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Defining Video Game Addiction
1Up has a feature discussing where the line should be drawn when it comes to game addiction. The author speaks to researcher Neils Clark about some of the common characteristics of addiction, and how the high level of immersion in many modern games contributes to the mind's ability to drown out mundane tasks. We've discussed game addiction many times over the past several years. Quoting:
"If we're not all dribbling addicts, then why are we playing so much? Clark puts this down to a theory proposed by The Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien — primary and secondary worlds. The primary world is our own real life. The secondary is the fictional world: literature, film, videogames, and so on. 'It used to be that the imagery and artistic intent had to be fully available before you could really "find" yourself in a written story,' Clark says. 'Immersion has progressed to the point where entering a world [inside a game] is almost automatic. At the point we're at, playing healthy not only means understanding immersion but [also] recognizing that these secondary worlds are designed to be more fulfilling than the primary. Learning to balance them is its own technology. It's something that humankind is in a process of developing, even if on a subconscious level for most gamers.'"
It seems obvious that the only people who think MMORPGs are addictive are the people who haven't played them.
How we know is more important than what we know.
addiction is an over used term these days, and it vastly over simplifies why some people spend their life in front of a video game.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
How long is it now before we have WoWA (World of Warcraft Anonymous)?
but I have a number of auctions to check on in Ironforge and a bunch of mining to do. That Jewelcrafting skill won't level on its own you know!
God, schmod. I want my monkey man!
I can, have and currently am going without most of the games I like. Whether or not I get immersed in a game is entirely down to whether or not I want to be immersed in it; assuming, of course, the game is good enough to get immersed in in the first place. I can spend hours or even months playing Civ 4 or Medieval II: Total War if I let myself get immersed. I don't enjoy them if I'm distracted by something else. I've sunk just as much time into Morrowind and Oblivion, and when Fallout 3 finally gets here, people will only see me at meal times, if they're lucky (or unlucky, depending on perspective). I never have been able to get into online games, even when I want to.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Most of our parents are addicted to television; I don't see any hysteria or treatment programs for them. In fact politicians and advertisers actively exploit that addiction.
Some argue that refined sugar is addictive, too, and most Westerners are in fact addicted.
These are the real issues that face millions of people, and will surely affect the election.
"If we're not all dribbling addicts, then why are we playing so much?"
Because videogames are designed to be fun and enjoyable so we play them a lot. How fucking simple can you be?
I dont see anyone running around looking to label people who watch a lot of tv as addicts. I'm not sure what being a "researcher" entails but it seems like he was never taught the definition and requirements of something to be an addiction.
So Skulldilocks threw acid on the schoolchildrens' faces, cause somebody from the bible told her to do it!
Where's my Holodeck, dammit!
Too many zeros, not enough ones
MMORPG's Are addictive. I seen the damage its done. For a majority of people certainly gamers who have learned to control there online time it isnt a problem , agreed. But for those who have stood by and watched Kids go unfed till way to late at night, Having the TV or DVD's parent the children while a partner spends the entire weekend online until its become to much and it wasnt the marriage you signed up for...
Well "Widows Of Warcraft"... its a joke for some people and a reality for others.... or did you think someone made up the term EverCrack because it wasnt addictive...
There are people that Suffer from addictions, gambling, alcohol, Cigarettes some chemical addictions of the body, some mental addictions of the mind. Those people prone to or a tendency for access compulsive behavior often fall into the metal category.
Never before has such a "wide net" been thrown, MMORPG are cheap compared to Cigarettes, available 24/7 in your own home (as opposed to gambling other than online...) and gives you an escapism thats better than the real world...
Anything in excess is a problem, and this problem is sooo easy to get hooked on.
While I'm sure we all first think of those people who can't tear themselves away from wow, MMOs aren't the only culprit. As a teen, my friend and I definitely spent more time than we should playing fpses and rtses. We would probably play 4 - 6 hours a day, to the point where my friend's school work suffered. I would definitely consider myself addicted. You're still in a second world, be it one of trebuchet's and woad raders, or .44s and rocket launchers. (but, for the love of god, please don't let that world be second life). There are definitely high school students who suffer, like my friend did, because of an addiction to video games. They're fulfilling, and parents might not know how to deal with it since it's a newer problem.
They just aren't, they might be an activity that people get passionate about, obsessive about but they are not addictive. Any obsessive behaviour is labelled as addictive and it is just plain wrong.
I play DDR for like an hour or more almost every day. People might call that addicted or obsessive or whatever but that shouldn't even count. That's the only exercise I get :P And puzzle games make you smarter or whatever so where do you draw the line between video game and mental/physical exercise? No matter how you define it ignorant, old people should shut up about it.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
I think the line is simple - if you start lying to friends and family about your activities when you've been gaming, or making excuses to get out of social occasions just to play games, you're an addict.
Work smarter, not harder.
If you draw the line where the only way to get addicted is to chemically alter your brain (alcohol, tobacco, hard drugs, etc) then sure, there is no way to become addicted to video games. But if you believe that someone can become addicted to an activity that stimulated pleasure release in the brain (gambling, sex, shopping) then you have to make an entry for video games too.
Me? I believe that it's possible to become 'addicted' to video games, but the actual cases are probably so small that it shouldn't receive any more attention than gambling.
No, in all likelyhood labels like 'addicted to video games' are the previous generations ways of trying to understand our modern entertainment cycle. I'm sure their parents were worried they were 'addicted to comic books' or 'rock music'. I just cry a little cry for little Johnny who's mom will take away his Xbox 360 because she's afraid of him being 'addicted'. Parents need to stop guarding their children like pets and teach them to make smart decisions so that when Johnny is 20 and moves out (we're being optimistic here folks), he won't turn into an obsessed World of Warcraft fiend because he can finally access everything his parents never taught him how to deal with on his own.
It's the same as dad's who are sexually overprotective of their daughters, just as it's the same as parents who teach their kids that tobacco and drugs are bad-evil-horrible without giving them reasoning to justify that position, etc.
Teach kids to make smart decisions if you want them to be truly well off.
Hell yes, geek addicts represent!
If patriotism is racist, is racism patriotic?
ha! FPSers get shootings, while MMO losers get hermits
I find the Primary and Secondary worlds thing fascinating. Even more so, I find it fascinating that as humankind advances there will probably be a merger of the two. For instance, if you've read Alastair Reynolds' The Prefectyou probably know what I mean. In this story a huge community of habitats orbit a central planet. This community is called the Glitterband. Within it, each habitat is different. And I don't mean different in that one is painted grey and the other is blue. Every habitat has an abstraction core, which when combined with the right wetware and advanced technology in the citizens bodies allows them to live in virtually any sort of environment they please. Similar to being able to queue up anything on the Holodeck, even including changing your basic body type, or having no body and being a floating wisp of energy, or whatever you can imagine.
The cool part here, to me, is that this was originally a Secondary world as taken from Tolkein's theory. But for these people their Secondary world has become integrated with a democracy and a community of other Secondary worlds, all of which participate in this democracy (if they choose to). So in effect, their Secondary and Primary worlds have merged, and if they want... for good.
This is where I see games starting to take hold of this possibility of a merger. You can almost pay for your bills by playing WoW, if you choose to sell gold. What am I say, almost. People do. Lots of them. They literally live off of WoW. I'd even wager that for some of them their Primary world is WoW and their Secondary world is having to feed themselves and sleep, because they probably don't do much else outside of WoW.
No, things aren't nearly to the point where I'd say there can be a true merger. But when it happens, are you going to call these people addicts? What if they are richer, happier, and live longer than you? At what point does it stop being an addiction to WoW, and become YOUR addiction to the 'old ways'?
Just food for thought..
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
This reminds me of the anime "Welcome to the NHK", where the protagonist is a "hikikomori", a socially-incapable person who never leaves his appartment. In one of the episodes, he joins a MMORPG which leads him to the idea of getting rich through gold farming. The result was frightening, to say the least.
(BTW, I really recommend this series, it might give us an insight of what's happening with MMORPG addiction, at least in japan)
First they said it was an internet addiction. I said fine, I can quit anytime and I did!
No longer did I spend my days browsing slashdot or engaged in chat rooms hour after hour. Instead, i turned my attention to porn!
Gone were the way of those vile constructs and replaced with something healthy. One day, I'm told I'm addicted to porn! Nay said I and turned my attention away from the fleshy delights!
Now, my marathon sessions of gaming are called into question!
It looks like all I have left is alcohol and television. I don't believe those will be very addictive at all.
Considering computer games are essentially a simulated world what component of the game is the addiction? And wouldn't that component be the addiction not the game itself?
Some games allow gambling within the game for example. If someone gambles in the game obsessively isn't that a gambling addiction rather than an addiction to the game?
What about item hording that many MMORPG players suffer from? Isn't that obsessive compulsive disorder rather than game addiction?
And the people who compulsively dress up as Furries and Cyber in Second Life. Isn't that just sex addiction?
http://goatse.cz/
You WoW nerds love it!
"civilization iv"
it's the only game i ever played where i would blink once, and it wuld be 6 am, blink again, and it would 6 pm. i had to bend and break the disc in order to have a life
"just one more turn" always turns into 500 more turns
that's some serious video crack right there that game
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you want to reclaim some time, avoid reading and listening to the endless pablum produced by paid babblers and online mental jerk-off forums.
One problem with comparing game addiction to substance abuse is that substance abuse only gets more addictive with time. Games are the opposite. The more you play games the more you see the same game over and over and its immersion becomes weaker and weaker. Pretty soon it's boring. Not to mention games won't kill you.
But then I remembered I promised my S.O. she could change the password on my slashdot account so I could take an enforced break from it.
It's been nice knowin' y'all.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
You can measure any kind of addiction by the withdrawal symptoms.
Look, there's only two things in life that are addictive: Sex, and drugs (including alcohol, but not including weed). Video games are fun, MMOs are also fun, but I could stop playing videogames (or smoking weed) cold turkey, I could _not_ quit smoking ciggarettes, or having sex cold turkey. ANyone who claims to be addicted to video games is simply weak-willed, or needs an excuse for their worthlessness.
The so-called 'primary' world is already secondary. People live and aspire in a mental world where success tends to be productive of survival in the primary world. For example, the objects you see are all secondary cartoon representations of primary things. There are frequencies of light in the primary world, which are represented by different colors in the secondary world, but there is no color in the primary world. Similar things can be said about many or most of people's beliefs about the 'real' world.
The secondary world is of course strongly related to the primary one. If this were not so, it would be eliminated by natural selection. Many of the other secondary worlds, as discussed here, will change or disappear eventually for the same reason.
Just an observation.
If you haven't had sex in 4 months (2 months if your over 25), sit at home in mom's basement, and/or haven't taken a shower in 3 weeks -- I've got news for you:
YOUR ADDICTED
In the Military we are taught how to recognize various forms of addiction among the younger troops. It doesn't really matter what the addiction is, and we can't punish the addiction. What we can do is punish the behavior that stems from someone who is addicted. I have had to do administrative action on several individuals now who continually showed up late for work or fell asleep on duty. All because they stayed up late every night playing WoW. Couldn't state that in the report though. Whether you call it an obsession or an addiction, if it affects your daily routine, its a problem.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
It's possible to get addicted to video games, but the term is also often misused. Rather than trying to define it, I'll just share a personal experience.
In high school I played Star Craft and Diablo II to death. I would get angry if something went wrong in the game, to the point where it would affect my interaction with other people in my real life. If I didn't get to play for 4 hours a night, I would also get antsy, angry, and I was unable to focus on anything. Mind you, I still did well in high school and was able to get into an engineering program at U of T after all was said in done. I was addicted, it caused problems in my life, but everything ended up OK.
Recently I had my laptop at a friend's place. Their brother, who (I think) is heavily addicted to games, borrowed my laptop to play Mass Effect. After two hours, I asked for the laptop back. The brother respectfully handed it back, but became extremely anxious and irritated. He then asked his parents to buy him the game, and when they didn't agree, he became extremely angry. This kid is not spoiled, mind you. His entire personality changed, and it was like a window into the past seeing my behavior at that age. He also does well in school and is a well mannered kid (except for this time).
I guess I can say that you can be successful and still be addicted to things that affect you negatively. It may not be an outright addiction, but if it affects your personality and how you interact with others, it's a problem none the less.
There's something I do that takes up a huge part of my waking life. It involves sitting in front of a computer for long stretches, doing things that, while they differ from day to day in the details, are pretty repetitive in the long run. I don't particularly like to be doing this. Yet when I couldn't do this for a time, I got anxious. Further withdrawal symptoms would have included depression, malnutrition, the loss of my house, my bank accounts, other assets, and eventually, perhaps death. Yet no one thinks I'm addicted to this activity... because it's "WORK".
"A lot of people say games are addictive. Well, they're addictive in the sense that anything you like doing you repeat endlessly. But no one would say, 'Mr Kasparov, you have a chess problem,' or 'Tiger Woods, you have a golf addiction.'"
To escape.. that's the reason.
Life is tough, games are fun. But, like anything else, gaming can be addictive, and if we don't learn to balance our play time with other activities. Well, it's not called addictive for nothing.
In the end, I suspect most people who are addicted to games, are also running away from something about themselves, who knows, low self-esteem, frustrations, etc..., so, really, just like drugs and alcoholism, in the end, addictive gaming isn't going to make things better, it just postpone the day you need to truly deal with the issues which you don't want to face.
But there are actually a few out there, who are hardcore gamers, and have no issues, they are just having plain ol' fun. I've seen actual couples who are both into gaming, and they love it.
So, unlike booze and drugs, gaming isn't always addictive in a bad way.
It is a question of defining one's quality of life and happiness.
Can they be happy, have a normal life and a gaming life at the same time? Do they still go to work, pay the bills, etc...
If yes to both questions, then, clearly, it's not addictive to these folks, they are just doing what they like to do and are obviously able to function well in what is most important for them, without shying from their responsibilities and duties.
If i drink Captain Morgan and Cokes while playing WoW, which i play 40-50 hours a week... Which substance am I addicted?
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
I don't know about other addicts but I smoke for 14 years already. So I am an addict you could say. But I DO enjoy it. Every time I light one up I really enjoy it, much as I enjoy other things in life such as cheesecake, football, and the iraq such as and, I consciously enjoy them.
This "addiction" subject is really fascinating. Aren't we all addicted to food? If you take food away from me, wouldn't I go nuts too? What about money, women, and cattles? What about life?
Addiction requires:
1) Physical dependence (body chemistry changes to require the substance)
2) Tolerance (body develops an ability to deal with the substance)
3) Increasing dose (body requires MORE substance for the same effect)
4) Withdrawal (body goes through clinical recovery before it can function without the substance)
Games fulfill NONE of these requirements, because it's not a substance that enters the body!!!
It's not fucking addiction--it's a psychological dependency which mimics addiction. Got it?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
and even neglected my classes in university because of it, a lot of other things and whatnot.
now when i look back, i can understand that it wasnt the games that got me addicted. i was passing time with them - as if i was perpetually in waiting.
later observation of other people seemed to nail that idea, i saw many people taking to gaming to great extent when they were in a waiting period in their life - waiting for military service, marriage, between jobs, wake of big decisions about their life etc.
especially in school era, this 'waiting' concept climaxes, because the individual is actually passive, taking in information but not producing anything on his/her OWN initiative and planning. subconscious knows any homework, project, intermediary goal that is set are just temporary, therefore is still aware of the passivity of the individuals willpower.
once the individual is out of school and at the control of his/her own life for real, and when s/he sets a real objective, one soon discovers that all gaming habits change. first it lessens to the extent that it becomes a stress outlet, a relaxation, then some way to rest the mind, then, at some point, the struggle for reaching the objective that is set becomes a game in itself, and the person resorts to gaming less and less.
im at that point in my life. games bore me out of my mind now. and by games, i mean everything. i played everything from defender of crown in 1986 to crysis, from fate of atlantis, star control 2 to europa universalis 3.
then again i dropped out of college and set out to establish myself as an entrepreneur on the new world that is internet. that IS a game in itself.
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Do "football super fans" get an endorphin rush when their favorite player on their team? I've seen people get livid if they miss their favorite games. Why aren't these same people concerned for them? Oh yeah...being obsessed about football is "healthy" but a computer game is not.
Now there is a useful and precise notion of physical addiction when we are talking about certain kinds of drugs (e.g. opiates) that produce a definite withdrawal syndrome when their use is stopped. I have some fairly close experience with this and trust me it's nothing like not getting your MMORPG fix. There may even be a broader well defined notion of addiction that applies to drugs without substantial *physical* withdrawal symptoms (amphetamines) but which produce extreme levels of craving when withdrawn and particular psychological withdrawal symptoms when removed.
However, talking about "addiction" to things like computer games or porn and the like is stupid and downright misleading. Can people get overly caught up in these things and damage their lives? Of course but using the term addiction suggests it is a particular syndrom that is in principle distinct from other sorts of activities we find rewarding in a basic neurochemical fashion.
I mean sure people might crave their computer games, engage in them to the determint of their relationships with friends etc.. but the same can be said about spending time with my wife. Before I met her I got along fine on my own, spending time with her takes away time from hanging out with my friends and other life activities (and no doubt for some people who marry poorly this can make their life worse). The difference between an addiction to computer games and an addiction to seeing one's wife or an addiction to eating tasty food is simply a value judgment we make not something intrinsic in the activities themselves.
----
Ultimately this whole debate is just about how to name something. If nothing fishy is going on with saying people are "addicted" to computer games then presumably it doesn't matter if you say they are addicted or explain out the way they behave towards their computer games. However, if you just said, "hey some people engage in this harmful pattern of behavior with computer games" everyone would shrug and move on. If substituting a word's supposed definition for it's use eliminates the impact of the claim something fishy is going on.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
i can quit anytime i want.
you can play and predictably get rewards
This is why slashdot can never be addictive.
Arhhh... oh yes, that's the stuff...
too late to the party for anyone to read this (being too lazy to log in doesn't help), but here's the skinny of it:
People get "addicted" to WoW, or any other imaginary world, because they find their actual reality lacking. I'm sure someone is going to get offended by this, but quite honestly it's the simple truth. If your real life was interesting and occupying, you wouldn't have the inclination to replace it with a fictional one. Have you ever heard of a company executive getting addicted? A successful writer? Hell, a successful anything? No, it's always the stay-at-home moms, the suburban folk, the anti-social college kids; the ones with so little happening in their current reality that an existence that consists solely of killing the same monsters over and over with other people (that last part being key for some of the less social people) is more appealing to them than whatever it is they do with the third dimension.
They play WoW because it's more interesting than their real life. What's interesting is, from what I've found out, most WoW players themselves readily admit this. Their loved ones, however, are usually much more loath to admit such a thing. Maybe because their real life includes said loved ones, so saying their life is boring is saying that, by extension, WoW is more interesting than their relationship? I can't answer that, though that seems like the most likely theory to me.
-GCH
The world hates America and Americans: Check
World War III may start at any moment: Check
In regards to the above, America may start it: Check
Our country is filled with idiots: Check
Our leadership doesn't give a RATS ASS about it's constituency beyond getting their votes: Check
Our public school system is hopelessly broken and nobody gives a damn (see above): Check
If I was growing up in the world of today, I'd probably rather hide in Worlds of Warcraft than face how hopelessly fucked up things are. Hell, if I hadn't already gone through the whole online gaming phase back in the 90's, I'd probably be doing that right now!
Want to know why there is a "video game addiction" problem? Re-read the above!
Because I think it's relevant, I'll post my experience with WoW and my addiction to it.
I want to say first and foremost, I don't fault WoW or Blizzard at all, it was merely a medium that I attached my addiction to. You could probably insert any MMO for me and my story probably would have changed only by date.
Anyway, a great bit of irony starts with when I first played WoW, I avoided the game like the plague because although I greatly enjoyed WC3 and many other blizzard titles, I didn't want to get hooked to it.
Ok, maybe this part makes me a bit unique, and may perhaps only makes my addicting nature to games manifest worse, but when I get a game, I do in a way enthrall myself into any new game I get and play relatively non-stop till I feel I beat it, or get really bored of it. I have to beat a game, and I have to beat it well enough to feel good or superior in some fashion, even if it is self-indulgent.
I started playing WoW like I started playing any game. I could go onto a long story about my slippery slope that got me completely addicted to it.
There were a few catalysts on the way: 1st catalyst was a girl. She broke my heart, yadda yadda, what did I turn to to "comfort" me? WoW. My grades were already slipping, as was my interest in school, WoW was merely a catalyst for getting me out of school. No more school, so what did I have more time to play? WoW. Then the restaurant I worked at closed. I was already long gone at this point, going home early, taking the cut early in the night so I could go home and play WoW is the norm for me practically. when the restaurant closed, I got to play 16hrs a day, 7 days a week for 2 months. glorious by my measure. Then with a pretty powerful intervention, I stopped playing WoW.
I wouldn't say I went through any physical withdrawl, but man, I definitely had some significant "mental" withdrawl. For me, WoW was a nice cocktail of things: Ego, Attention, and Indulgment. I think there is a physical side effect of game playing that ALL gamers get addicted to, its the adrenaline and endorphins that get released turning something exciting, FPS shooters likely get it when they kill someone or go on a killing spree. For me, it was difficult boss kills. Get me a difficult boss, throw me at it for 40hrs of raiding and finally killing it, there are few better feelings in the world than that. THAT is the addiction that MMO "addicts" get. I was in a very real way addicted to the chemical release my body gave me when killing bosses, I couldn't wait for tough bosses to kill. I would say it was highly different for alcohol addiction or other drug addictions that was said earlier to have the brain literally rewired, where the drug of choice didn't have any real affect or any more "pleasure" on the person anymore, gaming addiction is very different, there is that chemical addiction I think, and for me, some of my biggest "highs" were toward the end of my time, and there were significant amounts of smaller "highs" early, and other big "highs" at other times as well, but there was never for me a "meh high" that drug addicts get in their late addictions.
Actually, that's not how (real) addiction works. Addiction to a substance happens when your brain chemistry starts adjusting in the other direction. Biology is largely about self-tuning feedback loops like that. If you have too little oxygen in your arm, e.g., because you do a lot of physical effort, your body grows more blood vessels. And if the brain has to work while disrupted by alcohol, it compensates its chemistry in the other direction.
Addiction is that compensation in the other direction. And when you are properly addicted, it's not as much that your drug is fun, as that life without it is not much fun.
E.g., Nicotine inhibits MAO-B, which breaks down Dopamine and Phenethylamine. It's part of a chemical equilibrium in the brain. When you're happy about something, you get a shot of dopamine, but almost immediately MAO-B is released to make that signal decay back to baseline. Nicotine perturbs that mechanism, so it originally makes you feel better. But soon your body adjusts its equilibrium in the other direction, so now you feel shitty without a cigarette. Eventually those cigarettes do nothing except bring you briefly to the point where a non-smoker is naturally all the time. That's addiction.
E.g., Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, which doesn't actually mean it makes you depressed, just that it makes certain individual synapses and pathways less responsive. But again, the body immediately starts to compensate in the other direction, and those synapses gradually become hyperexcitable. If you keep doing that, essentially to the point where they fire erratically on their own. See, delirium tremens. So essentially after a while you notice that without alcohol you're nervous, have less motor coordination, have hearth rhythm problems, and the like. Essentially your body just started telling you, "man, I really could use a drink." And again, gradually you need more and more of it, and eventually the first sixpack just gets you back to the normal "sober" point. (Alcohol tolerance really is just the road to delirium tremens, sadly.)
Addiction to something fun isn't an addiction at all. There is no external chemicals perturbing the brain balance. It's just the normal way the brain works. There is no, say, nicotine inhibiting MAO-B so you get artificially elevated doses of dopamine, and forcing the brain to adjust. It's just the normal "this is fun" signal in your brain.
So at best it's just lack of willpower, but not an addiction.
And people get pseudo-"addicted" like that all the time. The village gossip who goes around bad-mouthing the local WoW "addict", is, funnily enough, herself "addicted" to her own "hobby". She gets her brain signals out of that social interaction, to the point where she has to even poke into someone else's life to have a topic. The guy who obsessively watches football or soccer or baseball, to have something to talk about to his group of friends, essentially is again just doing something to feed a similar addiction. It's his way of getting his daily shot of "I'm happy and appreciated" brain mediator. The guy who's doing overtime all week and goes fishing every weekend, ok, he's probably more like keeping himself away from getting an "I'm unhappy" signal at home, but nevertheless that's the same pseudo-addiction. Etc.
There's really nothing special about WoW. If your wife was out gossiping with the neighbours 18 hours a day, well, you'd probably just think some stereotype about women instead. But it would be the same thing, essentially.
At any rate, addiction it ain't.
Except if it were real physiological addiction, that wouldn't happen.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Quote:
A maladaptive pattern of substance use, leading to a clinically significant impairment or distress, asmanifested by three (or more) of the following, occurring at any time in the same 12 month period;
**tolerance, as defined by either of the following: a need for markedly increased amounts of the substance to achieve intoxification or desired effect, or
**markedly diminished effect with continued use of the substance
people who play MMO's for extended periods find the need to branch out into "alts" to achieve the same amusement, and/or increase the intensity of both the content and rewards through regular raiding, even then the effective happiness derived diminishes, yet they continue playing.
withdrawal as manifested by either of the following:
*the characteristic withdrawal syndrome for the substance, or
*the same(or closely related) substance is taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms
people moving to other MMO's from the first one, people feeling compelled to get back in game when "inconveniences" such as meals, interaction with spouses, jobs get in the way.
* the substance is often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended
people "call in sick" for WoW for instance because they must have that next level, that last bit of rep.
* there is a persistent desire or unsuccesful efforts to cut down or control substance use
A - "didn't you quit?"
B - "yeah"
A - "why are you here then?"
B - "No comment, when's the next raid?"
* a great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain the substance (e.g., visiting multiple doctors (or driving long distances), use the substance (e.g., chain smoking), or recover from its effects
please refer to the penny arcade strip on the burning crusade for reference.
* important social, occupational or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of substance use
if you haven't read a story about such a thing with MMO's you've been under a rock. Even my grandmother who has no internet knows about that.
* the substance use is continued despite knowledge of having a perstent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by the substance (e.g., current cocaine use despite recognition of cocaine-induced depression, or continued drinking despite recognition that an ulcer was made worse by alcohol consumption) Unquote
people lose their jobs, their academic positions, their spouses to MMO's. They know it's happening and don't stop.
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If anyone has seen "the thirteenth floor" you will know what I mean when I say this. Computers are in some ways our "offspring" in the sense that we have given computers the abilities that we once naturally possessed. The ability to communicate and in some senses "travel" without physically moving or talking. The ability to shout over large groups of people until they listen. The ability to form communities quickly and powerfully. The ability to know something without asking anyone. Eventually I predict that we will evolve to the point of reversal, engaging in one of two paths. 1) we will become "bionic" in the sense that we will eventually put computers inside us to perform tasks that we original could do. 2) we will awaken to our true "conscious" selves and activate our dormant abilities that only the minority of "freaks" currently exercise in any provable way. In all of this, I guess my basic point is I think gaming is an extension of lucid dreaming. We crave it and we will always find a way to create worlds within worlds. It almost safe to say it is part of the reason we exist.
This whole thread has serious Apples & Mangoes problems.
You became addicted to cigarettes ... because you enjoy them. You have reached a plateau, so you still enjoy them, meaning the activity is not escalating into the next severity class. However, if you found yourself up against an important reason to quit, then the physical-addiction side would kick in.
"Addicted to food" is different, because whole the baseline quantity of cigarettes is zero, there *is* a baseline of food. So attempting to take that minimum amount away creates a logical fallacy because then it becomes a problem again, but in the other direction. (Anorexics have a mis-calibrated food baseline.)
Modern USA *is* addicted to *excess* food, because this is encouraged by brutal social pressures from advertising to Increasing Sales discussions in boardrooms. If you wake up one year and discover you are overweight, and try to cut back, the level of dificulty experienced is the measure of the food addiction.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
just a thought, has anybody stopped to think the problem isn`t with the digital game worlds, but that the analogue world is so boring and restrictive that digital worlds who`s content are depicted by low polygon models and pixelated textures are MORE interesting?
You're on to something, but let's nudge the topic a bit.
My chief non-work leisure activity is reading, with computers and music a joint second.
I managed to officially retire from high-end video games and most generic online RPG ... because when put side by side with books, those activities had a dismal "Satisfaction per hour" score.
I read like a fiend... because I'm intellectually starved. At least the rise of the internet means there's an outlet to SHARE the results of all that reading, and one of these years I'll start a serious website.
Even at my favorite Cafe, I make sure to have a book nearby because on the days when "no one is really talking" the conversations sound like really bad episodes of tv shows. But it takes a rollicking conversation to get me to put the book down.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Too much vitriol, AC.
Really enriching activities require effort to be put into it first, and that takes an energy threshold.
Part of the experience spread that leads some people to MMO addictions is that it is low threshold. Then they discover it's also a low reward spread as well, but by that point the day is shot again.
This connects to the psychology of Flow. If someone has trouble getting putting that special kind of effort that makes peak experiences possible, then they drift into some other low grade activity.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Well, it's that "a lot worse" that makes the big difference, really.
And basically there _is_ a dichotomy, in that one implies physiological modifications, the other doesn't. It's pretty binary. I'm not setting up a dichotomy between light grey and dark grey, but between something which either exists or it doesn't.
There's a difference between, basically:
A) I'd rather be doing something more fun, and it so happens that this virtual world is more fun than bickering with my spouse some more, and
B) I'm getting (physiologically and medically) depressed and nervous unless I light another cigarette.
In case A you're merely back to baseline if you don't, in case B you're genuinely a lot below baseline if you don't. That "going cold turkey from a hard drug is a lot worse" factor.
Case A is merely how the brain is wired to work. Your brain is wired to give you a "man, I'm bored" signal when nothing interesting happens, and a dopamine/serotonin/canbinoid/whatever-apropriate-signa shot when you do something fun. You're pre-programmed to seek pleasure and fun. If that's "addiction", we're all born addicts.
Your cat or dog is like that too. That's why you see the dog occasionally chasing his tail or begging to play fetch, or the cat pouncing on a stuffed toy. Because again there's that natural signal in the brain that says "go do something fun already."
The difference is that we humans built layers upon layers of culture, pre-conceptions and mis-conceptions about what you should be doing instead of that. And a society where you're supposed to, and have to, do something else to even survive. A cat just goes and hunts when it's hungry, and is free to sleep or play the rest of the time. You, by contrast have to go to work now so you can have something to eat next month. But you're not wired for that, you're still wired like the cat. That's where will power comes in. You must move your arse and do what you know you should be doing, instead of what your animal brain tells you to do.
And even before games, there still were people who ignored what they _should_ be doing and did what their brain signals told them instead. The village drunk or the bum living off begging are the same. They chose to go with the short term satisfaction (as in, "meh, it's better than ploughing") instead of long term planning ("but if I go plough, I'll have bread next year.")
Heck, over half the people out there are in their current job because of that. At some point they chose something like, "meh, playing prom queen / basketball jock is more immediately rewarding than learning maths", and now they flip burgers or man the gas pump instead of having a better paying job. Essentially they too did the same choice between (I) something immediately rewarding, and (II) something boring right now, but which pays off later. Or you see millions of fat people around you, because they chose the more fun activities (e.g., eating and sitting on the couch), instead of the boring and physically exerting ones (exercising and dieting.) There's no fundamental difference between that and the choice of a WoW "addict". They all essentially choose to go with the short-term rewarding things, i.e., with following the signals of that animal brain, instead of having the will power to do what they know they should be doing.
It's not a new factor. We're _wired_ like that, and have had people following their wiring for the past 200,000 years straight. All that's new is the hysteria of singling out games.
And at the end of the day, it doesn't change the fact that it's just some normal chemical reaction in the brains. Labeling it as the same thing as drug abuse only serves to obfuscate the real mechanisms and problems there.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Now I'm frightfully curious as to why you indicated that "pussy" is separate and different to "real pussy"...
There's a lot of felines with funny walks near where you live, isn't there?
Do "football super fans" get an endorphin rush when their favorite player on their team?
Now I'm going to sit here and hit F5 every 5 minutes until that sentence in completed. If I die of malnourishment, it's your fault!
"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrasment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life. But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose something else."
game addiction is crap. To have an "addiction" means that the body has at least temporarily become dependent on the item in question such that the removal of it causes harm. This is why detox and rehabs are so important for addicts to get off drugs and alcohol. All this quote means: "Learning to balance them is its own technology. It's something that humankind is in a process of developing, even if on a subconscious level for most gamers.'"" is that our society is evolving. If I don't play a game today that I've played for several days my body has no ill effects. Therefore gaming is NOT an addiction. It may be bad behavior to overindulge in it just as too much football watching can be or anything else one puts their time into, but it is NOT an addiction.
when you no longer notice gamestop stores all smell like damp basements and body odor.
br> if you consider the red ring of death a normal part of gaming.
Penny Arcade, even the obscure ones, all make sense.
5 AM still gives you two hours of sleep before you have to go to work.
your fridge hasnt seen more than 3 hot pockets in 7 years, but you have a magnet or menu for every chinese takeout in a 5 mile delivery radius.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Well, here's the thing: my current narrow focus of attention is history. Hardly a day passes by without me reading some interesting stuff about the Romans or Messopotamia or Egypt or the like. That's the kind of thing that counts as fun for me. And I do it lots. Do I qualify as an addict yet?
Let's think about it for a second.
1.a. If I told someone that I play 2 hours of WoW a day with my parents, and often as much as 8 hours a day on weekends, they'd label me a WoW addict and try to "save" me.
1.b. But if I told someone that I spent a whole weekend reading Polybius instead, I'd at most qualify as a geek.
2.a. If I even mention WoW in casual conversation, even as some (admittedly failed) joke, everyone gets worried. 'Cause it's that addictive game, you know.
2.b. If I joke about the Roman diplomat killing Brennus's diplomat instead of negotiating a peace, as a RL example of rolling a natural 1, they laugh. Might think I'm a complete nerd, but not worry much about it. 'Cause, be serious, nobody got to lose their job and family by being addicted to history. No need to worry.
3.a. If I even mention that I'm can hardly wait to get home and raid, now that's where everyone already starts looking at me like I have needle marks on my arms or something.
3.b. If I mention that I can hardly wait to get home and read more from the new book about Pharaohs, they nod politely and promptly forget about it.
4.a. If I mention, again, that I spend 2 hours a day and more on weekends playing WoW, they start telling me about how I'll go fat and get to die of trombosis.
4.b. But nobody worries about the same lack of exercise if I mention history books.
4.c. Nor realizes that my day job involve sitting in front of the computer too.
Etc, etc, etc.
So why can't my history hobby qualify as an addiction, then? I want to be an addict too, goddammit, same as everyone else. Since we're at labelling everything that's fun or relaxing as an addiction. I don't want to be left out like that ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
People that become addicted to something do it mainly because they have trouble finding pleasures naturally.
Most drugs, attack a point in the brain that produces a chemical called Dopamine. Dopamine, is the brain's response to inject this into itself to produce "pleasure", this happens normally when you do something or are experiencing something that gives you pleasure. This could be sex, or enjoying a surprise party or doing something you really like, like walking or hiking or playing video games.
When people use drugs or any other means to produce that pleasure externally, the brain adjusts to it, and stops producing Dopamine, and this is what causes that withdrawal that forces you to continue doing said activity, may it be drinking, smoking, sex or drugs (which are the main components that people get addicted to).
Unless a person is using video games to substitute a pleasure reward for the brain, that is made externally people are not really addicted to video games. People like this are the ones who earn a page in the tabloids, when they pass out or die of exhaustion while playing a video game.
For some of us its easy to fight these urges. I can go to a bar have 7 long islands and maybe go home "happy" but it doesnt drive me to drink excesively. Same happened with playing WoW, I used to play it a lot, because I enjoyed the game, but it never was a substitute for my other ways of finding pleasure, like watching a movie with my wife or doing a trip. Everybody is different, so this applies to everyone differently.
I wish people would stop calling obsecing to video games Addiction. Addiction is a disease and unless there is clinical proof that said individual is using it to add more emotion to his life, it shouldnt be used as a term to denote something you like doing to the extreme.
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
The line should be drawn with the Rail Gun all the way across Q3DM17.
I can't believe I just wasted 5 minutes of my 12-hour-a-day allotment of World of Warcraft playing time to read this...
Addiction is a disease of the mind.
The MEDIUM of addiction really is irrelivant.
You can be addicted to booze, meth, smokes, cronic, video games, sex, sitcoms, eating, etc.
Video game addiction is as real as any other addiction indicated above.
Some people have addictive personalities, most don't.
The people likely to be addicted to gaming are just as likely, if they didn't have the games, to become addicted to any other substance or activity.
Plain and simple.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Sounds like FFXI is actually a good game in addition to an MMO. I'll be sure to avoid it. What keeps people from becoming badly addicted to MMOs, is the fact that they typically suck ass. That's right. Consider a typical grind MMO, just from a gaming perspective. The strategy aspect of it may be good, but it takes forever to get anything done (just getting around takes ages), kludgey controls are a staple of the MMO world, they often have equally kludgey and ugly GUIs and sub-par graphics.
A friend of mine was what some might call addicted to the MMO Flyff for a while, and he got me hooked. We were both unemployed and totally idle at the time. As is par for the course, the game itself was very much on the shitty side. If it was a single-player game with no real people in it, I would have dropped it within an hour when my boredom exceeded my curiosity. It's the social interaction that kept me on it. I enjoyed hanging out with other players, and I was often made the party leader so I also felt responsibility to the other people I played with. Also, while accomplishing anything takes eons, it's still magnitudes faster and easier to accomplish something significant in the game than in real life. So I played this game 6-12 hours a day for a couple of months. Eventually I got a job so I had to stop that.
So an MMO that not only has the social interaction side of things going for it, but genuinely good gameplay, would be very easy to get addicted to. Luckily I've never played such a game.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
One word: nethack!
I thought the EXACT same thing...
ofc, this is coming from someone that cried when they got home with the 2600 ver of pac man and realized after about 10 minutes what a steaming load of shit it was.
Well, the whole point was how arbitrarily that distinction is made. Usually people having made up their mind in advance that if it's WoW, then it's addiction. And then working backwards to "yeah, well, but I hear someone even lost their job because of it" justifications like yours, to support their pre-defined conclusion.
The exact same behaviour I've described for that casual history hobby _is_ classified by many people as "OMG, he plays 2 hours a day, he's addicted." I don't think many people wait until you're living in a cardboard box under a bridge to tell you you're addicted.
But ok, let's look at your version. So it's only addiction at the point where I call in sick because of it and don't do anything else but think of it at work? Did I read that right?
Funny. I could have sworn that there are half a dozen smokers just on the same floor at work, and they don't call in sick to sit at home and smoke. Didn't get fired because of it either. Did't lose their wife because of it. I guess they're not addicted then? Funny how medicine says they are, and there are physiological modifications to the brain to prove it.
Or maybe it's just time to stop redefining words. Addiction means something very specific. It's not just a blanket term for "someone enjoys something else than I do."
And the sooner we all understand that, the sooner maybe we understand that we should all mind our own business instead of trying to prevent others from having fun. Entirely too many people these days seem to have exactly that as their hobby: trying to keep someone else from having fun. If you're having fun in any way instead of executing your assigned role and script like a robot, then it's surely
A) a dangerous addiction and menace to society
B) immoral, or should be
C) illegal, or we should make it so
D) probably unhealthy, and thus a dangerous example for others
E) a sign or cause of the impending apocalypse
F) all the above.
And I'm getting tired of it. There are things which actually cause addiction, and there are things which are merely one of the many interchangeable ways to have fun. I see no reason to blur the lines. And doubly so if it's just so some busybodies should get to reinforce everyone else's role and things to do.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
exactly.
and i dont regret it. and often i think that i should have done it sooner.
Read radical news here
because i like to play games and Do this a lot in my spare time? I often play games for a long time, but even so i still eat normally, drink normally, sleep normally. Gaming is one world. earth is another. No matter what you do, earth remains your primary world, since you can quit games withotu dieing, but not the other way around. You just have to be able to slow down when you notice it gets too much. Also, i think games aren't nearly as addictive as people think. Games get repetitive, thus they get boring. The people who stay playing such a game are just trying to not waste the time they spent on it... and this ironically ends up with them spending even more time on it. An endless cycle, unless they can snap out of it.
Strictly speaking, addiction requires some form of chemical agent, which video games lack.
However, many behaviors have shown themselves to be particularly suited to addiction-like compulsions over the years. For example, "addiction" to gambling and stealing are so commonly documented in our history that we've even got names for them now, and treat them as distinct conditions from some nebulous definition of "addictive behavior."
Is it really any surprise, then, that other things -possibly including gaming- might also lend themselves to such compulsions? Is it so unbelievable when there probably isn't a single person on these boards who doesn't exhibit such behavior toward gaming, or at least know someone who does?
ah, "really enriching activities" eh?
care to elaborate on that, or are you just going to assert i'm lazy in some long-winded slight with no basis whatsoever.
if you're talking about reading, the risk spread is much much higher than other media. you have to go through a thousand pages before you find out if a story is unique or "generic genre example number 120". More often than not that is the case.
If it's designed to be actually informative literature, we all know fact checking departments have been excised from publishing firms.
This is merely one example.
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I get plenty of exercise while masterbating to Lesbian Strapon porn for 6 hours a day. My rocks are big, the shaft is fit thick and long, my red "head" is a bright and magical fellow that greets me every morning.
All the girls talk to me, but they think the bulge in my pants is an overexageration to get their attention. They don't know its real, and they never give me a chance to waive it around. I can fly a flag on this 8" mast that's 2.5" straight-through thick.
My current gaming addiction (if you want to call it that) has very little to do with immersion...
Basically, I play Dr. Mario online. It's not really the sort of game that has much of a "second world" quality to it... But I do play a fair bit, I am pretty good, and sometimes wind up eating a lot more of my free time with it than I'd like... Sometimes it even invades my consciousness a bit - I'll wind up visualizing chain combos at random times...
I wouldn't argue with someone who says immersive features contribute to game addiction, but they're by no means necessary...
P.S.: if you ever happen to see me in-game, I am Dr. Kooky.
Bow-ties are cool.
I totally agree w/ you. I am a gamer myself. However, If all the hikers in W. WA went hiking on the same day, the trails would be so overcrowded I'd have to walk on top of people to get where I am going.
The gyms are already crowded from 8-5ers, god forbid if people didn't have to start raiding promptly @ 5:15 server time. I'd never get in those extra elliptical workouts. Have you been to a Costco on the weekend?
If it people didn't smoke pot, drink, or play video games there would be a far more serious call to action to halt overcrowding!
If you are spending more time playing games than you used to spend watching tv then you are playing too much.
If you are still watching the same amount of tv and playing just as many video games then it is time to get out of the house.
I carefully avoided the word Lazy because that is the mistake too often applied. Scientists are starting to document some real correlations around people who "just can't seem to get started".
Use your favorite browser to look up Flow yourself. Yes, there are conceptual points in dispute, but at least the pioneer who organized the concept theory put a definable topic togther.
I enjoy reading because I found it to be the highest enjoyment per dollar. The reader may freely glance at the last 5 pages to determine if the tome is "merely a genre example" (or brilliant with a bad ending). If it is not up to your standards, don't read it.
The quality of non-fiction has increased noticeably in the last 25-ish years. Find good authors that do a quality job and go vertically through their backlist that may have vanished off the shelves for no other reason than bookstore politics. Second Editions are your source towards Fact-Checked versions after everyone made a fuss off the goofs in the original.
Your tone indicates you are quite intelligent, so my first suggestions for "enriching books" that deal with these and other topics are the paired set by James H. Austin, MD. Volume 1 is "Zen and the Brain" and volume 2 is Zen-Brain Reflections. At 1150 combined Non-Supplementary pages, they might last you a week.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
It's that second world thing. There are horror stories, like the one of a husband addicted to raiding in WoW - he missed the birth of his daughter and basically his marriage was destroyed. The game was partly to blame for sure, but I suspect that there's a deeper cause: this secondary world was substantially better than his primary world.
I don't know anything about this man's life apart from the facts, but I would LOVE to know his life situation. Does he enjoy his job? Does he still love his wife? Is he prone to depression? Is he comfortable with the commitment of a marraige and child? Does he have any/many friends outside of the game? How would he rate his own life?
My bet is that he'd rate it pretty damn low. WoW's fun. Most people handle this well. People who have never played an MMO, or an RPG, or even a PC game at all, won't fare as well as experienced gamers... they're more likely to lose track of time and their life. But combine this with a shitty life and the gamer is seriously in danger of prioritising the game.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
...an article on Slashdot a while back about how the APA (American Psychological Association) doesn't think that there is such a thing as addiction to video games yet? That they wanted more research?
And for that matter, I think the word "addiction" has been overused; obsession is the correct term for the so-called internet addiction, sex addiction and others. The problem is that the word obsession just doesn't hit home to people that they may need help; so they call it addiction, but pretty soon that will make the word addiction worthless too. Does anyone else see a pattern here? What will people be "addicted" to next?
By your logic i think Im addicted to reading. I spend my vacations and every free moment before and after school reading something. Whether it's /., articles, or fantasy books, I get really upset when i cant. When Im forced to study - therefore read something not interesting to me, I pretty much turn pschotic at school. Either start to laugh incesantly and deeply about something pointless, or express rabid anger via body language about something equaly pointless. But that happens in social situations only. Otherwise, I just pace like a father in front of the birth clinic and keep to myself. Well, I guess I am an addict but I think life itself is a form of addition on some level - say food, finding a mate, etc., only I have replaced some of my worldly needs (sex and a relationship) with something more into my reach (reading and thinking). Although its been like this much of my life, I only discovered my condition when I started watching Dr House and saw me in it all. Better than being a drugie, but that'll probably change as well.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
We all have addictions. We are addicted to food, air, water and a lot of other things. Some people are addicted to work, drugs, games, sugar, alcohol, relationships, appreciation, admiration, succes and a lot of other things.
The interesting part here is: does my addiction leads to other problems in my experience of life? Does my addiction leads to suffering for me and my surrundings?
If not, then no problem. If so, then you have to decide: will i continue with my addiction and take the consequences - or will I not? Quite simple, but not easy, as we not always know how to get rid of an addiction, we have attached to. Thats the point where we need help.
Summa summarum: If you have an addiction, enjoy it until it makes a problem in your life, or the effect of the addiction makes a problem.
Then quit the addiction if you can.
If you cannot, seek help or suffer.
To all relatives to the person in question: decide for yourself, do you want to put the time and energy in helping the person or not - thereafter do what you must. Your interesting question is: are YOU addicted to him or her?