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Posted: November 6, 2008 12:28 am  | |
      IRC Nickname: Kiwi011 Group: Emeritus Posts: 3052 Member No.: 40 Joined: December 30, 2007 Total Events Attended: 21    | Ok its about 3 pages long, a rough draft and If you can give me some comments, things to add, discuss more, explain, etc please do.(Haven't made bibliography/works cited yet) Here it is- O ye, btw, dun steal cuz my teachers use some website to make sure I don't take someone elses work....and I dun want to get in trouble for copying my own work -.- ________________________________________________________________________- Computer Addiction: Medically Diagnosable or Irrational Falsehood In today’s modern era, more and more addictions and obsessions are coming to light. However, are these really addictions or are they just fun things to do? Although others take medication and receive “therapy” for their problems, the mainstream and overblown “epidemic” that keeps coming to our ears is computer gaming. However, a worldwide issue today, “addiction” to computer games, is not diagnosable or a medical problem, like drug abuse. In the era of today, addiction is heard more than almost every other medical term or problem. However, how does this biased term keep getting placed on everything that a large community of people find fun and enjoyable? This term, as wells as those relating to it, such as obsession, can and are placed on everything by researchers on most technologies that people use frequently. These researchers place definitions on addiction such as “a mental illness with serious consequences (Lake)” or “a compulsive physiological need for and use of a habit forming substance characterized by tolerance and by well defines physiological symptoms upon withdrawal (Merriam Webster).” These definitions however, hold no real ground as they are so open-ended. The meaning of “serious consequences” and such words are open only to how wide people think they are and have no real set problems. Others, such as that given by Merriam Webster occur everywhere. Anything can become addictive without restraint, also, withdrawal and aggressiveness may appear from just telling your child to stop watching TV midway through, or when they have to leave a friends birthday party before everyone else. In this essence, addiction to video games could not truly be medically diagnosed or treated. In reality, addiction is a chemical dependency on an object (Masnick). The symptoms and negative effects of this “addiction” are comprised of physical and psychological issues. According to some doctors “diagnosing” computer addiction, the physical symptoms contain problems such as “dry eyes, migraines, back aches, carpal tunnel syndrome, irregular eating schedules, hygiene loss, and sleep disorders (Orzach),” while the psychological symptoms are “craving more time to play games, sense of well being on the game, inability to stop, neglect to family and friends, school and employment problems, and the feelings of depression, emptiness, and irritability.” More and more issues are given by parents, spouses, and guardians about their 6 year old son playing games instead of playing outside, or teenage sons only have “gamers”-“a term used to describe someone who spends much free time playing games (Arendt)”- as friends, lie about grades to play, stay up till the midnight hours or play for long periods of time without stopping. Are these kids addicted as much as they are deemed to be or do they just have their priorities horrifically focused on the opposite of what they should be doing? These issues keep being brought up, and are constantly being reiterated and reused. The lack of statistics on the subject of computer game addiction is hard as it is as 80% of computer users will say that they are addicted just because with no real ability to decide or give true facts. The amount of people in society today has caused this issue to go from not mattering to mainstream because of the fact so many people have computers. In the US 97% of American kids aged 12-17 play video games with over 25% doing so online, with friends and family. Horrific deaths caused by parental abuse have also caused these ideas to be raised, especially in Asia as long-term gaming sprees cause people to die. The problem however is really in how the facts are presented, mainly in a false manner. These false truths often tell mainly of desensitization, social problems, and irresponsibility among many other such issues. Desensitization is being used more and more as a reason against video games and as a means to addiction. Speculations of how video game violence leads to real world violence and desensitization to violence have been appearing over and over and are regarded as truth. However, it seems it’s the opposite “with the mind needing less cognitive ability to recognize and understand the situation at hand and how to react.(Masnick)” The same feelings occur, they just don’t explode out emotionally like they used to. It is just like a baseball player getting balls pitched to him and not being afraid of them and learning to read how they are thrown. Video game addiction has also been the brunt of complaints and accusations of causing very social people to seclude themselves and be unsocial. Characteristics of these antisocial people are aggression, isolation and irritability. “A recent study showed that while both genders play games, men are more likely to become aggressive and absorbed into the games. Men’s brains are different than females in that they are more motivated to succeed and win, growing territorial and aggressive though the process.(Drew)” This may explain why people are described as unsocial however, another study shown was that “problem gamers do not exhibit significant signs of poor social skills or self esteem. Only 1% of the group had poor social skills, which was mainly based on shyness.(Lake)” Another important factor that most researchers tend to ignore is the fact that these “hardcore gamers” are not unsocial because of the games, but actually become gamers because they are social outcasts. The AMA said that “players of MMORPG’s (Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game) have a higher risk of secluding themselves socially and experiencing emotional loneliness or real life problems. These type of games have their own “virtual economies, worlds, in game socialization and allows the player to be whoever they want to be(Lake).” This may be a problem with excess gaming, however through playing these extremely social games, many unsocial players learn to be social in life and are accepted later as their social skills have not gone away, but increased. Another one of these false attacks is that these games cause depression and anxiety in addicted players. It is true even after playing the game players think about the game afterwards; however this is just the same as reminiscing over the amazing taste of your dinner or sports game and reviewing it. This depression that is supposedly the cause of problems is not caused from the games, but family issues and other issues of the sort. Anxiety is just another way to criticize the games themselves, because in reality the gamers are relaxing and recovering from a long, harsh, or troubling day at work, school or a sports event. You can consider gaming this way a form of OCD or as a way of relaxation that many find odd. It can be compared with cleaning the house, watching TV or cooking after a long day and in truth causes no harm. Another constantly brought up topic is whether these games are addictive or just fun. One such part of this is the constantly changing environment of games in today’s society. Online games have the same basic game play after played the first time, however, the situations of these games is constantly different and changing. Addiction currently is being used more and more to define any thing that many people use such as games, computers, televisions, and so on. This causes much uncertainty in what really is addicting and what’s just fun. What many forget is the social interaction in these games, this social interaction provides new game play and personalities in every game keeping them interesting. While some say that gamers can not get off their games because they are so immersed into them, really the choice is all about priorities. The fun may be more important to them than grades and other things. They can get off quite easily and can live fittingly when they get off themselves. The difference between watching TV all day long or playing computer games is one fact never brought up by researchers. No one criticizes or calls TV addicting. It simply immerses people into another place, just like a book. However, what’s the difference between playing games all day from watching TV all day? In reality, there is not a difference other than personal preference. Most people find games more fun as they seem rewarding after completed and just fun because playing with others is more fun than sitting on a couch as a spectator. The thing is, these “problem gamers” may just be lazy and not care about other things as much and would rather relax and take it easy. Lastly, it is important to show how the use of the word addiction is so wrong in an issue such as computer or video games. Fun games are of coarse going to make you want to play them over and over again, just like sports. Every sports game is basically the same, same rules, same sport, and same type of game. However what makes a game fun are its small changes and always changing details and ways to play. The game immerses you into it, making you a player, not a spectator. You also never Need the game, you just want it. It is not like a drug addiction where the users physically and physiologically need the item. Withdrawal from a game will make the player unhappy, but no real problems will occur because of it other than a bit of anger and impatience at the beginning. A drug addiction will take you over when withdrawal occurs and make you a shadow of your true self. The issue of addiction to computer and video games, a worldwide issue today, is not a diagnosable problem and is not a medical problem either. Although complaints will be made about how a person’s addiction forced them to do something or changed them, in reality the only thing that happened was that the player had a real life change caused from not sources in a game, but real life problems and issues. Therapy for “addiction” to games is nothing more than a scam when what really needs to happen is a therapist to talk about family issues or anything else that deals with real problems, not falsehoods about games. --------------------  |
Posted: November 6, 2008 02:47 pm | |
 IRC Nickname: Matt|Georgio9 Group: Emeritus Posts: 706 Member No.: 94 Joined: January 3, 2008 Total Events Attended: 0 | Some kid in the toronto area went beserk because he was spending every waking hour playing COD4. He ran away and now the police think they've found his body. http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_28881.aspx That's the latest article I've found on the ordeal. There's more out there. --------------------   |
Posted: November 7, 2008 07:48 pm | |
 IRC Nickname: Wayne|Eregion2 Group: Emeritus Posts: 3087 Member No.: 156 Joined: January 25, 2008 Total Events Attended: 8 | Interesting.  I wouldn't try and refute the entire premise of gaming addition though. I think it'd be a stronger position if you agreed that gaming addiction is possible, but proved that the average gamer does not qualify as being an addict.Another aspect would be dopamine addiction, which some people believe is linked to gaming (here's a good article IMO). Dopamine has also been linked to gambling addiction, so the possible correlation makes people freak out. Something else to explore is the general belief that gaming involves doing nothing but killing braincells for hours on end. You could point towards WoW guilds for that bit, where it comes into interaction and teamwork to achieve mutual goals (that'd actually be a double gold, since you could give a sentence or two into how it takes 40 people to defeat a boss where it's very likely that only two or three people will benefit from the kill; guilds have developed methods for "sharing the wealth" as it were among their members, you'd definitely score points there with an adult "non-gamer" reader). You could also explore concepts of upcoming MMOs that are leaning away from "grinding" and heading towards more dynamic and interactive worlds. I remember reading about one that involved time travel so that your actions could possibly influence the entire server population (aka, Nelson didn't win the battle of Waterloo). This had the possibility of, after awhile, making every server on the game unique. I have no idea how they're planning on pulling it off but it's an interesting concept; they also seemed keen on creating scenarios that would involve upwards of a hundred players at any given time. --------------------  |
Research paper