I think you have a good point- sometimes people overdo things because of an addiction, and sometimes they overdo things because they have poor time management skills or obsessive/compulsive tendencies.
As I see it, you're setting up a dicotomy between hard drugs (i.e. the problem is the drug- and *anybody* using them will fall into addiction) versus video games (the problem is that some people enjoy video games a lot but can't manage their time well, or tend toward obsession in *whatever* they do). Addiction to hard drugs is chemical, but that to computer games is "purely behavioral and psychological" and hence more a personal problem.
I think this usually works, but not always- and I think it'll work less and less with games that tap into common pre-existing behavioral/psychological structures to increase immersion (i.e. MMOs). I'm reminded of a somewhat recent NYT article where the effects of love on the brain were shown to significantly parallel the effects of cocaine; the barrier between chemical and psychological addictions may be somewhat contrived, especially if the right buttons are pushed. I think games like World of Warcraft may push this envelope-- the cause of marathon gaming sessions becomes less the fault of the player and more a function of how Addictive the game is. MMOs are now breaking up marriages-- I'm not sure this is merely a function of one spouse having poor time management skills; it sounds more like a real addiction.
I'm not for releasing people from all time management responsibility, and I don't have many hard facts for you (there are well-done studies about video games and addiction, sadly), but we do know from MRIs that there's little actual difference between chemical addiction and some forms of behavioral compulsion- i.e. being in love, or being "addicted" to video games.
So in the end, you give good personal advice- work on those time management skills and play video games responsibly- but I'm not sure how well your dicotomy translates into the real world in certain circumstances, and these certain circumstances (MMOs, for instance) look to be growing more common.
I think this is a perfectly valid point. But I'm not sure it's the whole story.
For a lot of people, television and video games are fairly equivalent- i.e. you essentially make the point 'video games are the television of our generation.' We'd rather play video games than watch television, presumably because we find them more interesting and stimulating.
Some people, however, react to video games in ways they'd never react to television. Because video games are interactive, certain psysiological positive-feedback loops can more easily come into existence and create a real addiction. I'm not saying that no one can be addicted to television, but video games press more "psysiological buttons" than television and hence can lead to addiction in a larger subset of the population. Games like WoW press quite a few such buttons.
I've seen video game addiction. For those who are susceptible to it, it's as real as alcoholism or even cocaine addiction.
I'm not suggesting you're saying this, but for folks replying to my post, anecdotal evidence that "I've never been addicted to video games, and I play a lot of them, so video game addiction isn't real" isn't a valid argument.
This article essentially states that 'being connected' is distracting and shortens attention spans, and that it's also pleasurable.
So far so good- but putting a new medical label on it seems akin to creating a 'eating cookies is pleasurable disorder' or 'loud sounds and flashing lights harm one's ability to focus disorder'. It's common sense.
Medical science nowadays gets excited when they reinvent the wheel.
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I think you have a good point- sometimes people overdo things because of an addiction, and sometimes they overdo things because they have poor time management skills or obsessive/compulsive tendencies.
As I see it, you're setting up a dicotomy between hard drugs (i.e. the problem is the drug- and *anybody* using them will fall into addiction) versus video games (the problem is that some people enjoy video games a lot but can't manage their time well, or tend toward obsession in *whatever* they do). Addiction to hard drugs is chemical, but that to computer games is "purely behavioral and psychological" and hence more a personal problem.
I think this usually works, but not always- and I think it'll work less and less with games that tap into common pre-existing behavioral/psychological structures to increase immersion (i.e. MMOs). I'm reminded of a somewhat recent NYT article where the effects of love on the brain were shown to significantly parallel the effects of cocaine; the barrier between chemical and psychological addictions may be somewhat contrived, especially if the right buttons are pushed. I think games like World of Warcraft may push this envelope-- the cause of marathon gaming sessions becomes less the fault of the player and more a function of how Addictive the game is. MMOs are now breaking up marriages-- I'm not sure this is merely a function of one spouse having poor time management skills; it sounds more like a real addiction.
I'm not for releasing people from all time management responsibility, and I don't have many hard facts for you (there are well-done studies about video games and addiction, sadly), but we do know from MRIs that there's little actual difference between chemical addiction and some forms of behavioral compulsion- i.e. being in love, or being "addicted" to video games.
So in the end, you give good personal advice- work on those time management skills and play video games responsibly- but I'm not sure how well your dicotomy translates into the real world in certain circumstances, and these certain circumstances (MMOs, for instance) look to be growing more common.
Anyway, thanks for the quality response.
I think this is a perfectly valid point. But I'm not sure it's the whole story.
For a lot of people, television and video games are fairly equivalent- i.e. you essentially make the point 'video games are the television of our generation.' We'd rather play video games than watch television, presumably because we find them more interesting and stimulating.
Some people, however, react to video games in ways they'd never react to television. Because video games are interactive, certain psysiological positive-feedback loops can more easily come into existence and create a real addiction. I'm not saying that no one can be addicted to television, but video games press more "psysiological buttons" than television and hence can lead to addiction in a larger subset of the population. Games like WoW press quite a few such buttons.
I've seen video game addiction. For those who are susceptible to it, it's as real as alcoholism or even cocaine addiction.
I'm not suggesting you're saying this, but for folks replying to my post, anecdotal evidence that "I've never been addicted to video games, and I play a lot of them, so video game addiction isn't real" isn't a valid argument.
This article essentially states that 'being connected' is distracting and shortens attention spans, and that it's also pleasurable. So far so good- but putting a new medical label on it seems akin to creating a 'eating cookies is pleasurable disorder' or 'loud sounds and flashing lights harm one's ability to focus disorder'. It's common sense. Medical science nowadays gets excited when they reinvent the wheel.