Brilliant reporting this is.
I have to admit I sniggered a bit watching this video. You've just got to love someone who compares evil video games to marijuana!
That's not to say that video game addiction doesn't exist. But as Kevin mentioned in the lecture, it's like 30 years ago when people built model train sets and got addicted to it. It wasn't the poor TRAIN MODELS' fault! People are just messed up in the head (my sincere apologies to anyone who loves WoW).
Speaking of World of Warcraft, the game, to me, has become synonymous with addiction. There is always a certain percentage of people who've lost someone they know to WoW. I remember this guy in one of the classes I took years ago, he used to come in regularly and got quite good grades too. Then one day he started telling us how excited he was about getting this new game, World of Warcraft. I heard from him one more time after that, and it was all about how he's planning on conquering the iron market or something in the game... but after that, I doubt he's been out of his room.
The thing is though, I know plenty of people who play World of Warcraft and get enough social interaction as well. The game is intensely immersive, and I think when you go into it knowing that you're not going to get hooked, is when you are not.
The problem with the guy I knew was that he was generally worried about uni, more than other people. Playing a game where the objectives are easy was pretty much like the best form of escapism for him. The one time I saw him after he got into the game, he wouldn't stop telling me how great it was to play in a world where EVERYTHING is simpler. I just thought he meant that the game wasn't complicated like other, more difficult, games. Ah, little did I know!
So yeah, my point here is that gaming is not to blame when it comes to addiction. People get addicted to all sorts of things, and sometimes they can't stand them. My dad's a Soduku maniac, whereas I can't stand the whole thing. It really does depend on personality. I'll find something extremely addictive (currently it's got to be that Gravity Guy game on Miniclip), but someone else will just play it once and go 'why?!'
The weed comparison amuses me because it's exactly the analogy I assumed concern troll commentators would draw. As a dear friend of mine from back home would remind us, "Weed isn't addictive. It is habit forming."
ReplyDeleteThanks for doing legwork to confirm my preconceptions (and it supports your point, so that's a plus, too).