of our lives' soap. One can waste money in pretty much unlimited amounts, causing the loss of a home; the other can be controlled, more or less, simply by the purchase of a VCR or Tivo, or even season DVDs. I'd estimate a few thousand dollars; still far less than many hobbies such as motorcycle riding, boats, hot cars, etc...
I don't read AC A human right
"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." --Charles Kingsley
And as for the case when enthusiasms become self-destructive: Don Marquis' "The Lesson of the Moth" opens:
"I was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires"
He asks for an explanation, and the moth replies:
"it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty"
Archy, the speaker, does not agree, but concludes
"but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself"
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
No. Be worried when he -stops- for an extended period of time.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
I don't know about gambling, but there's a definite cure for gaming addiction: my computer.
The best of my machines won't play anything new...
That's how I got out.
This will be one more way poor parenting will be explained away. Personally I would rather the kid be at home driving a stolen car than out with his friends driving my stolen car. Really I can see a rash of halfway houses devoted to curing kids of WOW going to the parks with their plastic bracelets and emo haircuts staring at me, drooling as I sit with my laptop writing slashdot posts.
Added Pressly: "Oh, and by the way, milk is nothing but liquid meat."
Gambling involves you throwing thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars away REPEATEDLY until BROKE. Gaming involves spending hours and hours on a computer instead of giving your family attention or doing things for them. The way I look at it, they should all be doing things for me TOO, and then we'll talk.
That said, if they are the ideal family and they cherish you, then you won't really want to spend every waking our on a game or in a betting parlour, would you?
The root of these problems are MORE PROBLEMS. Find the root of them and it won't be sooooo bad.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Then when my wife makes me sleep on the couch because I just HAD to finish a few 20-30 rounds of counterstrike I'll have an excuse, "But baby, you know I'm manic with paranoia issues, well just last Tuesday they desided I had another mental disorder too....see I don't play games because I want to, I play them becasue I have to!!" LOL yeah that would fly.
This is Slashdot! Give me the latest gadget, bug, or OS project! This ain't english class so don't confuse the two!
I can't even see how you'd put video game addiction in even the same league as alcoholism or chronic gambling. I mean you can't even - oh sorry, just got in a group for heroic Ramparts. Gotta go.
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here
If a considerable number of those 'experts' were gamers themselves.
I can continue telling myself "I don't have a problem" with a peace of mind!
There are two primary types of addictions that I'm aware of, substance addiction (drugs, alcohol, etc..) and process addiction (gambling, shopping, etc..) A gaming addiction would be a process addiction.
So you are correct when you said "Gaming addiction != Alcoholism", but it's still a form of addiction (just not a substance addiction).
Why do people always ignore money not earned when calculating the cost of something? Why do they ignore "immaterial" cost?
When you play 24/7, you don't work. You would probably if you didn't play all the time, you'd earn money. An hour overtime of mine costs about 25 bucks. That's 25 bucks not earned when I play a game. Even if we assume that you make 7 bucks an hour, that's 7 bucks less you got per hour played.
What about your friends? Sure, they can't be bought (despite what people think), but I consider them "living quality". Yes, I value them. Not in bucks, but in hours spent having fun.
But basically, if money's all that matters, WoW costs 15 bucks a month plus your hourly income per hour played. I sell my spare time, yes. And if I feel like I got enough dough, I spend it on something I like doing, like everyone else. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing games, I've pulled all nighters and even took out 2 weeks of vacation when an EQ expansion came out. But I knew I can actually afford it, and that's what matters in the end.
When you "waste" your time away with a game, you might end up with far more than 15 bucks a month in cost. All the money you did not earn has to be taken into account. Now, that doesn't matter too much if you manage to keep a full time job (which is pretty much required, at the least, to afford a living), but once you start playing 40, 50 or even more hours a week, you might not be able to do that anymore. And then it gets as existance threatening as gambling.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
i described having a weak character as being a negative, and you... describe having a weak character as a negative
why are you arguing with me when you agree with me?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
See: http://www.thelocal.se/7650/20070619/
Your family would want to play WOW with you. ;-)
And in a better world than that, they would beat you at it.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
the face cards have these endearing cartoonish mugs and when you win the cards do a graphical dance
damn you windows vista and your eye candy solitaire
microsoft you're a drug pusher: you made me upgrade to vista to fill my solitaire addiction. i had to have the pretty pretty cards, at any price!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seriously, if gaming habituation becomes an addiction, and then a "disease", how long before the Americans with Disabilities Act protection kicks in so I can play my games at work without getting the ire of the bosses?
But, it's a disease!
What you think is silly, is only the logical extent this is carried toward...or perhaps the illogical extent...but the result is often the same; and it won't be long before someone tries what I just mentioned.
The pharmacos have been squeezing out pills for decades. The difference is that during the 70s and 80s a lot of people really got addicted (yes, the real way, not that "I wanna do and can't stop 'cause it's nice to have it" addictions we're currently discussing) to those pills. Elvis died to them. So did (presumably) Marilyn. But those were just the celebrities, thousands if not millions were and are pill addicts. It starts with "harmless" stuff like headache pills and nasal sprays and goes up to heavy hitting sleeping pills. All fair and legal, over-the-counter stuff.
Funny enough there's not the slightest mentioning of that kind of drug abuse in the "war on drugs".
Now we're creating new classifications for "mental addictions" to pump chemicals into those people and make them chemical addicts instead. Now, that's something!
I guess a few people gotta die again, then there's the outcry again, some pharmacos get sued and settle immediately, then 10 years later the next pill fad will come along. Well, we had snoozers and uppers now, what's the pill of the 2020s?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My wife is nutz(call the rubber room folks),her mental disorder the freaking T.V. Remote. She gets violent if someone takes it away or hides it. Video Games got nothing over the T.V. Remote.
Listen, just because I make dragon repelling chain armor with my elven wife in the misty mountains doesn't mean I should be lumped in with those whack jobs that can't concentrate through two hours of pre-algebra.
Example, take someone who has passed the mental exams and shows NO tendency towards obsessive/compulsive behaviours and then DEMONSTRATE that such a person can become addicted to video games after X hours of playing.
I'm still not buying it. I've played video games and I have no problem leaving them.
I've played slot machines and I have no problem leaving them.
Just because someone can become "addicted" to something does NOT mean that it is addictive. But then, I'm not an "expert" here. Just someone who can try these so called "addictive" activities and still remain un-addicted.
I have to wonder about that. Is it a disorder or is it part of the natural human condition? After all, there are chemical addictions out there and most are self-induced. While there are some who are less likely to fall into the trap than others, I tend to think that it has more to do with mental and emotional maturity that allows one to put down the controller and go to work each day. And please note that I too have called in sick in order to complete the next X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter mission. I think it's just that one day, I was looking at my paycheck and realized which was more important and had a longer-lasting effect. (Somehow, I connect the same notion that I would never pay for sex, but I would pay someone to clean my home.)
I know there are plenty of people who find themselves to be quite mature and grown-up while at the same time enjoy gaming. I wouldn't fault anyone for enjoying the game. I would fault someone who prioritizes temporary and/or immediate short-term pleasures of gaming over maintaining the basics of survival in life.
But back to the original question: Is it a disorder or is it a natural human condition? Is it something that should be "cured" or something to be outgrown?
i'm not trying to say heroin addiction deserves to be called a "real" addiction and something like video games a "lesser" addiction. i'm well aware of the deaths in south korea due to addictive gaming binges
however, there is still a significant difference between putting the actual addictive chemical in your body that acts directly on your brain versus engaging in behavior and sensory stimulus that eventually results in a release of chemicals in the brain
of course that means there is a huge overlap in symptoms, and the behavioral similarities are obvious
but the cause has a fundamental difference: direct chemical introduction, versus physical behavior and sensory stimulus that leads to chemical release
for example: you could take a person with strong willpower and destroy them and make them a chemical dependent by force injecting them. but take that same strong willpower person and put them in front of a computer game or a gambling table and they will recognize the threat to their character, and not become addicted. you can't force someone to play and enjoy a game they don't want to play. you can force someone to be addicted to a chemical
that's a significant difference. it gets at the idea of personal responsibility
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
People are missing the forest for the trees here. The point is NOT the substance/act itself being inherently harmful, but rather an individual's USE of something that is harmful.
Food is a wonderful thing, yet there are those individuals who's attitudes and behaviors with respect to food are destructive. It's the destructive behavior that's the 'disorder' not the food itself.
Using stimulants like amphetamines to treat certain medical conditions is appropriate. Using them to get high at the cost of your family and career is inappropriate.
Take a look at the DSM IV - the classification book for mental disorders. In order to qualify as a disorder, something usually has to have a significant negative impact on someone's function.
I see no difference between compulsive gaming that affects one's life, and compulsive hair pulling that affects one's life.
I have an unhealthy addiction to four square. Is anyone going to classify that as a disorder?
-Tim
Create a game in which a paedophile stalks puppies to a Deathmetal soundtrack.
Life is just a bowl of All Bran - Small Faces
Dang, and I was looking forward to the good parking...
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
While I agree with your sentiments, there are certain foods designed to make you more likely to eat it then you normally think you would. In particular, caffeinated foods and drinks. Sugars are also a good trap.
If you actually stop and ask someone what is in Coke [or Pepsi, or whatever] and ask them if they would otherwise normally think to consume that, they probably would say no. It's marketting + the buzz that the sugar/caffeine gives that makes it consumable.
In the case of WoW there isn't really that much in your face advertising [I haven't seen an ad for it yet actually outside of gaming websites]. And it isn't like it's feeding you mind altering chemicals. So getting "addicted" to it is a very much sociological disorder and not a physiological one. If you look at the types who are susceptible to MMORPG addictions, they tend to be introverts who enjoy distancing themselves from their reality [e.g. escape from the grind].
The friends I've seen get into it were otherwise normal people, just seemed to want to escape.
So as you were pointing out, I think treating the underlying disorder [if any] would be better than trying to label the games a harmful product. There must be many players of WoW who can balance time in the game with time in reality. The binge 24/7 players are most likely the exception not the rule.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Y0U F41L 1T
PLEASE, someone do something!!! I'm in very bad shape!! All I do all day is play World of Warcraft. I'm even losing sleep cause of it!! All I can think about is how I want to get my mage to level 20 so I can teleport cause I hate running everywhere, or buying griffon rides. Ugh!! I miss having a social life!!
Maybe I'll become SO powerful that I will even be able to kill the admins, putting an end to the world!! of Warcraft. Don't bother looking for the sword of 1000 truths!! I HAVE IT!! MUAHAHAHAHA!
Well... BYE NOW, I'm off to Goldshire!
Depending on what they classify as mental illness, I'm never quite sure what rights they'll let me have.
I find it difficult to see how "addiction" to things like gambling and gaming can really seen as a disorder. On the contrary, it seems that it is entirely natural, if unfortunate, for human beings to be "addicted" to things like gambling and so on. Some more than others admittedly, but it seems logical that humans do pleasurable things often. It is also widely known that animals in general are more likely to make the short-sighted decision, so if gambling is pleasurable but breaks the bank, we may well gamble our savings away.
This seems to bring into question how we might define disease or disorder more accurately. It would appear counter-intuitive to label things as disorders if they are very very common, albeit damaging.
im in ur
well... let us visionaly see, what happens... everything is addictive
.... welcome to demolition man...
coffee - forbidden
nicotine - forbidden
sugar - forbidden
games - forbidden
driving faster than 20 mph - forbidden
sports - forbidden
when they say "alcoholism," does the actual disease have anything to do with alcohol, or is it just merely a "susceptibility to addiction" disease? if the latter, how is that any different than videogame addiction?
Here's a simple 5 step solution to online gaming addiction that i can share. Try it. 1st) find the Soft Stone of Washing (soap) and use on the underarms. It will make you nicer to be around and help a great deal with stages 3+ 4 below. 2nd) use the trick of "absorbing daylight" to improve your appearance. this has been known to help with mood points as well. 3th) talk to the ones that call themselves "the WomenFolk" They are elusive and can be as welcoming as a giant cave bear at first, but they can offer a great deal in terms of friendship, understanding and more besides! 4th) find something that you enjoy doing (outside of a juvenile fantasy world that is!) and see if you can make some money/help people while doing it. This part can be a bit tricky but it is most satisfying when it works out. 5th) your quest is over pilgrim. enjoy!
morphine acts directly on the brain's reward system. it is based on CHEMICALS. addictions based on BEHAVIORS act indirectly on the brain's reward system. therefore, you can make someone a morphine addict involuntarily: tie them down and inject them a few times, and their bodies will go through withdrawl and crave morphine, even if they don't even know what they were injected with. they can be addicted to something they don't even know
meanwhile, you take someone who knows that video games can addict you, and they will avoid that behavior. you can't tie such a person in front of a video console and make them an addict. you have consciously choose to start tha ball rolling. that's my point of about willpower and character
your point is that once the ball is rolling, heroin addiction and video game addiciton is the same. to some extent, you are right. but personal responsibility comes in with getting the ball rolling, not what happens once the ball is already rolling. that's what is so insidious about addiction: the real battle is avoiding addictive behaviors from the beginning. this is what a strong character is all about. because just as you indicate, once you become an alcoholic, for example, you are an addict for life, and you need to tread water, you must actively exert willpower, the entire rest of your life to avoid falling off the saddle and into the gutter again
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't see what's stopping the APA from calling gamers disordered.
The experts need to meet with some WoW players--I'm pretty sure they will change their opinion on the mental disorder issue.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Gaming...... An addiction?
That's absurd.
*gets up from computer. Slowly walks over to wall and takes off replica of sephiroth's musamune sword. Slowly runs finger down the blade. The doorbell rings. The unsuspecting delivery man becomes victim 1112 of the sword.*
...just head over to http://www.wowdetox.com./ ;P
Still, people arguing over whether an addiction is "chemical" or not are missing the point. The brain is one big electrochemical device - any input can cause addiction, either by direct manipulation via chemicals, or indirect manipulation of reward systems. The difference is largely in attack vector - not in the end result. (Of course, going the chemical route often has more side effects than the indirect route)
That, however doesn't necessarily mean that chemical addictions are worse. Sure, nicotine might kill you at 65, but it won't have ruined your entire life before then. (On the contrary - cigarettes are cool, after all...)
It seems to me that what society perceives as 'addictive' depends almost entirely on the activity, and not its effect on the person who can't stop doing it.
Big drinker? Can't go a day without drinking? Get agitated if you can't have a beer? Alcoholic. You're addicted, and you need help.
Big on exercise? Can't go a day without running? Get agitated if you can't go to the gym? You're keen on fitness, and you should be admired.
Whether or not an activity does you direct harm or not doesn't change its power to hurt you and even ruin your life. Gaming may be benign on the surface, but so is a little gambling, or a little study, or a slice of cake, or a beer once in a while. I know plenty of people who burned themselves out on study - and until it was too late, nobody saw it as a problem because study is, on the surface, a good thing to do.
The problem is not what you're doing, but whether you're in control of yourself. When WoW starts playing you, you've got a problem.
There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary, and nine other kinds of people.
I Shouldn't post this under my
:00 AM and my head is totally blown up, and all I want to do is just cum, smoke a last one, hug her and sleep till next week; I just don't. I wash my face, I do a half Windsor, snort some shit to keep me running through the day, and go to work.
Cigarettes, Wine, Marihuana, Cocaine, Women. Those are the things that I like the most. When I say I like them, i mean I _really_ like them. And yes, I use all of them daily, sometimes just a little, but I have really abused them, and I'm talking about 40 cigarettes a day, 5 750 ml bottles of wine, 20g of Pot, 10g of Cocaine, And all night, non-sleep, non-stop menage a trua. Just in a day.
To make things worst, my girlfriend likes exactly the same things I do, maybe even more.
And you know what?, I am not broken because of it, I didn't loose my job, and I'm not an addict. If I had an amazing night, It's 10
Addictions doesn't exist. People is LAZY, That's it. Relying on a certain activity/substance is EASY, and damn conformist, and saying it's a disease is just a stupid justification.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
there needs to be social stigma about addiction. simply because, to paraphrase your point, is that once the ball is rolling, heroin addiction and video game addiction is the same: what's the point of talking about character and willpower and being weak when you are in the belly of the beast already?
in a way then, you actually need the disapproval and stigma... not from outside people, but from YOURSELF, to escape addiciton. so the stigma about addiction should not be fought, it should be internalized
personal responsibility/ will power/ strong character comes into play with getting the ball rolling, not what happens once the ball is already rolling. that's what is so insidious about addiction: the real battle is avoiding addictive behaviors from the beginning. that's why there needs to be a social stigma to addiction. this is what a strong character is all about. because once you become an alcoholic, for example, you are an addict for life, and you need to tread water, you must actively exert willpower, the entire rest of your life to avoid falling off the saddle and into the gutter again
in a way, the addicit who remains sober and clean is someone of greater willpower and character and repsonsiblity than a nonaddict, because they must tread water in a way a nonaddict doesn't have to. that's the right way to think about addiction and being a weak person
now there are people who will look down there nose at you for being an addict to anything. but the existence of venal holier-than-thou assholes doesn't mean addiciton needs to be destigmatized. thinking about their disapproval when you are in the belly of the beast isn't going to improve your chances or hurt you anymore than you are already hurt. addiction is a personal and social sruggle, but the first step escaping addiction is a personal choice that has nothing to do with social stigma. social stigma is only for the sake of those not yet addicted
you have to keep the two separate, or you wind up in the trap of a bullshit rationalization: that the dispproval of others is the cause of your addiction. bullshit, you need to take personal responsiblity to escape addiction, no matter what your condition. and, in fact, i would say that if someone were an addict, and blamed social stigma for their plight, they are indeed someone of poor character and weak will who will be an addict for a lot longer time, with that kind of blame game going on
the way out of addiction ALWAYS starts with you taking responsiblity for your plight, and pulling yourself out with the help of those in society who are not judgmental assholes. what judgmental assholes might think of you should never be your concern, addict or not. because the truth is the addict who remains sober is the stronger than a nonaddict. a nonaddic tis someone who is wise or lucky enough to avoid addiction in the first place
so the score card is like this:
sober addict: strong person (addiction is permanent your entire life), stronger than someone who was never addicted
someone who was never addicted: more wise than strong charactered, really
judgmental nonaddict: weak character
addict in the throes of addiction who blames judgmental people for their plight: weak character
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I would also add that if they make it an official disorder then people can turn around and say that they are addicted to gaming and therefore deserve disability status. A person playing WoW at work all day could claim discrimination if they try to fire him because he now has an officially recognized disorder. The definition of a disability has been getting stretched over time and I wouldn't be surprised if there was pressure involved here to resist that trend.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
And dont excuse me for saying that too. in the preface of some psychology, sociology books, it is explained in length that why "psychology/sociology is a science". does any mathematics book need it ? does any physics book ? heck, even geology book ?
it cant even bring reasonable explanations to basic humane feelings, still using darwinist/victorian stuff that is remnant of the 1880s, yet the bullcrap that is spurt out from it is actively used on people in practices.
"electroshock therapy" - get a load of that. can you imagine that is actually a form of "treatment" ? you tie someone and you give non lethal dosages of electricity until s/he forgets whatever shit s/he was about. just similar to hitting someone with a baseball bat in the head, but this one is called a "therapy"
drugging people to oblivion, eradicating all symptoms, hence make-believing that whatever psychological issue the individual had, are gone.
and now they are on to gaming, internet. the BIGGEST revolution, innovation that has ever happened to mankind - the internet.
they cant even sort their own branch's shit straight, but they are apparently able to explain complex phenomenon.
i dont give a jack about what psychologists think, or what they decide.
Read radical news here
Too many buck-chasing doctors and drug companies inventing the latest and greatest diseases. In some causes they are legitimate such as rare DNA mutations that cause slow and debilitating conditions. In other cases I'm amused becaue my social awkwardness and technical genius now classifies me as low-grade Aspegers-autism. They now say one perecent of people have this conidtions so they can raise lots of charity money.
So have movies and songs and other forms of art. But only the gamers get "classified" as addicts and psychopaths.
By that "logic", everything is addictive and everyone is an addict.
Here's a free clue, it's not denial if it is factual.
You have that backwards.
Because someone is prone to addictive behaviour does not mean that whatever they focus upon is, in itself, addictive.
Then you should have no problem citing them here. Right? No problem at all.
Except that you won't be able to do so because such studies do not exist.
No one has yet shown that an otherwise mentally healthy individual WILL BECOME ADDICTED to video games after playing them X hours.
But feel free to refute me by citing the studies that your wife has participated in. Go ahead.
I'm thinking these kids have some mental issues....9 8207965240
w arcraft.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-71531520
http://www.break.com/index/mom-tells-kid-no-more-
Kudos to Demon Xanth Wataru for the video references.
"I've been around long enough to realize that most Psychologists are fucking crazy..." - Timothy Leary
Actually, this is just plain wrong. You can tie someone down and inject them with morphine to the point where they become physically dependent on it. It doesn't make them an addict. While their body will physically need the drug and will produce withdrawal symptoms without it, they won't necessarily have a compulsive behavior to continue taking morphine.
i think we have different definitions of what an addict is. i think someone can be an addict and not know it
Also, dopamine and endorphins act directly on the brain's reward system and they too are based on chemicals. In fact, endorphins are chemically very similar to morphine and act on some of the same opioid receptors as morphine. That's why our bodys contain receptors that morphine can bind to in the first place.
i'm glad you said that. that's the totality of my argument
i really don't think we have much of a disagreement, except for the implications of certain words whose definitions we do not agreed upon completely. this is to be expected with complex subject matter. but as for the meaning of the deeper issue at work here, we agree with each other i think
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So you are not subject to becoming an addict to alcohol.
No, that isn't what I said.
Look at the similarities between the members of the groups that DO become addicted and those that DO NOT become addicted.
If the only similarity amongst the addicted group is the substance itself, then that substance is addictive.
If the members of that group share OTHER characteristics (depression, obsessive/compulsive, etc) that the other group does NOT share, then the focus SHOULD be on whether those characteristics are the "addiction" that is being claimed.
In your alcohol example, genetic pre-dispositions HAVE been discovered. But those do NOT account for all of the cases of alcoholism.
i stopped reading here:
Ok, I'll bite and play your game. First of all, I'm not a "wonk," I'm a professor and a practicing psychiatrist. Don't demean the field by referring to experts as "wonks."
for a supposed "professor" of psychiatry you have a problem with understanding the effects of a holier than thou condescending tone on your audience. there's no game here friend, i'm just a dude interested in the subject. it's not a crime, really. and yet i'm dealing with someone who takes great offense at the use of the word "wonk"
!?
okaaaaaaaay
not interested in talking to you or listening to what you have to say after that venomous opening remark. thanks for trying to kill my interest with your attitude though, but it didn't succeed
i'll do the psychologically intelligent thing and avoid the influence of your venom. if you are a real professor (which i doubt, you're just a troll), i fear for your students
buh bye troll
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I am happy to see that more study will be done before adding another group of "victims" to the list of "disabled". However, as I see it, such titles do not help society allowing people to hide behind medical classifications simply because they are lazy, gluttonous, (prescription) drug abusers, etc. Doing so only creates weaker humans and makes life more difficult and expensive for those who can enjoy life with self-moderation.
Natural selection people, its what is going to put an end to us all anyway.
t seems that it is entirely natural, if unfortunate, for human beings to be "addicted" to things like gambling and so on.
It's considered a disorder because it interferes with the person's ability to have a normal productive life. Loosing your life savings, house, going into debt to gamble is not considered a 'good' income, and while not gambling they'll even tell you that. They just can't stay away from the one-armed bandit(or other game of choice).
It would appear counter-intuitive to label things as disorders if they are very very common, albeit damaging.
I think that the diagnosises of ADHD in over half of some public school populations is out of line, especially when the 'answer' is drugs. On the other hand I think that serious gambling 'addicts' are about as common as serious alcohol addicts. Alcohol addicts are estimated at around 3.8% of the population(by one googled source). Work filters any searches with 'gambling', so sorry(maybe somebody else can come up with a rate?).
Still, most people require medical care at some point in their life. Being able to diagnose it as a 'disorder' or an 'illness' enables healthcare treatment of the condition, which, if successful, results in a happier, healthier, more productive individual. Preferably before the house is lost and the individual ends up in the street as a bum, of course.
I don't read AC A human right
No, the ADA specifically adresses alcohol and drugs--that is to say: the employee is to finish a rehab program. So that analogy is a little off-base. There's specifics in the text about that kind of thing; but video games aren't illicit materials, nor do they impair a person's ability to (for instance) operate heavy machinery, drive, or do a lot of other things. Heck, there are even tons of studies that show gaming to improve your eye-hand coordination--which one might even think could improve on-the-job-performance (depending on the type and nature of the employment.)
The compulsion to have "experts" classify everything is a mental disorder.
Twinstiq, game news
Problem/pathological gambling, for example, is specificly excluded by the ADA as is pyromania, drug use, kleptomania and 'sexual behavior disorders'.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
we don't have a disagreement. why are you trying to make one?
in the grandfather post i said i might not have the right words, and in the post you just replied to i said that again: our word meanings are off
you want to argue definitions of words, not meaning or concepts. i just care about the concepts. if you want to beat me over the head because my word choice is not accurate, well go ahead, whatever makes you happy. i said already twice that someone is going to disagree with my word choice
again: you should talk about the definition of words if it bothers you, not imply we have different conceptual understandings. i don't care about the word choice, i care baout the concepts. in a complex subject matter, terminology is always going to be sparse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yeah, sure you can. So why don't you just do that? Hmmmmm?
I'm sure that Jack Thompson would just LOVE to have such a study to boost his cases.
So, until you actually get around to posting it, I'll just leave you here with your claims. kthxbuy
concisely describes the complex definitions of the words about the issue at hand
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No. By my standard, a drug would only be considered "addictive" if the people who became addicted to it did NOT share any characteristic OTHER than the use of that drug.
It's called "science".
Here's a crazy theory for you. Take the group of people who are "addicted" to video games and take away their games, but give them access to porn. You'll find that now they are "addicted" to porn.
Now take away the porn and give them something else. They'll become "addicted" to that.
And so on.
The problem is that SCIENCE is being ignored. It isn't about finding out if something IS addictive.
It is now about "proving" that ANYTHING is "addictive"
Some years ago I went to Vegas to exhibit at Comdex, and was stuck at some minor hotel off the Strip that catered to the slots crowd. It was depressing to watch. The buses pull up, and people get out. I thought they'd check in, take a shower, change their clothes, see what entertainment was in town, maybe have a meal. No. They head straight for the slot machines, right from the buses. That's addictive behavior.
In fact, I'd have to say the only difference between a good MMORPG like World of Warcraft and the corporate ladder climbers is that in WoW you have better defined goals that can be reasonably achieved. I think the only reason people want to classify this type of gaming as an addiction is that it is potentially replacing the corporate rat race as gaming is not considered "productive", while corporate slogging is.
If anything both types of behaviors should be studied as they have similar social motivators and consequences.
Addiction experts know but won't come out and say it directly. There aren't 4,000 different types of addiction, there are basically two, Physical and Psychological. Although technically you are addicted to chemicals either way, with psychological addiction your own body is producing them.
With physical addiction a substance is introduced into the bloodstream that either makes a direct chemical conversion into a substance the brain forms a dependence on or is already a substance the brain becomes dependent upon. Heroin is a physically addictive substance. Alcohol is another.
With psychological addiction the substance, behavior, or activity is NOT the bad guy, the person is. ANYTHING you enjoy can cause a psychological addiction. When you enjoy an activity your brain rewards itself with addictive substances. It is those addictive substances you then become addicted to. Marijuana addiction, Gambling, Video Game addiction, girl chasing, and thrill-seeking are all examples of psychological addiction. Alcohol is another.
There may be a genetic predisposition to some forms or all forms of addiction.
What difference does it make? It makes a great deal of difference. Beyond the term adrenaline junkie there is no other recognition of the fact that psychological addiction is a broken function of the human brain. Everywhere people want to blame the substance or activities for psychological addictions but the substance or activity is irrelevant, lack of moderation is the reason for addiction. Why would we blame the substance or activity; simply because they were an enjoyable activity our brain failed to moderate? Every time lots of people start getting psychologically addicted to something it might be worth mentioning on the news but it certainly isn't anything new medically. In fact, there are probably millions of undiagnosed addicts who sink hours everyday doing things they enjoy. Maybe they paint miniatures, maybe they work on cars, maybe they Slashdot.
P.S. Yes, alcohol is on both lists. Some are born with a brain chemistry that converts alcohol directly into a highly addictive substance in the brain. Others simply enjoy being drunk and have psychologically addicted. Someone who drowns their sorrows would be psychologically addicted. Someone who picked up their first beer in high school and never put it down is probably physically addicted.
I'm sure they if they opened up a Ventrilo channel...
Yes, this fantastic science where they vote in each item based on popular demand. I caught some items in the current one like not wanting see a psych is of course a disorder and drugging is the proper treatment. Saying No, is reason for more drugs. Being excited about something new is also a disorder which should be treated with, more drugs. If you have jet lag from flying against the timezones and now being out of whack with sleep, then that's another disorder and reason for eh, more drugs.
Of course simply being sad over some failure or upset in your life is a disorder and must be treated with drugs.
Of course the reading and writing disorders must not be left out. If a child argues with you then we have the oppositional defiant disorder.
I spoke to a professor emeritus of psychiatry from the State University of New York Upstate Medical University who said "There's no blood or other biological test to ascertain the presence or absence of mental illness, as there is for most bodily diseases."
He went on to say that he had concluded there were no such thing as mental illness. People had problems but it was not an illness. The word illness indicates there's a disease in the body which can be cured in the body. He found that eating and sleeping well, and having a person to talk to was a much healthier approach to mental health.
You have put into words better than I ever could what I've been telling people. Often at times I hear from people, "I can't quit." When they speak of a drug (nicotine, alcohol, etc.) I can see the ease of addiction, but not the chemical effects. When it comes to sensory (games/sex/etc) "addiction" it's not a real addiction like the drugs, it's just what is making them feel good because of the actions happening. They can quit the games, but they have a weak character or lack will power to do it. I've been through both in milder incidents, alcohol/drugs, and games. I weaned off the first, and changed my hobbies for the second. The first took months, the latter took a week.
Causing Chaos Everywhere,
Nik J.
The strange world of a loner, in a populous city, drowning in society
when the two balls are rolling, they are the same (video games, alcohol)
what gets the ball rolling? very different: direct chemical interjection versus sensory stimulus
you're trying to say that all kinds of fire can burn the house down. well duh
but i'm saying that there is a big difference between a fire that is started by leaving the food on the stove too long and fire that is started by playing with matches
feel me now?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And your posturing really isn't helping your argument. You should probably just go ahead and shut up.
I do agree with the point you were making for the most part, but this jumpy, obsessive demand for citation is just ridiculously out of place here.
Video game addiction is bogus. It's a hobby. I don't play video games any more, but I am really active and like to play outside. I pout when friends do not want to play football or go swimming or whattever. But if they were as into these sports and activities as I am, I would be doing this 4 or 6 hours a day. Or until I am tired.
The thing about video games is that you don't have to WAIT for someone else to join you. You can just log in, and be immersed in an environment of others who do want to play. Or you can play single player games for hours and just 'tune out' much like people 'tune out' the world by reading books upon books upon books. Is bookreading an addiction too, if someone reads 4 or 6 hours a day?
No, it's a hobby. We don't call guitarists addicts for playing their instrument for hours. We don't call people who read for hours addicts for reading. We don't call people who play sports for hours addicts for playing outside. I don't think we should call video game players who play for hours on hours addicts and treat it like it is a 'disorder'
I think it is ironic that the very mechanism that makes gaming so successful is the same mechanism that makes it so addictive.
It's similar in psychological terms as gambling. There's a reward systemt that is put in place, designed specifically by psychologists, to maximize the retention of the gamer to stay with the game. Originally this meant they would pump quarters into Astroids until they missed their car payments. But it's still the same basic process. All brought to you by the same people who make gambling products.
Face it. It's not an addiction. It's an overly successful implementation of exactly what the gaming company attempted to produce. A game you can't give up and will gladly pay for in the next version.
No offense, but this seems to come up in *every* discussion about gaming addiction on /.
OCD doesn't mean what you apparently think it means. It is not at all about being unable to resist pleasurable activities.
In a nutshell, it is about intrusive thoughts that something horrible will happen (obsessions) and trying to "counter" it somehow (compulsions). For example touching some object you consider dirty, being afraid that you will get some illness and then washing your hands. Or having a feeling that you have done something "incorrectly" for some reason, and repeating it. etc...
Wikipedia Article
(By the way, it wasn't particularly bad in your posting, I just used this opportunity to finally comment on this ;))
It's not a mental disorder, it's a DISEASE!!!
/random sarcastic rant
It's more deadly than cars and planes and snakes all combined! (indirectly, that is)
The only way to overcome this disease is to realize that you can't, and then to give yourself to god. Only then can you become a child of god, who will deliver you from this deadly sin.
~ Normality is merely the achievement of the mediocre...
It's the early stages of transcendence, you buffoons! The virtualization of your life, and, eventually, entire body and actual mind.
Now be some good little doctors and invent some more Healthy Pills so our sedentary, fat bodies can live longer and more comfortably, and collect, deservedly, billions of dollars for that invention, thxbie.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
We are driven by the chemicals our brain produces, they give us pleasure and relieve us of pain.. in some cases people who play games get quite the rush from gaming, much like a hit of heroin/crack. this is what is addictive.. the chemical reaction the brain produces.. for some it is eating, some it is skydiving, others it is sex.. and of course there are drugs which force the brain to produce these chemicals.
Being able to moderate the desire for these chemical "highs" is what is needed no matter what you use to stimulate them.
Easy right?
Yeah, I mean, we can't have people openly mocking this trend to pathologize almost any behavior that's somehow seen as undesirable. It'd open the whole process up to scrutiny and we wouldn't want that now..
There went my disability claims...
then only crazy people will play games!
The rest will bomb countries on faked-up "evidence" to boost the GNP.
I, for one, welcome our new Gamorrean Overlords. Mucha shaka paka!
For saying tobacco was addictive. - True Story The AMA saying gaming isn't addictive is basically just another opinion nothing more nothing less... Unless you consider how they form their opinions. In 1964 they formed an opinion on tobacco based on the tobacco companies giving them tens of millions of dollars for research. So any gaming companies giving the AMA monies for research? Oh that's right, funding grants are confidential.
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
You mean like how alcoholics have the legal right to be drunk at work?
Property is theft.
There was a patient in there that was dealing with three addictions/impulse control disorders. Cocaine, self-injury and MUDs. (For you younger readers, a MUD is like WoW without graphics--text adventure RPG multi-player on a smaller scale and usually free.) This poor woman was in the recovery stage from two and desperately fighting the third. She said getting off coke was cake compared to MUDs. She'd basically left her kids and computer with her ex, asked him to take the computer somewhere she'd never find it, and gone home to try to quit MUDing cold-turkey. She had trouble getting rehab for gamimg addiction, so she was doing the best she could. Well, she ended up selling every possession she had to get back online in a few days. Then, she'd miss the kids and try to just quit, cold-turkey again. Rinse. Repeat. Until she ended up selling other people's possessions to get online pay ISP and phone bills, etc... She would cry to us that wished she was "just a coke-head". The reason she was involuntarily locked up was that she decided the only way to quit gaming was to quit living.
My memory is poor on the exact year of that group, memory loss is common with depression. I've been in many support groups since. I already read a post from someone about their "Evercrack" experience. People who use the term evercrack, and I don't mean just the kids, I mean adults too, are still in a lot of the support groups for addiction and depression I attend. They may have recovered from addiction, but they are dealing with depression now because they lost their jobs, families and years of their lives to an addiction, impulse control disorder or whatever the AMA isn't calling it.
I'm not a shrink or doctor. I've spent 13 years surround by the mental health community though. I'm a recovering addict, I'm an addict that hasn't admitted yet, and I have a bloody addictive personality so I've been in these dark places that most people don't want to go. I've sat next to people that most of us don't want to have to admit exist because their minds are so broken that is just easier to push them to the back of your brain and leave it there to self-preserve. I'm not trying to get on soapbox here, just to offer you a point of view that I have because I have sat in those circles and not everyone has. Whether someone formally calls it a problem or labels it in some offical way, its there. If you don't have to see it, then I'm glad, it probably means you aren't stricken with some terrible mental illness, nor do you have a loved one battling one. Be thankful for that.
~WBGG~ "And I'm so sad like a good book I can't put this Day Back a sorta fairytale with you" ~Tori Amos
"The more time kids spend on video games, the less time they will have socializing, the less time they will have with their families, the less time they will have exercising," Kraus said. "They can make up academic deficits, but they can't make up the social ones."
Playing a MMORPG can be incredibly social. In fact, one of the reasons that I felt that WoW was so fun. Compared with SWG, WoW seemed to push players to group up to achieve high end content. So I guilded with one of the high-end raiding guilds on my server (not pvp) and learned to play (I didn't have much else to do IRL as I was on medical leave from work. I was well enough to sit at a desk for 3 hours a night and hated tv so a buddy suggested WoW.) At any rate, I made all kinds of game friends, acquaintences, non-fans, romantic interests, etc.
My guild eventually became very competative, kicking people out that didn't meet standards and not letting anyone in--not something I really cared so much for. I did care for playing and progress--not the rewards. I was sick of raiding Onyxia and MC over and over though--boring. We were the only guild of two on the server that could kill that dragon that turned mages into farm animals at the time. (sry, my memory sucks so i can't remember its name, it was long ago.) So I stayed with them to see more content as it opened up.
I was very careful to try to keep all RL details out of the game because of a minor incident in SWG with a pervert. Eventually, though in WoW I gave in and began using teamspeak, on the huge raids. I realized this would give away my gender for sure. I figured I could deal with that, and I did. Using TS made the raids so much easier. My guild main was a rogue with most of the best non-pvp gear you could get at that time. (If you flame me here, accusing me of bragging about having a well geared rogue on a non pvp server then get a life. any WoW person knows its not hard to do this.) The only way to make playing her less boring was to find strategies to out DPS other rogues involving talking to the team. My point is I wasn't thinking that logging into the guild's TS server probably gave away more RL information than I understand because I haven't kept up with network tech. I know these details seem mundane but be patient, I have a point coming soon.
So, I was playing WoW and being very social with these people ingame. I mentioned my main was a rogue. Well everyone had a rogue, so I had some free time in game. Therefore I just sometimes hung out with some friends and did silly things like naked gnome races, the ever popular griefing of the major Horde and Alliance cities by sneaking into them, and trying to find fashion in WoW--something SWG had that WoW didn't. I made alts that made friends with characters that couldn't stand my main trying to figure out why they didn't like her. A good friend IRL that played on the server and I organized a server wide skinny-dip of Alliance NE's in Horde waters. The point is my player and many others were very very social. Many people opened up to me about in private chat about RL stuff that I really think proves this.
WoW became for me a social community just like the sports bar I'd go to with the new hires for the first year every Friday for happy hour. It was similar to the anime club I joined in college where we'd hang out once a week to watch new films and make new friends. The diversity of the community, the guild I was in and the other guilds even reminded me a lot of college intermurals mixed with the after game hanging out socialization at 24-hour diners. (There were no Starbucks when/where I was in college yet, we had nasty coffee.)
Then my social community disappeared fo
~WBGG~ "And I'm so sad like a good book I can't put this Day Back a sorta fairytale with you" ~Tori Amos
Working at job you hate so you can buy crap you don't need to impress people you don't care about and who don't care about you.
Is that a mental disorder?
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
Are they addicted to inventing addictions?
I usually forget to eat whilst I'm doing Maths. Does this mean that being a mathematician is a mental disorder?
Because I have only one radiation suit...
Shrinks who practice online can be jailed in the state of California.
disorder --- war
health --- peace
negative behavior --- bad guy
treatement --- war plan
drug --- weapon
drug treatment --- precise bombing
side-effects --- collateral damage
What about using officially prescribed Prozak/Codein/Morphin at the same cost? Such stuff also happens... It doesn't matter where you get a drug. If you use it inappropriately it's bad. If you use it appropriately it's okay. Of course it matters: this is in part what the legal vs illegal drug bussiness is all about.
There is something very tautological-moralistic in all these discussions: appropriate=good, inapropriate=bad; normal=good, abnormal=bad; drugs with prescriprion = good, illegal drugs = bad; negative function = bad, normal function = good, and so on... If doctors keep on prescribing Codeine/Morphine over and over to the point of the patient becoming first addicted and then addicted to the point of being in danger of dying (yes, it happened, and who could tell that marijuana would not have been a better choice?), well, there is some breach of responsibility that is not entirely on the patient's side. As another example of an element of arbitrariness, let's take the example of: Someone who drinks alcohol once a week at dinner is not addicted. Someone who drinks compulsively and gets withdrawal if they stop drinking is addicted. and replace "drinks alchol" with "eats food": Someone who eats compulsively and gets withdrawal if they stop eating is addicted. Fine, but again, addiction here is defined via "compulsion" and "withdrawal", words that have attached to them meaning of "bad" activities (so, yes, the label is very important here). If one says: "I haven't eaten dinner and I feel really hungry, I must eat something", well, how can one tell if the person is addicted to food or not? If you look at the DSM-IV (it's available online) you will see what I mean. Mental illness is a spectrum. I'm not sure why all this insisting on reading the "DSM IV"? Anyhow, I couldn't find the free version of the book on the internet, and wikipedia says: The DSM advises that laypersons should consult the DSM only to obtain information, not to make diagnoses, and that people who may have a mental disorder should be referred to psychiatric counseling or treatment. Uf, that's a bit crazy, no? I mean, if somebody "may have a mental disorder", does that not mean that the possibility of the mental disorder is always present? What if somebody consults DSM to get an idea whether something that that person feels is not right with him/her (there are hundreds of choices to pick from), and then after making a layman's diagnosis (one that DSM exactly forbids) goes to the professional, and the professional tells: "well, you have indeed the disorder you thought you have"? Which also means: "yes, you have the disorder, and you are very good at correctly detecting it, which is my job, therefore you were not supposed to do it, but it's good for you that you did it."
Or: "no, don't worry, nothing is wrong with you--you were not supposed to do the diagnosis, but it's good for you that you did it anyway, for I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with you that I can tell."