Gadzooks! There are 401 references to video game addiction on the Associated Content website alone – in short, Associated Content authors, along with a hoard of other web writers, have been exploring video game addiction “for ages.” It appears the American Medical Association has put video game addiction under the microscope as well. But, clinical addiction or not, what is it about playing video games that is so alluring and at the same time, according to some people, so dangerous to health and well being?
“Massive multiplayer online role-playing games,” or MMORPGs. (catchy phrase, that) such as World of Warcraft, are under special scrutiny. Should the Surgeon General slap Warcraft with a hazardous health warning? To some, "internet/video-game addiction" should be labeled in perpetuity as a disease, a plague on the American family.
Although the AMA decided against issuing an official medical warning during their June 2007 conference, video game addiction was a serious topic of debate. Similar to the discussion the AMA had in Chicago, Linda Shrieves, writing in the Orlando Sentinel, referenced both sides of the argument recently.
Shrieves cited, on one hand, Dr. Joseph Keeley, an Orlando pediatrician, who leans toward addiction when he says, "There are some kids who clearly act like they're addicted and, when you take them off, they'll go through withdrawal. They'll get irritable and hard to live with."
The problem hit home even further when Keeley drove his daughter to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois last fall. There, a dean told him that 3 percent to 4 percent of the freshmen boys move into the dorm, hook up to high-speed and seldom show up for class.
Some readers recall that back in the 70’s, speed was an entirely different kind of addiction. Ah, progress.
As readers might know, Northwestern is one of those schools geared toward the top 10% of serious-minded students in the first place. "Needless to say, that's troublesome," Keeley commented.
Troublesome indeed. But at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, just a few hours southwest of Evanston, communications professor Scott Jones says, "I'm an addiction skeptic."
As a research fellow with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, Jones explains, "Just because any activity might interfere with other activities is not enough to call it an addiction."
American society as a whole has always been skeptical of new technology and its effect on the younger generation. From the nation’s 1920’s concern about how movies were influencing kids, to the record player scourge, radio devil, villainous TV and now the black death of 21st century digital media, children are usually the first to become “threatened” by “the new.”
Once upon a time, the greatest literature of today, by authors such as Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo, as labeled as mere “pulp” fiction entertainment. While greatly appealing to the masses, it continually fended off scorn from the elite.
In the beginning, their works were fit only for serialization in flimsy periodicals. It is fun to imagine a first printing of Les Misérables (1862) used as a wrapping for stinky fish parts and tossed into a Parisian back alley.
That’s not to say the World of Warcraft or Halo will be christened as great art in the future, but then, one never knows for sure, does one?
The heaviest game players are those who play MMORPGs and those players, says the AMA, are the most likely to become socially isolated — and possibly addicted. Even with books, it’s possible to get too much of a good thing. The pejorative “bookworm” comes to mind, doesn’t it?
So the question with video games becomes the same as it does with most other hobbies-for-fun-and-pleasure. How much is too much?
By way of example, Shrieves cites Eric Frisella, 17, of Orlando. Eric, who plays World of Warcraft about 30 hours a week during the school year, often plays each night until 1 a.m.
"I can definitely see how it's possible for people to get addicted," he says. "But then I realize I can have a lot more fun hanging out in the real world with my friends." Good for Eric.
“Real world” seems to be the key. Certainly entertainment, whether it be high art or pulp fun is of vital importance to the human psyche. Whether a game is played with a real ball or a virtual one, or an adventure takes place outdoors or in cyberspace, it is important to our growth to be challenged, to be tested, and hopefully, to win occasionally. As such, video games are good and healthy entertainment.
When the number of hours spent on playing video games, or reading books or playing golf qualifies an individual for health-benefits at a real job, it’s time to go pro and start making some money with all that skill. What could be better than making a living and satisfying your addiction at the same time?
Unfortunately, that other tenet of the human psyche kicks in – the one that says that once a person “has” to do something, it slips from fun to “work” pretty fast.
But there’s hope. For those young people addicted to fun and entertainment, start thinking of a related career. We don’t hear too many complaints from those gamers at Microsoft®, that Johnny Depp fellow running around in a pirate suit or those guys at Pixar, do we?
Photo Jay Baage July 18, 2006 –
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