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90% of Gaming Addiction Patients Not Addicted
phorm writes "BBC is carrying an article which states that 90% of visitors to Europe's 'video game addiction clinic' are not, in fact, addicted. The problem is a social one rather than a psychological issue. In other words, the patients have turned to heavy gaming because they felt they didn't fit in elsewhere, or that they fit in better 'in the game' than elsewhere in 'the real world.' This has been discussed before, with arguments ranging from gaming being a good way to socialize, the clinical definition of gaming addiction, and claims than males are wired for video-game addiction."
I just stopped playing ufo: enemy unknown in dosbox, to refresh slashodot.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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...or at least that's what I'll claim if I am ever confronted by my employers about my internet usage logs at work
No sig for the moment.
Everyone else must be addicted to video games...
Why do people still listen to the media is beyond me. Every single year they come up with something that is either A) addicting and damaging to minds B) corrupting the family/children/society or C) is somehow harmful. Be it rock and roll, cell phones, video games, comic books, etc, the media always comes up with some "studies" to back them up while two months later showing studies that prove just the opposite is true, why haven't people realized that the media has cried wolf far too many times and just tune the crap out?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
So, is this saying that they are not addicted or that they are addicted because of social issues?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
..but I don't have time to read it because I need to get back to my quests in Lich King. All of my friends are already lvl 80 and I'm still stuck on 76.
the addiction industry is out of control in this country. somebody ought to stage an intervention.
One reason...It use to be that these people could join a club and usually a "geeky" one: A Chess club, a remote control aircraft club, a rocketry club, a science club, an electronics club. These kinds of organisations are disappearing and the activities are being labelled as dangerous or complete social death to get involved in, leaving a void which is being filled with idle gaming.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Yeah, I'll say. I just got done having a three hour bitch fest yesterday with a friend of mine who's BF is 'addicted' to World of Warcraft. She doesn't have a lot of experience with boys (much more with girls -- no comments on this please!), and I've had to mother her a bit on why a boy can sink twenty or more hours a week into a video game and says it "helps me relax and challenges me", but afterwords can't come up with anything better to do than "go bowling" ("where"? "Umm... I'm sure there's one around somewhere"), or "go for a walk".
I tried my best to explain how men are so much more visually oriented than girls, but it's a hard concept to really explain. It's not that they're addicted to video games, it's just that the game provides more visual action than the real world so they're more strongly attracted to it. Girls read books, boys watch movies--Boys play video games, girls play board games, that kind of thing. They really are wired different and it's damn frustrating.
I often find myself wishing for video games that helped build social skills for these kind of boys -- the ones that are awkward and introverted in public, but if you can get them to open up they're nice teddy bears. I don't think they'd want to play it though, unless it involved blowing up or shooting something. :( Like The Sims -- awesome game, but the only people I know who play it are other girls! Am I hoping for too much here? Is there some way to use some visual medium to help boys crawl out of their shell?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
So 90% were nerds, not addicts.
Gaming Addition Patents... That's what I read the title. I thought oh.. ok, so game addiction has becoming patented, brilliant!
1.Patent gaming addiction
2.Sit on your ass and wait for people to play games
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
just wonder why there are so many anonymous cowards in this world....
to devote or surrender (oneself) to something habitually or obsessively. ie. addicted to gambling
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addicted
Most people devote a great deal of their time socializing and thus become comfortable socializing. It's part of normal human development. We are social creatures. I tend to think that addiction starts when it causes problems in your life.
The problem is few have studied the long term impact of not learning how to socialize with someone without a LCD screen and a Internet connection. I could potentially see problems arising because not learning how to socialize only makes someone feel even more alienated.
Can you see the potential downward spiral that could apply to this situation that is typically reserved for drug abuse?
People who diagnosed their mental disorder online are not disordered.
-- http://ninthagenda.com/
is it possible to be a sex addict?
aren't we all sex addicts?
isn't this the only way to ensure the survival of our species?
show me a roomful of intelligent, platonic, perfectly personality matched non sex addicted couples, and i'l show you the extinction of homo sapiens in 1.4 generations
show me a roomful of sex addicted drunk raving idiots, and i'll show you 6 billion homo sapiens in a couple thousand generations
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
have you found a magical fountain of information which is omnipotent, completely unbiased, and always on topic?
Slashdot. Duh!
This is not flamebait. It is the following
-Funny
-Interesting
-Insightful
-Off topic
-Trolling
-Probably not true
But flamebait? I think not. No one likes Ann Coulter, the only person who would flame about this is Coulter herself.
Some (admittedly anecdotal) evidence. Don't tell me you never did these things, too:
* "farmed" mobs/bosses/instances/etc in WoW for a random, rare drop.
* loaded and reloaded the barbarian highlands level in diablo II umpteen times to farm for random, rare, drops
* got feelings of joy at the sight of one color triggered at a particular point in the game
All these things seem like more "pulls" on the slot machine, waiting for the lights and sounds to let you know you won. Is there potential for gambiling-addition-like issues in videogames? Yes. Am I terribly concerned and am I going to stop gaming? No.
I don't have an alcohol addiction, I just feel like I fit in better when I'm drunk. So that means I'm not addicted, right?
As someone I trust quite a bit has said before, when it's a social/personality problem there isn't much that can be done.
But once you call it a disease or an addiction, then it's something to be managed with an hour or two a week at $400 on someone's insurance for the rest of their life.
This is one reason why there are so many new "addictions" out there.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
So, 10% actually ARE addicted to video games?
Sounds like video games are DANGEROUS and should be HEAVILY REGULATED as a schedule 1 drug like Marijuana.
Legalize recreational marijuana. Seriously.
I don't know how many gamers out there share the same feeling as me, but I don't game to get away from the real world, or that I am addicted, or for other stupid reasons.
It's sad to game! I game because it's the cheapest form of entertainment. From the days of the QEMM, a fixed money you spent on a box will last you god know how many hours.
I have a decent job now, and I still game a lot. Not because I am addicted. If I can spend a weekend on a boat, or in the garage tuning my Skyline GTR, or even just a Golf GL, I would. But I can't, so I game.
If I feel the urge to earn myself that Golf GL, I would. But I don't, so I game.
Go to school.
It is beyond my comprehension why people must insist on debating levels and context of addiction. The reality is, someone has a habit, which they feel is damaging their life in some way. Why is it necessary to spend so much time "defining" addiction. I drink too much coffee. Whether I drink it because it tastes good, makes me high, mentally or physically, I'm addicted to it. Why is necessary for endless studies to continually make assertions on the redefinition of addiction.
Sure, go after the root cause. But this "well, we've discovered that whilst you're prostituting yourself for wow gamecards, you're actually not addicted, you're just socially gravitated towards this experience" crap is nonsense. Who cares? Addict = harming habit. Why use one word to attempt to classify the nature of someone's addiction.
I record my sleeptalking
where should they have fit in ?
working 7 to 19.00 every day, in a thankless job that demands way more than it pays ?
or, they should have fit in sleazy bar corners, wasting their life away with sluts (male or female) ?
or, they should become career bitches (male or female) and waste their life away in that manner ?
or they should have fit in with a family. but then again, they have to create a family first, and creating a family has SO much overhead and effort in these days that you can maybe compare it to swimming across english channel.
or, they should have fit in with the immense crowds that are sedating their brain through football spectatorship, or in front of dumb tv shows each night ?
or maybe they could have fit in with their peers, who are entertaining themselves with the MODERN entertainment form that is called gaming ? you know, fitting in WITH YOUR PEERS, as countless generations in the history of mankind has done ?
well. they are just doing that. i think a lot of people, but especially 'experts' need to shut their traps about it, and get to accept this as a normal stage of human civilization.
Read radical news here
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As an experiement re-read TFA substituting the terms for "games" "gamer" etc to "sports" "sports fan". Try it.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Beersh de stoppen de suverde heur fleefum wantum. Bork bork bork!
Considering that this same old bullshift has been trotted around going back all the way to when novels were invented, you can't blame the media for it (they didn't exist yet!). And yes, at first, reading fiction (of any kind) was considered lowbrow; this is why Gulliver's Travels was presented as if it were a travelogue. This has been going around for so long, about every new society-changing technology that ever came along, that you can't blame the media. They're just a mirror -- even if, more often than not, it is a kind of funhouse mirror. Without that intimate connection to all of us, the media wouldn't have such power in the first place.
This isn't a problem with "the media". It's a problem with "the public."
How many non-nerds would regularly play WOW for 20-40 hours a week?
Seems that - whatever the cause - it's somewhat of a geek disorder.
But if there wasn't a sense of accomplishment, would anyone play them? Part of any engaging activity is a challenge/reward system. Video games tend to pull from a lot of different areas, including various skills (mental, dexterity, etc) and often random chance, etc.
I know you are making a joke, but let's be serious for a second.
Is it possible to be a food addict?
Aren't we all food addicts?
Isn't this something we all need to ensure our survival until we spread our genes?
And yet we know what food addiction is, it's called gluttony, and it's pretty common in the US these days.
Not all people are sex addicts. Having sex every day is just a healthy sex life. Having sex to the point that you neglect your health, take unnecessary risks, put yourself or others in harms way, or otherwise damage your life or the lives of those around you. You can truly be clinically addicted to almost anything if this is the case. If you game 12 hours a day, sleep 2 and work and eat the rest of the time and you can interact well enough to live your own life and not bother anyone else, you aren't addicted. We call it addiction because we believe the person is connected to the inanimate object in front of them. It's usually not true, it's just that people feel more comfortable using it as the tool that it is, for entertainment and communication.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Raiding is a very social activity.
I've learned how to interact with others while raiding.
I've learned that yelling "GET OUT OF THE FIRE YOU ABSOLUTE %#@^ING MORON" is a very good motivational speech and that "YOU STUPID LOOTWHORE!" is an acceptable way of addressing another individual who happens to have a favourable roll of the dice.
I tried this at work the other day but it didn't work in getting me my promotion. I guess the boss is just an antisocial lootwhore.
n/t
If you want to see addiction, visit a golf course.
It's a real problem. Successful executives have been lost to golf addiction. Forbes Magazine once commented that more executives have been lost to golf than alcohol. There are people who skip work to play golf. It's not a joke.
Ann Coulter fan-fiction... good god, I love the Internet.
One of the best reasons for role playing games or computer games. I've got friends that regularly waste thousands of dollars on their hobbies, and other friends that invested $100 in a few rulebooks or game CDs, and only spend regular cash on mountain dew and cheetos.
Guns don't kill; people do!
Drugs don't consume people; people consume drugs!
People don't use guns to kill; they use it to express themselves!
People aren't addicted to drugs; they use them for a reason!
DUH!
I'm not an addict
The problem is a social one rather than a psychological issue. In other words, the patients have turned to heavy gaming because they felt they didn't fit in elsewhere, or that they fit in better 'in the game' than elsewhere in 'the real world.'
If this statement reflects the 'status quo' of the 'real world', it might indeed be better to look for a habitat elsewhere.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Meh.
Your generalization about males may be useful but -like all generalizations [1]- it's a lie. The classic counterexample to the "visual male" notion is the world of fashionable clothes. Many, many men don't care about how what they or their SOs wear looks. Comfort and functionality are most often higher priorities than looks.
Are men "wired" differently than women? Probably. Does this matter? Probably not. IMO, most of the evolutionarily motivated explanations of each sex's behaviour are axe-grindy pseudo-science with little to no basis in reality. [2]
Getting back to the topic at hand... Did you also discuss the possibility that he's just not that interested in her? Some guys (and gals) are "in a relationship" just to keep the bed warm, as it were.
[1] Even this one!
[2] Just like most of what I have to say!
why are they trying to cure it?
I'm not surprised that hobby clubs are dying. As you say, face-to-face was the best way to acquire knowledge prior to the Internet Age. But now it seems like an extraordinary waste of time - invest three hours with people you barely know to maybe get the same information you can now find with two minutes on Google. If your goal is to learn about and discuss your hobby then the Internet truly blows away the hobby club.
But, as some of us realize, face-to-face meeting is still valuable for other reasons. You're more likely to learn something you didn't know that you wanted to know. You develop relationships that provide support outside of the narrow topic of formal interest. And humans are hyper-social creatures that thrive on the richness of face-to-face interaction.
The desire for face-to-face relationships has already led to the Internet being used as a source to find them: online dating, flash mobs, meetup groups. Maybe, with the Internet becoming more common than the telephone and a greater appreciation for what's lost without face-to-face interaction, there will be a rebirth of hobby clubs organized and supported with the efficiency of the Internet.
From a psychological point of view (yes, IIAP), you cannot separate social factors and addiction. There is no such thing as "true" addiction without a social component. This is one of the most interesting things about addiction; often, the problems that a person has with a drug, even a hard drug, work themselves out when a person changes social contexts. We are social animals, and to think of a complex thing as addiction without a social context is not reasonable.
Whether they were "truly" addicted is a strange question, which reveals a (false) essentialist viewpoint.
You are an addict if your life revolves around something enough that your life suffers,
your friends do not want to be in contact any longer, you family thinks you are wasting away,
you have trouble getting yourself proper nutrition, you fail in your responsibilities
AND THIS IS NOT USUALLY YOUR NORMAL BEHAVIOR.
There are some that fall under this rule, without being an addict, but those, there is nothing you can do for. I agree if you are socially more accepted in the game, it is a bit pathetic, but having
my on WoW account, at lvl 73 I rest assured that whenever I need to do something around the house, I do it. I would rather be playing WoW...but I can easily tell you, I would never leave a baby in bathwater, and forget about it (as per a story I read somewhere on the web...too lazy for a link)
Ok...90% are not addicted, but there exists still that 10% which is!
Oh no...i think i am having a relapse....i can't stop my hand from reaching the keyboard...and stroking the keys....damn, yeah I definitely relapsed!
That's why I like browser games like http://www.wittyrpg.com./ It's browser based so I can feed my game addiction from anywhere(work) but it has a limit on how much you can play in a day so I'm not wasting my entire day with games.
IMO the best browser game ever http://wittyrpg.com
no comments on this please!
the satire-impaired.
-FL
Hm. Advising people to feel okay about self-destructive, obsessive behavior? That's something of a reversal for this clown. But I suppose it's marginally better than his advising them to kill themselves in response to social injustice. Sleep or kill yourself. Nice.
Keep your eye on this creepy-crawly. His psychotic bullshit-storm is something to see!
-FL
My GF has a close friend who's been bitten by this. Not personally, but apparently her boyfriend - despite having rather hefty debts - decided to quit his high-paying job and enroll in a "golf school" in order to learn how to become a golf pro. Prior to that he was taking every opportunity to cut out and hit the range.
Seems like a hobby that did indeed become an addiction.
it doesn't explain why I spent the majority of my waking hours for the past month in the devnull nethack tournament!
Part of the Second American Revolution!
For technical information in the same field, yes you'll learn more on the forum than from a group of friends across town. But from the friends you'll learn about a good new restaurant, a festival this weekend, and an obscure board game that you'll love. From a face-to-face meeting with your boss you'll learn about off-the-record information that he wouldn't put in an email but could have a big impact on your career.
I'm very sympathetic to introversion. I need a lot of downtime and alone time. But if I'm alone in my apartment for days on end then I get bored and depressed no matter how much online interaction I have. It shouldn't be very controversial to say that most people would be unhappy and unhealthy if confined to a cubicle and computer screen all the time. Even a strongly introverted human is still very social compared to other species of animals that evolved to be truly solitary.
There are lots of high frequency behaviors that have nothing to do with chemical dependency, and "addictive" is simply the wrong term for them. Try "habit" or "obsession" or some such.
If I choose to do something for long periods at a time, its called addiction.
If I'm forced to do something for long periods at a time, its called work.
* Game Over * High Score: 264,846,927 -- Your Score: 14
no shit, not everyone likes to go get hammered at a lame ass bar with stupid assholes. why do that we wen can just shoot em? :), yes a bit cynical but fuck off, im sure more than 75% of you reading this know EXACTLY what im talking about..
No, really, I'm not.
I just CAN'T PUT IT DOWN!!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
you had given a link containing a lot of psychotic behaviour belonging to you.
Bingo! That's the text book delusion. --Anybody with interest will be able to judge accordingly for his or herself. It's actually a fascinating study of one of the most aggressive, non-repentant, logically twisted and generally stunning examples of psychotic narcissism I've ever encountered. To not keep that fly under glass would be a crime to an entire branch of social study!
thank you. oh and by the way, i loved your parent comment too, a lot of insults, a lot of aggression. trademark.
Aggression? Ha ha! I think the term is, "Accurate description." I'd have picked less colloquial wordings, but 'creep-crawly' fits like a glove. --As a point of interest, the narcissistic delusional always accuses others of its own pattern of violation. The linked thread is quite stunning, and it becomes more so as the psychotic's confidence increased through the belief that the forum became less and less populated and thus his behavior less likely to be observed by others over the course of several days. Psychotics prefer to do their work in the dark. Seriously; by the end, this particular subject, mistaking polite dialogue for weakness and believing I was somehow tenderized enough, actually attempted to place himself in the position of personal cultic guru. It was quite sick, and I certainly sympathize with any flesh and blood people under his sway. I encourage everybody to read through the thread and learn how to spot these types. Knowledge protects. When you see this kind of behavior in your life, you are not nuts and you should feel no shame in cutting off the leach. There are several techniques, and frank openness and community are your primary allies. Chances are, you will not be the only one who has been subject to manipulation and attack from the same source. "Forgive and Forget" and "Turn the other cheek" are false tactics, which will only allow the psychotic to continue to feed.
And of this creep in question. . . How IS that ego doing these days? --Managed to chip any corners off? Considered even once the possibility of even a small error and adjusted thought patterns accordingly? No? Ego is the first thing which should be on the chopping block for any 'good guy'. --Also, a re-examination of the whole promoting mass suicide and self-destructive video game addiction as healthy behavior is in order. But from all indications, I very much doubt the capability exists.
-FL
replying to a person specifically, and then talking as if s/he was third person like 'And of this creep in question. . .' is indicative of a lot of personality disorders than your entire post reeks out.
or, do you speak of yourself in third person too, like 'Fantastic Lad hungry' or 'Fantastic Lad pee pee' ?
check yourself. you got fixated on some long gone discussion, and typing up entire essays fixated on the same point. you have problems.
not the cognitive perception ability problem, that causes you not to be able to understand the futility of living if you had lived in 12th century and were a feudal lord's serf, but real personality disorders.
get a doc.
Read radical news here
One of the most reliably indicative traits of the psychopathic personality is that of mirroring behavior. Without any internal ability to produce genuine human responses of their own, psychopaths in their attempts to mimic what to them is the incomprehensible behavior of normal humans, must rely entirely on observation. This results in a series of traits, including as previously noted, that of blaming their victims for the crimes they have themselves committed. This extends in part from a predatory element of game theory; the psychopath learns at a young age that when they mirror the behavior and emotions expressed by their target, that their target will see themselves in the psychopath, and thus believe the psychopath to be capable of compassion. The victim seeing themselves, lower their defenses due to their being in the company of a presumed 'like mind'.
The interesting thing, however, is that the psychopath does not, cannot, grasp that there are times when this type of mirroring creates inappropriate and awkward-sounding responses. --This is the reason why psychopaths can be regularly heard to make strange comments which are out of context or 'odd' sounding; language usage which is peppered with logical flaws despite an otherwise often powerful intelligence. Even as dead a giveaway as this is, however, people find it very hard to notice. Normal people automatically attempt to justify and correct for these errors in real time even as they hear and observe them in others; people will bend over backwards to excuse the psychopath's odd behavior because they assume there is a real person behind the mask of sanity, and so in a sense, fill in the gaps, based on the assumption that they are dealing with a person with a properly working human mind. In effect, because people have compassion, they question if it is not instead their own limitations in perception which are causing the hiccups and not the other way around, especially when the psychopath appears so very confident and intelligent. It is counter-intuitive and by no means automatic to assume that one is really dealing with an alien, predatory intelligence. Because of this, the psychopath finds it very easy to remain hidden in human society. Humans are socially wired to look the other way and ignore warning signs. It is not until one endeavors to observe the psychopath from a clinical perspective that the gross errors stack up and the 'wrongness' becomes apparent.
The example above is a good illustration of the mirroring effect; after being described as mentally damaged, (the complaint), the subject attempts to return the very same accusation, despite the obvious logical flaws in the argument. --Were this subject to have stolen money or physically abused a victim, then it would have accused the victim of that very same thing, always attempting to play the supplicant. You will notice that all other relevant points I used to support the original observation have been completely ignored; facts are seen by the psychopath as merely tools to be manipulated or ignored as necessary to advance the game. Note also the strange language construction used throughout, all items typical of the psychopathic personality.
Note that it is entirely possible that the psychopath really does believe that there is something wrong with me in writing about it in the third person! --It's not just a broken argument on its part. The psychopath lives perpetually at the center of it's own universe; it is actually fundamentally inconceivable that it can exist in the third person to others. I'll get into more about that particular phenomenon later.
There are numerous other elements about the psychopath which are of interest. Hopefully the one we have under glass here will jump around for us a bit more so we can observe some of those other traits as they pop up.
-FL