Video Game Addiction
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Law Bringer
Member # 6785
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written Monday, June 25 2007 18:44
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For those of you just tearing yourselves away from gaming to surf this board: APA is considering adding video game addiction as a mental disorder. They haven't seen it as bad as in Asia, so they will probably hold off on it until they can make some money off of "curing" it. Now I don't think that I have a problem. I must have quit over 20 times. But some of the news reports say just an hour or two a day is too much. There are worse ways to spend your time than playing one of the fine games from Spiderweb Software or the other companies. Posts: 4643 | Registered: Friday, February 10 2006 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, June 25 2007 19:30
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But an hour or two of TV is normal. Hooray! —Alorael, who is no psychologist and thus largely unqualified to weigh in on these matters. He thinks there's room for distinction between addiction and compulsion. And he thinks the vast majority of those who spend hours and hours slaughtering virtual foes suffer from neither. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 7298
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written Monday, June 25 2007 19:32
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I saw it in the news a couple days back and thought it to be silly. I told my dad about it, who frowns upon me playing video games as much as his does, (to his credit he tolerates though), Thought it was silly as well. -------------------- A rock has weight whether you admit it or not Posts: 479 | Registered: Wednesday, July 12 2006 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 27
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written Monday, June 25 2007 19:33
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It's tough sometimes to distinguish between an addiction and a hobby. My dad has told me I have an addiction to video games, which may or may not be true. However, it isn't really fair of him to say I have an "addiction" to one of my hobbies while he continues to play golf every day and watch every tournament on television. When you stop eating, sleeping, or living due to video games, I'm pretty sure that qualifies as an addiction. Though I'm glued to the computer or Gamecube for half of the day, I make sure to leave room for my other hobbies and to leave time open for working and just hanging out with different people when the mood hits me. Posts: 1233 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Monday, June 25 2007 21:25
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People engage in addictive behaviours because they have nothing better to do. This is true even for drugs which create a genuine physical dependence. If you stick a rat in a tiny cage and offer them a choice of water with or without cocaine, they'll take the cocaine. Put the same rats in a richer environment with lots of things to do, and most of them will eventually switch back to plain water. -------------------- The Empire Always Loses: This Time For Sure! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 7252
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written Monday, June 25 2007 23:03
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BLASPHEMY! MADNESS!! quote:Agree.. I think because..that's the only time that "Addiction" is qualified.. In short..if you aren't functioning as a human being..you're addicted.. -------------------- Oh you're a cute Adze-Haakai you are.. ----------------------------------- A warrior takes sword in hand, clasping a gem to his heart. Engraving vanishing memories into the sword, He places finally honed skills into the stone. Spoken from the sword, handed down from the stone... Now the story can be told... The Zodiac Brave Story.. Posts: 732 | Registered: Saturday, June 24 2006 07:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 6700
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 04:58
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Curses upon UBB errors. I'll have to remake this one quick. Addiction is when one sees that an activity is becoming disruptive, wants to stop, and cannot. To consciously skip meals, drink, and sleep for a game is not a sign of addiction; it's a sign of someone with one hell of a messed up priority list. One hour a day, eh? On the average school day, I spend as much time sketching as a do gaming, and I definitely spend more than an hour a day gaming, if I have time (I rarely know if I can budget enough time for a book); does this make me a sketching addict? The APA has made it clear that they officially frown upon video games, particularly anything that can be construed as violent, as they worry over the correlation between video games and high levels of aggression (though there is a minority that does not like this stance, citing similar correlations of aggression and soccer, or watching an NFL game, or shopping. Some APA psychologists go so far as to believe that regular experiences of aggression are necessary for continued health.), so I am not surprised that they have finally found a social hypochondriac label for gaming. But really, social hypochondria is all that it is. Everything in life is illegal, immoral, or obscene. Everything not immediately falling into these categories is fattening, violates someone's rights, or causes cancer in the state of California. -------------------- The Silent Assassin blames the deterioration of traditional family structure. If the radio had never been invented, society would never have been disrupted, and communism would never have come into being. -------------------- -Lenar Labs What's Your Destiny? Ushmushmeifa: Lenar's power is almighty and ineffable. All hail lord Noric, god of... well, something important, I'm sure. Posts: 735 | Registered: Monday, January 16 2006 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 7472
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 05:20
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quote:FYT. I feel sorry for anyone who gets slapped with this so-called 'medical disorder'. In fact, I, who have spent about as much time gaming as sleeping, would probably be considered a video-game addict. Admittedly, there's probably a few people out there who are genuinely addicted, but that doesn't mean you broaden the definition so much as to include ordinary people. Sheesh. All in all (and this is just my unsolicited opinion), you could probably connect this Gaming addiction to Internet Addiction. Hopefully, the former goes down the same road that the latter did. Anyway, most of the addiction could possibly stem from MMORPGs, because of how normal games work in comparison. Normal games have a finite ending point. To my knowledge, MMORPGs don't have said ending point. Thus, while you would finish a normal game and eventually get bored with it, the MMORPG just keeps going and going. Though I could be completely wrong here. -------------------- Scenarios need reviews! Please rate these scenarios at the CSR after playing them! Amnesia • Witch Hunt • Where the Rivers Meet • Foul Hordes Posts: 2686 | Registered: Friday, September 8 2006 07:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 05:27
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The thing is that with most RPGs, it's impossible to make meaningful progress without devoting at least a few hours at a time to playing, so we're made to look like addicts by default! :( That said, I have been known to go on binges when my wife is out of town, where I'll spend 10+ hours straight playing games (again, almost always RPGs). But I also hang out with friends and am training for another marathon, so it's all about balance. Besides, binge gaming and binge drinking: which is really worse? And yet the APA doesn't seem to be going out of its way to address high school and university binge drinkers. Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 06:33
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By any reasonable definition, any mental disorder interferes with your daily life and prevents you from doing things that you want to do (or would want to do, without the addiction, which is a grayer area). I suppose, then, it is possible to be addicted to video games, but the real test of that addiction is not how much time one spends on them, but how much it interferes with one's ability to function in life, which is a very hard thing to measure without inserting the measurer's own values, which may conflict with the player's. In other words, while I suppose a few real diagnoses of this are possible, I think that too many cases of gray area exist for this to be a useful category most of the time. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Smoo: Get ready to face the walls! Ephesos: In conclusion, yarr. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Canned
Member # 8014
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 07:22
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I have always considered myself to be addicted to pepperonis, jello, and a few other things. But it is mainly joking around. -------------------- I can transform into almost anything, though not sanity. I heard a man sing "The Muffin Man" one day. He got to see the light. Posts: 1799 | Registered: Sunday, February 4 2007 08:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2820
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 07:42
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How insightful, Muffin. Anyway, I think there are genuine cases of video game addiction, so the APA would be fully justified in creating a disorder for it. I remember there being some extremely rare and specific disorders listed in the DSMIV. I might check on that if I can find an entertaining example. However, the criteria for the video game addiction diagnosis must be very specific and, well, extreme. When I think of video game addiction, I think of the news stories about the Korean guy who died after playing 50+ hours straight of some MMORPG. However, I believe these video game addictions are more a symptom of an underlying social disorder. Without the video games, I would predict that the addict would still nonetheless stay inside his house. If he had full and satisfying mental, social, emotional, and physical components in his life, then he would not resort to wheedling away the hours with his eyes glued to a screen. That's just my opinion. -------------------- Thuryl: I mean, most of us don't go around consuming our own bodily fluids, no matter how delicious they are. ==== Alorael: War and violence would end if we all had each other's babies! ==== Drakefyre: Those are hideous mangos. Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 13:21
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quote:So as long as you're happy with your substance use you're not addicted? I'm going to file that one away for the next time someone nags me about my skribbane habit. Nioca, video game addiction is very unlikely to result in any profit for any part of the pharmaceutical industry. It's not as though anyone will be rolling out a miracle drug for non-substance addiction anytime soon. Psychiatrists might make some money and psychologists and assorted neuroscientists might get some papers published, but I don't think anyone's exactly a winner here. —Alorael, who agrees with Kel's first paragraph and objects to the second. Compulsive gaming may be a mental disorder, but how does that make it an addiction? Enjoying gaming might make it an addiction, but a case could be made for sleep being addictive on the same grounds. Non-dependent addiction is thrown around very casually. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 961
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 16:40
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My feeling is that if you're not getting exercise and doing ok socially, your problem isn't video games. So focusing on the game playing misses the real problem-which is avoiding contact with other people. Labeling that as a video games addiction is a misnomer ---Zelda -------------------- Hey, where are we going? And what's with the handbasket? Posts: 63 | Registered: Friday, April 12 2002 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2820
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 19:37
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If you cannot stop yourself from compulsively playing video games, and it takes brute force and tactics to wrest you away from them, then you have an addiction. Does anyone care to disagree with that? -------------------- Thuryl: I mean, most of us don't go around consuming our own bodily fluids, no matter how delicious they are. ==== Alorael: War and violence would end if we all had each other's babies! ==== Drakefyre: Those are hideous mangos. Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 20:29
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That's not what's being described, though. Is it? I agree with Alorael: the case for a video game-related mental disorder is not hard to see, but jumping to "addiction" requires further explanation. (While we're throwing around DSMisms, it seems to me that what is being described is more likely to be co-morbid with, say, social anxiety disorder or PTSD than it is with addictive personality disorder, so the nomenclatural choice really confuses me.) -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Master
Member # 5977
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 21:48
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Please tell all that is being said here to my mother, and see if you can convince her. She thinks I have, or in any case, had an addiction, which might be possible. It's just as Thuryl said though: give me anything better to do which i feel like doing, and I will do it. So does that count as an addiction? Problem with these things, I think, is its subjectivity. Many people have differentr opinions about it. So my mother thinks that playing games for three hours or so qualifies me for an addiction, other think it requires eight hours. Personally, I agree with most that's being said here. -------------------- Play and rate my scenarios: Where the rivers meet View my upcoming scenario: The Nephil Search: Escape. Give us your drek! Posts: 3029 | Registered: Saturday, June 18 2005 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 7298
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written Tuesday, June 26 2007 22:40
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their is a huge grey area when it comes to this matter. Just keep your grades decent and occsainly do something else (at least in my case) your parnets may frown upon it but should tolerate it. -------------------- A rock has weight whether you admit it or not Posts: 479 | Registered: Wednesday, July 12 2006 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 6292
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written Wednesday, June 27 2007 07:37
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In the psych field, the definition of an addiction is "a pathological relationship to any mood-altering exeprience that has life-damaging consequences." The main inquiry then, is is a video game a "mood-altering' experience? A lot of things we commonly refer to as addictions don't technically qualify, but then again, this classification is an arbitrary construct around which addiction treatment operates. As Kel mentioned, the concern is whether the experience is having life-damaging consequences. A huge new area of therapy treatement is for men with computer porn addiction. Is this an addiction by strict definition? Does it even matter if it technically fits a defintion when it's having detrimental effect on lives? I'd be inclined to expand the definition of addiction to any compulsive behavior that interferes with our lives to an undesirable degree. -S- -------------------- A4 Items • A4 Singleton • G4 Items • G4 Forging • G4 Infiltrator • NR Items • The Lonely Celt Posts: 2009 | Registered: Monday, September 12 2005 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 32
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written Wednesday, June 27 2007 07:46
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The lack of the object can also be a 'mood-altering' experience. I'm unsure why you think that 'common' addictions won't satisfy this... -------------------- Lt. Sullust Cogito Ergo Sum Polaris Posts: 2462 | Registered: Wednesday, October 3 2001 07:00 |
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Raven v. Writing Desk
Member # 261
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written Wednesday, June 27 2007 08:50
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I thought the medical (and psychiatric) use of the term was, technically, restricted to directly mood-altering substances? As opposed to more generalizable dependency or compulsion. This may be one of those cases where the more inclusive abbreviation of 'psych' muddies the waters... There's an interesting article on the term here. -------------------- Slarty vs. Desk • Desk vs. Slarty • Timeline of Ermarian • G4 Strategy Central Posts: 3560 | Registered: Wednesday, November 7 2001 08:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 5360
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written Wednesday, June 27 2007 11:02
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Nalyd sees an addiction as something that would cause an inordinate amount of stress, anxiety, depression, or anger were it to be eliminated from a persons life. -------------------- May the fires of Undeath burn in your soul, and consume it. Posts: 1636 | Registered: Wednesday, January 5 2005 08:00 |
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? Man, ? Amazing
Member # 5755
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written Wednesday, June 27 2007 13:05
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quote:Yeah, I finally conquered it by throwing away my camera. -------------------- WWtNSD? Synergy - "I don't get it." Posts: 4114 | Registered: Monday, April 25 2005 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 2820
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written Wednesday, June 27 2007 13:47
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quote:...unless it was necessary to living, or living comfortably by normative standards. I stand by earlier position, and I believe that a patient can in fact be accurately diagnosed with a video game addiction if he has shown a troubling history of rejecting all other activities in order to keep playing. I think this pattern of behavior needs to persist every day for at least several months, though. After all, most people lose their most intense passion for something within half a year if they are not addicted to it (sadly, most studies indicate this applies to passions for other people as well). It is a shame that video games cannot be more constructive in the traditional sense. Even painting can be tolerated as an activity that consumes an artist's life for months at a time just because something supposedly enriching arises from it. -------------------- Thuryl: I mean, most of us don't go around consuming our own bodily fluids, no matter how delicious they are. ==== Alorael: War and violence would end if we all had each other's babies! ==== Drakefyre: Those are hideous mangos. Posts: 1415 | Registered: Thursday, March 27 2003 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Wednesday, June 27 2007 14:09
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quote:Psychiatry can use addiction to mean whatever it wants, but that's far more all-encompassing than even colloquial use. An abusive relationship fits, and not only by an accident of word choice. Listening to your music too loudly and causing damage to your ears is also an addiction. Hooray! —Alorael, who thinks he may be a book addict. He reads a lot. A whole lot. It's an expensive habit, since he buys new books more often than he uses the library. It keeps him from interacting with other people. He feels unhappy and irritable if he doesn't have a book to read even when he is not in the act of reading it (or not, as the case may be). Solution: ban books! They're dangerous! Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |