Huckster writes "Jeffrey Parsons - a doctoral candidate from University of Iowa has resently conducted a research on MMORPG addiction. It took a while to get the results - but they are now available.
The study found that about 15% of gamers meet the criteria for Internet addiction as provided by Kimberly Young, a leading researcher in Internet addiction. Using more strict criteria, a minimum of at least 10% of gamers met criteria for Internet addiction. Compared to national studies of Internet addiction, this numbers are somewhat elevated. However, given the sheer number of hours MMORPG gamers spend online (in comparison to the general population), even a 15% addiction rate is somewhat low.
To illustrate the point, the college student spends 10 hours on the Internet per week. The average MMORPG gamer (addicted or not) spends 20-25 hours per week just playing MMORPGs, and an additional 10-15 hours per week in other Internet use. In other words, MMORPG players are spending 4x as much time online as non-gamers."
Lots of people spend 20-30 hours or more a week watching TV, and most of society considers this to be perfectly normal.
During softball season, I spend close to 10 hours a week either playing games or practicing fastpitch softball, and I'm considered a very "casual" player in my league. Some people spend more time playing softball than they spend at their jobs.
In High School, I knew a guy who spent almost every evening and every weekend hacking and wardialing for hours on end. These days, he's gainfully employed in the IT field.
"Does something a lot" != "Addicted"
The only thing which makes a person who spends 30 hours a week playing a game different from most people is that their chosen form of recreation happens to be a fringe activity. They are not hurting anybody, so I say leave them the hell alone.
Furthermore, can we get past this stupid habbit of calling every apparant obsessive/compulsive behavior an "addiction?" It's not as if these people are going to go through withdrawl symptoms if they are deprived of their gaming "fix" for a couple weeks.
I think the key to remember, though, is that you said yourself "obsessive/compulsive". Obsessive/compulsive behaviors aren't always healthy either. I wouldn't call the need to play softball OC in a clinical sense. However, one could possibly argue that *some* individuals who play online games do have OCD in a real sense and that an online game isn't the most healthy way to deal with the underlying problem.
So while I agree with what you said, that the term "addiction" is far overused. I'm not sure I agree that obsessive/compulsive behaviors are something to just brush aside as if they're no big deal. They are a big deal. And if someone is knee-deep in them, that person needs to be treated.
Of course, in the US, mental healthy is the getto of healthcare. It doesn't get nearly the respect nor funding that it deserves. Everyone just pops a pill and calls it good, without realizing that for many people therapy is necessary and helpful.
It so happens that my father is a licensed phsychologist. He once told me that he spends the vast majority of his clinical time takeing people off anti-depressants and other mind-altering drugs which were prescribed by general practitioners.
The vast majority of the people on Vallium, Paxil, Prozac, or Ritilan are people who probably should not be on anything, and in many cases these drugs are a hinderance to ideal mental health.
Unfortunately, you don't need to be a specially trained phsychiatrist to prescribe this stuff, and any medical doctor who perceives you as "depressed" or exibiting a behavior where he recently read that drug X "has had some success at treating the problem" during his 7-minute visit which included a physical can load you up on all kinds of Happy Pills.
Furthermore, can we get past this stupid habbit of calling every apparant obsessive/compulsive behavior an "addiction?" It's not as if these people are going to go through withdrawl symptoms if they are deprived of their gaming "fix" for a couple weeks.
Have you ever played a MMORPG? I played Everquest for several hours every day for over two years back in high school, and yes, it was an addiction. I wasn't alone, either, or even in the minority.
If someone had deprived me, or most of the other people who played that game, of my gaming "fix" for a couple weeks, I would have had serious withdrawls.
Furthermore, can we get past this stupid habbit of calling every apparant obsessive/compulsive behavior an "addiction?"
Addiction, by defenition, is: - Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance.
- The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.
So calling "apparent obsessive/compulsive behaviour" an addiction, is only because that -is- the defenition of it:
I do agree with him though ; that 'spending alot of time' does not equal addiction.
It's not as if these people are going to go through withdrawl symptoms if they are deprived of their gaming "fix" for a couple weeks.
That's only true if you are comparing withdrawal symptons from, let's say, heroine addiction, to the withdrawal symptons from missing out on a month of RPG-ing.
Hell, even I really long for playing a (FPS) game when I haven't done so for a week.
This is where I have a problem with all the puritanical crap out there.
According to medical research, one or two pints of beer (or glasses of red wine) per night is a healthy practice, reducing the chances of heart disease and alzeimer's while reducing stress.
According to AA, two or three pints a night means you are an alcoholic.
There's an overlap here, which means either 1) One side or the other is full of crap, or 2) Mild alcoholism is good for you.
In either case, I enjoy beer or wine with my dinner on a regular basis, and if that makes me a drunkard then so be it.
the research did not indicate that one to two drinks a day was a healthy practice, but that the people who did drink like that were healthier than those that didn't
If it rationalizes my booze-hound ways, I'm taking the correlation to show causality.:)
If the drinking itself is not the main factor, then one could postulate that "being a puritanical busibody who cares about how much other people drink" might result in a shorter and less healthy life.
We don't know if you benefit from being in this study. However, we hope that in the future society may benefit from this study by gaining a greater understanding of the relationship between social needs and MMORPG use.
The word "addiction" in this context is merely used to make geeks look more pathetic. This study is not meant to "help" anyone, because the MMORPGers don't have a problem. This is just some supposed "normie" pointing out what they perceive to be abnormal behavior. I guess that might pass for science in Iowa.
Internet addiction is a made up/hyped up thing so Frauds can scam money from the gullible.
Speak for yourself. Back in the day when I was a MUD addict, it cost me about seven years of my life. About four years playing and doing nothing else, three more of depression when I had finally kicked it. Needed several psychologists to finally get back on my feet. It was a very big problem, I was aware of it and miserable, and unable to stop.
Addiction is merely a manifestation of some kind of avoidance to some kind of personal problem.
Trust me, I know personally what I am talking about.
People don't get addicted to things that don't have a relatively short to immediate form of positive reinforcement. Its not that big of a deal until it becomes a big deal. If your able to be happy and eat and have a place to stay and MUD for 23 hours a day. Go for it. If there are other things that you want to do and achieve (hence unhappiness) then go for
Except for the 15 odd percent that are addicted. I went to a tech college and there were all sort of MUD, MMORPG, and FPS gamers. For most of them it was a perfectly healthy recreation / break from studies. Then there were the few that ended up failing out of college because the couldn't pull themselves away from the computer.
Gaming addiction is not made up, and while some people may hype it, these scientists aren't among them. Their methods are good, and their definition(s) of addiction fall very much in line with other forms of addiction. And the number they found is about right from what I've seen personally. If anything, they have done the MMORPG group a favor by showing that 85-90% of gamers are not addicted and many are well balanced individuals.
The net mean age in the survey is more telling, I think, than the subject of the survey: MMORPG gamers.
~ 23 or 24 appears to be the net mean age of all survey groups, and in my experience, and as someone from that generation, we spend a lot of time online for many different reasons.
I'm a programmer and an information junkie who's never played a MMORPG in his life. When I was interviewed for my job last year, I was told the company was looking for someone who "lives on the web." All these people focusing on games don't realize the most obvious phenomenon: the web as a lifestyle.
Just a guess, but MMORPG players are probably easier to account for, as the systems are more centralized. The data gathered from the participants can be double-checked: [FTA] "the average number of hours of MMORPG game play reported by survey participants matches data gathered by other online surveys and the data provided by Sony and Electronic Arts."
To me, how much you do something doesn't make it addictive, it's whether it starts interfering with normal life. I probably easily surpass the requirements, however I still have a perfectly normal social life.
You can find out for yourself what the criteria are as defined by Kimberley Young, and find out if you too are an addict, by taking the test (20 multiple choice questions) here [netaddiction.com]. Apparently I'm not addicated to the net though, so the thing must have a flaw somewhere...
But that's not a meaningful test, at least not for many people. They have this concept that "online" and "offline" are discreet experiences that you log in, and then do nothing but the Internet. Well, not since I got a multi- tasking OS, actually, and I've literally pretty much never logged out since 1999 when I finally got broadband.
For many of us, the Internet is just another part of our computer. We use it when we want, and go on about our bussiness. I don't "log in" to check e-mail, I just run SSH if I want to see it (or look at my Sunblade if I'm at work). I can be writing a paper, have soemthing I need to look up, access JStor, and go back to writing the paper in less than a minute.
Seems to me that these researchers have a severly distorted view of how the Internet works for many people. It's not a special, seperate thing, it's just another part of computing.
I particularly notice this if my connection goes down. Even though I know it's down, I'll find myself perpetually trying to access something online because I just don't think about it. Like I'll be reading a PDF on something, and want more info on a topic and pop open a browser and try to search for it, before I remember that no, can't do that right now. It's just natural, just a part of being on a computer. It works basically like any other tool on the computer, just use it when you want it for something.
Some people get addicted to things easily, whereas others don't find that.
This probably seems obvious, but the important point is, people who become addicted easily can become addicted to anything they come into contact with - drugs (legal or illegal), internet browsing, exercise/fitness, even possible reading Slashdot!
However, I think a disproportionate number of people with addictive personalities are drawn into gaming, especially MMPORGs, and for this reason you have this, actually relatively high figure for addiction.
Every game made today.. The first level is easy to accomplish. Second level is marginally harder.
Before long, you have to press the lever 10,000 times to get your treat. By that time, you've grown old, wife left, dog died.. etc.
The games are DESIGNED to addict you. You don't make subscription money if you don't have a good core base of addicts.
MMORPG's are designed to last for years. The more addicting, and the ability to constantly provide rewards througout the game, will keep a guy hemmed up for years.
Every game made today.. The first level is easy to accomplish. Second level is marginally harder.
This basic structure is the only way to make a fun game. It isn't the problem.
The insidious aspect of MMORPGs is that they make this explicit in the "stats" and "levels" that you have to keep track of and improve. The *actual* game of these games is just "make the number bigger", which is a very primitive goal (think Pac-Man). You're paying $10+ a month just to play Pac-Man.
Other games tend to have more complex goals, like "get to the next stage, see more of the world, advance the story". You can "beat" these games. You can't beat a MMORPG, except by ending it yourself.
I'd say that in many of these cases, the 20 some hours a week in the game is just displacing the 20 some hours a week previously spent watching TV. The games are not inherently evil, they just give us something to do other then watch the idiot box...
Why is every bad habit these days assigned a diagnosis of "addiction"?
I'll tell you why. Because if we can blame our bad habits on a disease, something out of our control, then we can absolve ourselves of any responsibility for it.
Face it, most of these purely psychological "addictions" that plague modern society can be corrected with a little behavior modification and a little willpower.
"My kid isn't a disruptive, impolite, disorganized little jackass. He's sick! Dare suggest anything else, and you might impune my parenting abilities."
Is there any form of an authoritative definition of internet addiction? I mean, I spend a lot of time online a day, like probably many of the readers here, so my interest has been raised.
I personally do not believe that it can be determined quantitatively by how long one spends on the net; rather, perhaps some quality of the use may determine addiction.
As a student, I spend considerable quantities of time online performing research and consulting reference materials. For many things, it is just more efficient to do things online as opposed to performing inefficient information retrieval offline.
My god! You hit on it without even realizing. WORD ADDICTION! I use words all the TIME! I'm using them right now!! I've got to stop.. augh! I did it again! Okay okay, I'm stopping now. Really. Come on Ike, STOP!!
I'm an addict and I know why. The internet can give me whatever I want (from porn to news) when I want it. I don't have to listen to some idiots opinion on the news but I can get every side of the argument then do my own research to see which is true.
When I get this open else where I might care, untill then the Internet is the best resource for myself.
The term 'Internet addiction' is far too broad. There are MMORPG addicts, chat addicts, porn addicts and so forth. In my eyes, the biggest sign that you are addicted to something on the internet is when it starts to cause big emotional responses. If you start crying because of someone you're chatting with who you will never meet, then you have a problem. If you start crying because some other character rolled higher for an item you really wanted, then you have a problem. If you start crying during porn, you have a problem (though its probably not addiction).
I'm almost willing to bet that more than 15% of the MMORPG population is addicted to it. What other reason would a person play EQ for 5 years?
I used to scoff at Internet addiction until I witnessed it firsthand. My roommate in University was hopelessly addicted to MMORPGS. It got to the point where he was skipping class to play. Shortly after that, he started asking everyone to call him by the name of his Everquest character (I think it was StealthDemon or something rather lame like that). It was *extremely* uncomfortable when he got up in front of the Stats201 class to "announce" his name change. It didn't help that he was wearing a cape and a huge plumed hat at the time, either. Before I moved out, he had actually started keeping a pail under his computer desk to urinate into so he wouldn't have to miss any action. Pretty sad, really.
pfft, a pail is for n00bs. i've got a catheder hooked up directly into my bladder, running out the window to... well... i guess i don't really know what's out there, whatever it is, someone has the brightness on it turned up way too high.
either way, a pail is stupid. i mean, eventually you're going to have to get up and empty it, a problem i don't have, and the smell ugh. how someone who hasn't showered for three weeks straight could possibly tolerate the smell of their own piss is beyond me.
Fellow slashdotter nbCaffeine and I had Kimberly Young as a professor for our "Intro to Business Information Systems" class, which, as CompSci majors, we were taking towards an easy minor in BIS. The course was really more of a 100 level thing, as we discussed the various components of computers, basic network topology, and server-client basics.
Throughout the class, she would constantly venture off on tangents about her work in studying "Internet Addiction", and what a terrible thing it is... She's published a few books and papers on the topic, but in real life, she doesn't seem to be that big a superhero researcher. In fact, she's really quite amusing, whatwith the curly-afro like hairdo and the subtle woman-moustache, not to mention the thick rimmed glasses she wore. She always told stories about how internet addiction leads to marital woes, citing examples of women and men who confessed to her that they had been cheating on their spouse via online relationships. Given that that's what she mostly talked about, I would propose that her professional interest and expertise with regard to "internet addiction" predominantly center around the affects of chatrooms and IM on personal "offline in the real world" relationships. Now, with MMORPGs, one must consider how applicable Kimberly Young's research is. I can see how there would be an argument that there are parallels between say, the interactions you have with other people in a MMORPG and those with people in a chatroom.... However, if you're really into the RP aspect of those games, you might be TOTALLY different in that regard than say the person you'd be in a chatroom... You know what, maybe we could do a Slashdot Interview with Kimberly Young, if somebody tells me to go ahead, I'll send her an e-mail and then submit the idea.
Many psychologists even doubt that addiction is the right term to describe what happens to people when they spend too much time online.
"It seems misleading to characterize behaviors as 'addictions' on the basis that people say they do too much of them," says Sara Kiesler, PhD, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author of one of the only controlled studies on Internet usage, published in the September 1998 American Psychologist. "No research has yet established that there is a disorder of Internet addiction that is separable from problems such as loneliness or problem gambling, or that a passion for using the Internet is long-lasting."
Granted, this article is a few years old, but the main point will always remain. There is no such thing as an "Internet addiction"... the people that spend obsessive amounts of time on the Internet may no doubt have deep-seated problems, but just as with all these other faux-addictions the expressed behavior is being mistaken for the actual cause of the problem.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday March 10 2005, @11:15AM (#11899848)
But I can't play them. That's because, for whatever reason, probably psychological, I get completely drawn into the game, and lose sense of my own life. Indeed, I begin to think the virtual world I'm playing in is more real than the one I'm in now. I would consistently spend about 6+ hours a day (more like 12-14 hours on weekends) playing WoW (was the same for DAoC and AO), and I just had to stop it. And I'm in college with 15 credits...
I think what I am should be considered an addict. I always tell myself I'm going to stop, but always find myself coming back to it a month later... I really hate this. I wish I could keep a balance between real life and the virtual worlds, but that just isn't what happens.
Thank god I have people around me who notice when I get sucked in... I know there are many others who don't have anyone around to keep an eye on their health.
And no, I don't think playing 6+ hours a day is healthy.
When someone tells you that you have a problem because you played a game (MMORPG or not) between 6:00PM and 10:00PM the night before. And what did these people do during the same timeframe last night? They watched TV.
Gone on the road for two weeks, working 14 days straight for a total of 145 hours. Come back and play with friends on an afternoon, what's the verdict: I play too much videogames.
It really is mainly about some people's perception of valid use of your free time. My rule of thumb is not to tell any woman born before 1980 that I even know what a computer is.
I unsubscribed from world of warcraft yesterday. I'm a weekend player, but my friends/roommates are truly addicted to the game. Seeing them play day in and day out just made me hate the game. They go to college, and well, at least one of them is gonna flunk classes this semester due to that game. I have work during the week which leaves no time for the game, and well, I want to do something other than stare at a screen on the weekends.
Anybody else unsubscribe from WoW for this reason?
They go to college, and well, at least one of them is gonna flunk classes this semester due to that game.
This is not uncommon. When I was going to the university in my younger years, I had one roommate who was addicted to Magic The Card Game and played Metroid on the GameBoy and SNES. He did so badly on his grades that his parents made him moved back home to be properly supervised. I spent most of my scholarship money trying to start up my BBS business just before the internet got popular. The business m
The whole concept of 'Internet addiction' is pretty laughable, IMHO, and certainly using 'hours spent online per week' is completely useless from any scientific point of view.
How do you decide when someone is online or not? When their computer is running and connected to the net? In that case, I'm online 168 hours a week. I better get help immediately!
If you say it's 'hours spent using the Internet', that's no better. When I go to sleep at night, I like to listen to BBC news. No station in my area carries it, so I listen to it streaming from KERA in Dallas to an Airport Express and a small pair of speakers in my bedroom (where there is no computer). Am I thus 'using the Internet' while I'm lying there asleep? Certainly, there's a lot of network traffic going on, but I'm just listening to the frickin' radio!
What about if I'm just sitting at my computer playing Solitaire? Am I 'online' during that hour? What if, unbeknowst to me, my anti-virus fires up and downloads a new set of updates while I'm doing it?
The concept of 'an hour spent online' lacks any rigorous definition whatsoever. And people that spend a lot of time trying to do math with those made-up numbers make me wonder what it must have been like back when the telephone was invented. Surely the business world today is filled with people who would have been considered 'addicted to the telephone system' by similar pedants back in the early 20th century.
This is just academics trying to put numbers on things so they can get funded to do a study. Ignore them, and maybe they will go away.
... when they hear the word 'addict'. Instead they like to use the terms 'harcore' (no, not pr0n) or 'serious' in a positive way, like it's a some kind of badge of honor.
Go read any of the BBs out there for mmorpgs, some people call 30 hours/wk 'casual' -- that's pretty much a job. They will adamantly talk about how I'm not an addict, I have a life, a job, etc. Well, so do lots of gambling addicts and alchoholic, doesn't mean a thing. Plus they are often posting to the boards that are filled with fellow junkies, looking for reinforcement of their behavior. And there's a lot of the 'well I only play 30 hrs, so and so plays 40, he/she is clearly out of control, but I'm fine'
I am a mmorpg player. I've played a ton of the d*mn things (EQ, AO, DAoC, CoH, WoW) they can suck up all your time, cut into sleep, etc etc. Luckily, with each new one I've played I found I quit them sooner and sooner and get bored more easily. Nonetheless, I still play them WAY more than I should, they are clearly unproductive timesinks, nothing more. Yes, I've had fun and met some cool people - but mmorpgs can get in the way of more important things for sure.
Some people though, live in these things. Sad but true story - there's a friend's friend who has been playing EverCrack ever since it came out like 5(?) years ago. He's late 30s lives with his mom, has no job, and plays EQ like 8-10 hours a day. He threatens to go back to get his college degree every now and again, takes one or two classes here or there - but usually has some excuse on why he can't finish, goes back to playing f/t and just lives off his mom (who should clearly kiss his a*s out, but that's another story...)
While his story might be a bit more extreme than most, I don't think his is unique.
We have a nation of people who watch tv for upwards of 30 hours a week but somehow interacting with other via a video game is given the bad name? Don't get me wrong, if your major social outlet is Everquest there is an issue, IMHO. But it's better than the millions of beer bellies that can't pull themselves from "the game" or Survivor long enough to help their kids with their homework.
What it comes down to it, dollar for dollar, 20 hours of Everquest a week is your best entertainment value, well, right after copyright infringement.
Since half of the posts in response to this article will devolve into some sort of argument about what is and isn't an "addiction", I feel I need to define it.
An addiction is any behavior that someone does in preference to other things and which results in adverse effects on another aspect of their life (e.g. relationships, job, assets, etc). Both of those things are important. If you just prefer to do something but it's not causing a problem, it's not an addiction.
Note that there is nothing in the definition describing "withdrawal" or whether it's psychological or physical or anything like that. Most of those things come from people's half understanding of substance abuse terminology, and have nothing to do with it. There is confusion over "dependence" and "addiction", such that people can be addicted to drugs (using them and having life problems) and be either physically dependent (e.g. heroin), mentally dependent (e.g. cocaine) or neither, although the last one is rare with drugs (it more applies to things like gambling and such).
The average MMORPG gamer (addicted or not) spends 20-25 hours per week just playing MMORPGs, and an additional 10-15 hours per week in other Internet use. In other words, MMORPG players are spending 4x as much time online as non-gamers."
Wow! People wwith a hobby of online computer games spend more time online than people who have other hobbies. Now if only someone would do a study to find out if people with gardens spend more time outside than those with high definition TV's.
"A person who plays Counterstrike 10 hours a day is ADDICTED to the game. A person who plays MMORPG 10 hours a day, is simply leading a different lifestyle. As bizarre as it may sound... it is true."
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
I have no idea how you can say playing CS 10 hrs/day is addiction, but playing a mmorpg for the same is a lifestyle. Semantic nonsense, I'm sorry. 50 hrs/week of gaming period (FPS, RTS, MMORPG) sounds like addiction to me, that's a freakin f/t job with overtime for pete's sake.
I'm a mmorpg player as well, but I would NEVER call it a lifestyle, it's entertainment, that's it. If it's a lifestyle, then it's a sad one.
Reminds me of Dan from the show Night Court who during a fit of self-loathing said "I don't have a life... I have a lifestyle."
Bit of a strawman (I think), however... (Score:5, Insightful)
If 15% of people who enjoyed a cold beer or a glass of wine were considered alcoholics I'm sure the word "only" wouldn't be in the headline.
Re:Bit of a strawman (I think), however... (Score:5, Insightful)
During softball season, I spend close to 10 hours a week either playing games or practicing fastpitch softball, and I'm considered a very "casual" player in my league. Some people spend more time playing softball than they spend at their jobs.
In High School, I knew a guy who spent almost every evening and every weekend hacking and wardialing for hours on end. These days, he's gainfully employed in the IT field.
"Does something a lot" != "Addicted"
The only thing which makes a person who spends 30 hours a week playing a game different from most people is that their chosen form of recreation happens to be a fringe activity. They are not hurting anybody, so I say leave them the hell alone.
Furthermore, can we get past this stupid habbit of calling every apparant obsessive/compulsive behavior an "addiction?" It's not as if these people are going to go through withdrawl symptoms if they are deprived of their gaming "fix" for a couple weeks.
Parent
Re:Bit of a strawman (I think), however... (Score:4, Informative)
I think the key to remember, though, is that you said yourself "obsessive/compulsive". Obsessive/compulsive behaviors aren't always healthy either. I wouldn't call the need to play softball OC in a clinical sense. However, one could possibly argue that *some* individuals who play online games do have OCD in a real sense and that an online game isn't the most healthy way to deal with the underlying problem.
So while I agree with what you said, that the term "addiction" is far overused. I'm not sure I agree that obsessive/compulsive behaviors are something to just brush aside as if they're no big deal. They are a big deal. And if someone is knee-deep in them, that person needs to be treated.
Of course, in the US, mental healthy is the getto of healthcare. It doesn't get nearly the respect nor funding that it deserves. Everyone just pops a pill and calls it good, without realizing that for many people therapy is necessary and helpful.
Parent
Re:Bit of a strawman (I think), however... (Score:4, Informative)
The vast majority of the people on Vallium, Paxil, Prozac, or Ritilan are people who probably should not be on anything, and in many cases these drugs are a hinderance to ideal mental health.
Unfortunately, you don't need to be a specially trained phsychiatrist to prescribe this stuff, and any medical doctor who perceives you as "depressed" or exibiting a behavior where he recently read that drug X "has had some success at treating the problem" during his 7-minute visit which included a physical can load you up on all kinds of Happy Pills.
Parent
Re:Bit of a strawman (I think), however... (Score:5, Informative)
Have you ever played a MMORPG? I played Everquest for several hours every day for over two years back in high school, and yes, it was an addiction. I wasn't alone, either, or even in the minority.
If someone had deprived me, or most of the other people who played that game, of my gaming "fix" for a couple weeks, I would have had serious withdrawls.
Parent
Re:Bit of a strawman (I think), however... (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, can we get past this stupid habbit of calling every apparant obsessive/compulsive behavior an "addiction?"
Addiction, by defenition, is :
- Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance.
- The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.
So calling "apparent obsessive/compulsive behaviour" an addiction, is only because that -is- the defenition of it :
I do agree with him though ; that 'spending alot of time' does not equal addiction.
It's not as if these people are going to go through withdrawl symptoms if they are deprived of their gaming "fix" for a couple weeks.
That's only true if you are comparing withdrawal symptons from, let's say, heroine addiction, to the withdrawal symptons from missing out on a month of RPG-ing.
Hell, even I really long for playing a (FPS) game when I haven't done so for a week.
Parent
Re:Bit of a strawman (I think), however... (Score:5, Interesting)
According to medical research, one or two pints of beer (or glasses of red wine) per night is a healthy practice, reducing the chances of heart disease and alzeimer's while reducing stress.
According to AA, two or three pints a night means you are an alcoholic.
There's an overlap here, which means either 1) One side or the other is full of crap, or 2) Mild alcoholism is good for you.
In either case, I enjoy beer or wine with my dinner on a regular basis, and if that makes me a drunkard then so be it.
Parent
Re:Bit of a strawman (I think), however... (Score:4, Insightful)
If it rationalizes my booze-hound ways, I'm taking the correlation to show causality.
If the drinking itself is not the main factor, then one could postulate that "being a puritanical busibody who cares about how much other people drink" might result in a shorter and less healthy life.
Either way, hooray for our side.
Parent
Only 15% of Doctoral Canidates are useful (Score:5, Insightful)
Internet addiction is a made up/hyped up thing so Frauds can scam money from the gullible.
Re:Only 15% of Doctoral Canidates are useful (Score:5, Insightful)
Speak for yourself. Back in the day when I was a MUD addict, it cost me about seven years of my life. About four years playing and doing nothing else, three more of depression when I had finally kicked it. Needed several psychologists to finally get back on my feet. It was a very big problem, I was aware of it and miserable, and unable to stop.
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Re:Only 15% of Doctoral Canidates are useful (Score:3, Interesting)
Trust me, I know personally what I am talking about.
People don't get addicted to things that don't have a relatively short to immediate form of positive reinforcement. Its not that big of a deal until it becomes a big deal. If your able to be happy and eat and have a place to stay and MUD for 23 hours a day. Go for it. If there are other things that you want to do and achieve (hence unhappiness) then go for
Re:Only 15% of Doctoral Canidates are useful (Score:5, Interesting)
Except for the 15 odd percent that are addicted. I went to a tech college and there were all sort of MUD, MMORPG, and FPS gamers. For most of them it was a perfectly healthy recreation / break from studies. Then there were the few that ended up failing out of college because the couldn't pull themselves away from the computer.
Gaming addiction is not made up, and while some people may hype it, these scientists aren't among them. Their methods are good, and their definition(s) of addiction fall very much in line with other forms of addiction. And the number they found is about right from what I've seen personally. If anything, they have done the MMORPG group a favor by showing that 85-90% of gamers are not addicted and many are well balanced individuals.
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Interesting.... (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps somebody was fooling around on the INTERNET when they should have been working?
Jeez, I'm one to talk...
Well.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well.... (Score:5, Funny)
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Why always focus on MMOPRGs? (Score:5, Interesting)
~ 23 or 24 appears to be the net mean age of all survey groups, and in my experience, and as someone from that generation, we spend a lot of time online for many different reasons.
I'm a programmer and an information junkie who's never played a MMORPG in his life. When I was interviewed for my job last year, I was told the company was looking for someone who "lives on the web." All these people focusing on games don't realize the most obvious phenomenon: the web as a lifestyle.
Re:Why always focus on MMOPRGs? (Score:3, Insightful)
What is "addiction?" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What is "addiction?" (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:What is "addiction?" (Score:5, Insightful)
For many of us, the Internet is just another part of our computer. We use it when we want, and go on about our bussiness. I don't "log in" to check e-mail, I just run SSH if I want to see it (or look at my Sunblade if I'm at work). I can be writing a paper, have soemthing I need to look up, access JStor, and go back to writing the paper in less than a minute.
Seems to me that these researchers have a severly distorted view of how the Internet works for many people. It's not a special, seperate thing, it's just another part of computing.
I particularly notice this if my connection goes down. Even though I know it's down, I'll find myself perpetually trying to access something online because I just don't think about it. Like I'll be reading a PDF on something, and want more info on a topic and pop open a browser and try to search for it, before I remember that no, can't do that right now. It's just natural, just a part of being on a computer. It works basically like any other tool on the computer, just use it when you want it for something.
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The problem is with Addictive Personalities (Score:5, Insightful)
This probably seems obvious, but the important point is, people who become addicted easily can become addicted to anything they come into contact with - drugs (legal or illegal), internet browsing, exercise/fitness, even possible reading Slashdot!
However, I think a disproportionate number of people with addictive personalities are drawn into gaming, especially MMPORGs, and for this reason you have this, actually relatively high figure for addiction.
And in other news.... (Score:5, Funny)
They're designed to be that way. (Score:5, Insightful)
The first level is easy to accomplish.
Second level is marginally harder.
Before long, you have to press the lever 10,000 times to get your treat. By that time, you've grown old, wife left, dog died.. etc.
The games are DESIGNED to addict you. You don't make subscription money if you don't have a good core base of addicts.
MMORPG's are designed to last for years. The more addicting, and the ability to constantly provide rewards througout the game, will keep a guy hemmed up for years.
Re:They're designed to be that way. (Score:5, Insightful)
The first level is easy to accomplish.
Second level is marginally harder.
This basic structure is the only way to make a fun game. It isn't the problem.
The insidious aspect of MMORPGs is that they make this explicit in the "stats" and "levels" that you have to keep track of and improve. The *actual* game of these games is just "make the number bigger", which is a very primitive goal (think Pac-Man). You're paying $10+ a month just to play Pac-Man.
Other games tend to have more complex goals, like "get to the next stage, see more of the world, advance the story". You can "beat" these games. You can't beat a MMORPG, except by ending it yourself.
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Re:They're designed to be that way. (Score:5, Funny)
So in a few years, we'll have to suffer through MMORPG themed country songs?
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I can (Score:3, Funny)
Whew, boy... that's a relief... (Score:3, Funny)
You wanna know who the REAL internet addicts are? People at work posting on slashdot... using Google... etc, etc.. I bet they match the "criteria"
Not addiction... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hate the word "addiction" (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is every bad habit these days assigned a diagnosis of "addiction"?
I'll tell you why. Because if we can blame our bad habits on a disease, something out of our control, then we can absolve ourselves of any responsibility for it.
Face it, most of these purely psychological "addictions" that plague modern society can be corrected with a little behavior modification and a little willpower.
Re:Hate the word "addiction" (Score:4, Interesting)
"My kid isn't a disruptive, impolite, disorganized little jackass. He's sick! Dare suggest anything else, and you might impune my parenting abilities."
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Authoritative definition of internet addiction (Score:4, Insightful)
I personally do not believe that it can be determined quantitatively by how long one spends on the net; rather, perhaps some quality of the use may determine addiction.
As a student, I spend considerable quantities of time online performing research and consulting reference materials. For many things, it is just more efficient to do things online as opposed to performing inefficient information retrieval offline.
Re:Authoritative definition of internet addiction (Score:4, Funny)
My god! You hit on it without even realizing. WORD ADDICTION! I use words all the TIME! I'm using them right now!! I've got to stop .. augh! I did it again! Okay okay, I'm stopping now. Really. Come on Ike, STOP!!
Oh noooooo .. I'm addicted ...
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I'm an addict (Score:4, Insightful)
When I get this open else where I might care, untill then the Internet is the best resource for myself.
Woah.. (Score:4, Funny)
In other news, male gamers are more likely to pee standing up.
Internet addiction? Maybe MMORPG addiction (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm almost willing to bet that more than 15% of the MMORPG population is addicted to it. What other reason would a person play EQ for 5 years?
I've seen it first hand (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I've seen it first hand (Score:4, Funny)
either way, a pail is stupid. i mean, eventually you're going to have to get up and empty it, a problem i don't have, and the smell ugh. how someone who hasn't showered for three weeks straight could possibly tolerate the smell of their own piss is beyond me.
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definition of Internet Addiction (Score:5, Informative)
Kimberly Young, EXPERT? Sort of? (Score:4, Interesting)
Throughout the class, she would constantly venture off on tangents about her work in studying "Internet Addiction", and what a terrible thing it is... She's published a few books and papers on the topic, but in real life, she doesn't seem to be that big a superhero researcher. In fact, she's really quite amusing, whatwith the curly-afro like hairdo and the subtle woman-moustache, not to mention the thick rimmed glasses she wore. She always told stories about how internet addiction leads to marital woes, citing examples of women and men who confessed to her that they had been cheating on their spouse via online relationships. Given that that's what she mostly talked about, I would propose that her professional interest and expertise with regard to "internet addiction" predominantly center around the affects of chatrooms and IM on personal "offline in the real world" relationships. Now, with MMORPGs, one must consider how applicable Kimberly Young's research is. I can see how there would be an argument that there are parallels between say, the interactions you have with other people in a MMORPG and those with people in a chatroom.... However, if you're really into the RP aspect of those games, you might be TOTALLY different in that regard than say the person you'd be in a chatroom... You know what, maybe we could do a Slashdot Interview with Kimberly Young, if somebody tells me to go ahead, I'll send her an e-mail and then submit the idea.
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Misuse of Terms... (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted, this article is a few years old, but the main point will always remain. There is no such thing as an "Internet addiction"
I love mmorpgs (Score:3, Insightful)
I think what I am should be considered an addict. I always tell myself I'm going to stop, but always find myself coming back to it a month later... I really hate this. I wish I could keep a balance between real life and the virtual worlds, but that just isn't what happens.
Thank god I have people around me who notice when I get sucked in... I know there are many others who don't have anyone around to keep an eye on their health.
And no, I don't think playing 6+ hours a day is healthy.
My favorite thing is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Gone on the road for two weeks, working 14 days straight for a total of 145 hours. Come back and play with friends on an afternoon, what's the verdict: I play too much videogames.
It really is mainly about some people's perception of valid use of your free time. My rule of thumb is not to tell any woman born before 1980 that I even know what a computer is.
unsubscribed from WOW (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:unsubscribed from WOW (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not uncommon. When I was going to the university in my younger years, I had one roommate who was addicted to Magic The Card Game and played Metroid on the GameBoy and SNES. He did so badly on his grades that his parents made him moved back home to be properly supervised. I spent most of my scholarship money trying to start up my BBS business just before the internet got popular. The business m
Ridiculous claptrap (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you decide when someone is online or not? When their computer is running and connected to the net? In that case, I'm online 168 hours a week. I better get help immediately!
If you say it's 'hours spent using the Internet', that's no better. When I go to sleep at night, I like to listen to BBC news. No station in my area carries it, so I listen to it streaming from KERA in Dallas to an Airport Express and a small pair of speakers in my bedroom (where there is no computer). Am I thus 'using the Internet' while I'm lying there asleep? Certainly, there's a lot of network traffic going on, but I'm just listening to the frickin' radio!
What about if I'm just sitting at my computer playing Solitaire? Am I 'online' during that hour? What if, unbeknowst to me, my anti-virus fires up and downloads a new set of updates while I'm doing it?
The concept of 'an hour spent online' lacks any rigorous definition whatsoever. And people that spend a lot of time trying to do math with those made-up numbers make me wonder what it must have been like back when the telephone was invented. Surely the business world today is filled with people who would have been considered 'addicted to the telephone system' by similar pedants back in the early 20th century.
This is just academics trying to put numbers on things so they can get funded to do a study. Ignore them, and maybe they will go away.
People get so touchy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Go read any of the BBs out there for mmorpgs, some people call 30 hours/wk 'casual' -- that's pretty much a job. They will adamantly talk about how I'm not an addict, I have a life, a job, etc. Well, so do lots of gambling addicts and alchoholic, doesn't mean a thing. Plus they are often posting to the boards that are filled with fellow junkies, looking for reinforcement of their behavior. And there's a lot of the 'well I only play 30 hrs, so and so plays 40, he/she is clearly out of control, but I'm fine'
I am a mmorpg player. I've played a ton of the d*mn things (EQ, AO, DAoC, CoH, WoW) they can suck up all your time, cut into sleep, etc etc. Luckily, with each new one I've played I found I quit them sooner and sooner and get bored more easily. Nonetheless, I still play them WAY more than I should, they are clearly unproductive timesinks, nothing more. Yes, I've had fun and met some cool people - but mmorpgs can get in the way of more important things for sure.
Some people though, live in these things. Sad but true story - there's a friend's friend who has been playing EverCrack ever since it came out like 5(?) years ago. He's late 30s lives with his mom, has no job, and plays EQ like 8-10 hours a day. He threatens to go back to get his college degree every now and again, takes one or two classes here or there - but usually has some excuse on why he can't finish, goes back to playing f/t and just lives off his mom (who should clearly kiss his a*s out, but that's another story...)
While his story might be a bit more extreme than most, I don't think his is unique.
I just love it... (Score:3, Insightful)
What it comes down to it, dollar for dollar, 20 hours of Everquest a week is your best entertainment value, well, right after copyright infringement.
Addiction definition (Score:3, Informative)
An addiction is any behavior that someone does in preference to other things and which results in adverse effects on another aspect of their life (e.g. relationships, job, assets, etc). Both of those things are important. If you just prefer to do something but it's not causing a problem, it's not an addiction.
Note that there is nothing in the definition describing "withdrawal" or whether it's psychological or physical or anything like that. Most of those things come from people's half understanding of substance abuse terminology, and have nothing to do with it. There is confusion over "dependence" and "addiction", such that people can be addicted to drugs (using them and having life problems) and be either physically dependent (e.g. heroin), mentally dependent (e.g. cocaine) or neither, although the last one is rare with drugs (it more applies to things like gambling and such).
Really?!! (Score:4, Funny)
The average MMORPG gamer (addicted or not) spends 20-25 hours per week just playing MMORPGs, and an additional 10-15 hours per week in other Internet use. In other words, MMORPG players are spending 4x as much time online as non-gamers."
Wow! People wwith a hobby of online computer games spend more time online than people who have other hobbies. Now if only someone would do a study to find out if people with gardens spend more time outside than those with high definition TV's.
Re:MMORPGs is a lifestlye, not an addiction (Score:4, Insightful)
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
I have no idea how you can say playing CS 10 hrs/day is addiction, but playing a mmorpg for the same is a lifestyle. Semantic nonsense, I'm sorry. 50 hrs/week of gaming period (FPS, RTS, MMORPG) sounds like addiction to me, that's a freakin f/t job with overtime for pete's sake.
I'm a mmorpg player as well, but I would NEVER call it a lifestyle, it's entertainment, that's it. If it's a lifestyle, then it's a sad one.
Reminds me of Dan from the show Night Court who during a fit of self-loathing said "I don't have a life... I have a lifestyle."
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