Game Addiction Clinic Swamped 249
Via the Gamers with Jobs Press Pass, an article on The Australian site claiming that the Dutch gaming addiction clinic is swamped with fearful parents and glaze-eyed children. From the article: "Although experts are still debating whether excessive game playing counts as an addiction, Mr Bakker has no doubt that the symptoms are the same. 'If we see a car burning outside, we don't sit around wondering what to call it,' he said. 'It is not a chemical dependency, but it's got everything of an obsessive-compulsive disorder and all of the other stuff that comes with chemical dependency.' Tim, a 21-year-old from Utrecht, said he had hardly left his bedroom for five years because he was so obsessed by his computer games. "
Nothing like FUD... (Score:1, Insightful)
Where are the parents in all of this? (Score:4, Insightful)
His parents were frightened of him because, weighing more than 130kg, he was too strong for them to confront. Eventually they threatened to kick him out unless he enrolled for a month of therapy.
You're the parents, you make the rules. Pull the plug, take the computer away, do something, anything. You'd probably hit the roof if you caught your kid with a joint, but when he wants to wrap himself up in computer games you just fucking sit there and let it happen. That shit pisses me off. I hope this clinic is working with parents too to make sure they can control their child's behavior.
Re:Nothing like FUD... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where are the parents in all of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I quit my job due to game addiction... (Score:3, Insightful)
Overreactive parents (Score:5, Insightful)
I think for the most part it's a result of overreactive parents, combined with what I like to call "baby sitter syndrome" ("Why won't the public school teach my kids morals?!?! Why won't the gov't baby sit my kids?!?! Oh my, my kids are playing video games all the time, and I can't turn it off because they cry and scream and make a scene! I need a Gaming Clinic/Baby sitter to fix my kids for me!")
Disclaimer: I don't have kids of my own so the above is probably warped by views of other people who don't have kids of their own, not to mention stereotypes are rarely all-encompassing. Don't take it too personally. I was, however, at one point a kid, and I did have parents (who restricted my video gaming and computer time) so I think I still have some things to say on the matter.
Gaming for me was a phase. I always have enjoyed a good game, but it's not the same as it was when I was a kid. I would play games for hours on end, but now it seems my standards are higher or my attention span lower, because games don't tend to "hook" me as often as they used to.
I still enjoy a good game of course, but I think I'm still largely "gamed out" from when I was a kid.
Re:wha? (Score:2, Insightful)
People hooked on things that don't carry an external chemical componant, or are only very mildly chemically addictive, don't have that problem. Yes, addiction can be purely neurochemical, with nothing added to the system, but that isn't anywhere near as signifigant. People can get hooked on gaming, gambling, sex, religion, TV, violence or minimally addictive food or drugs like caffine or marjuana. Their problem is lack of willpower. Other addicts have the far more serious issue of major chemical dependancy, breaking away from which really does require a detox clinic, or support groups, or any number of other external sources of intervention.
I'm not saying that psychological addiction isn't real. It is. It's just not on par with what a serious addict has to deal with. Saying "Real addiction is all about lack of willpower" lumps cokeheads into the same category as people hooked on poker. And the people running this clinic are essentially lumping game addiction into the same category as drug addiction; this isn't fair to either the hooked gamers or the drug addicts.
Re:wha? (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2003, my best friend bought EQ at the urging of one of his co-workers. After two months of him nagging me incessantly to try it, against my better judgement, I did. Everything started out fine, him and I would log on for 2-3 hours a night to play together and that was it. About two months into it, him and I were asked to become officers in our guild. At the point you become an officer, you suddenly feel a whole lot more responsibility and you feel like you're important - everyone in your guild counts on you. Not long after, I became our raid leader and, given the absence of the guild leader for a long period of time, people began to see me as the guild leader as well. Eight months in, I was tagged with the guild leadership officially. I now had seven officers and in the neighborhood of 120 guild members counting on me to be there. By now, I wasn't playing 2-3 hours a day, I was playing 8-12 hours a day. It wasn't reality, but it felt real enough - I was important to people and interacting with "society." Along the way, I met a girl from the other side of the US and we had a fairly turbulent relationship(mostly due to her being bipolar), but we were in love and planned to get married. I knew that EQ was taking up my entire life, but my girlfriend was there and that's how we spent time together from 3k miles apart and I was the engine the drove hundreds of cogs. At our peak, we had 1039 tagged toons.
This spring, my relationship of two years ended with her and at the same time, the officers staged a coup as the pressures from EQ's death throes were mounting (yeah, EQ is dying, netcraft, server consolidations and mmogchart confirm it). About a month after I left the girl and my guild, I realized that I no longer had a reason to play and I simply logged off one night never to return again. That was three months ago last weekend.
For me, it wasn't a game I was addicted to, it was all the social interaction, feeling important and spending time with my gf. After years of being depressed, it was nice to be somebody even if it didn't mean anything in real life. After the way things ended, my biggest regret is that the things that helped me break that addiction didn't happen earlier. Oddly enough, despite becoming "nothing" again, I haven't been depressed and I find myself enjoying the mundane things in life that I neglected for 2.5 years. I still frequently think about EQ and some of the fun times I had in it, but I have no urge to play it anymore... and I deliberately avoid anything that might suck me into a similar situation again. In the meantime, I'm trying to rebuild my life even though I feel that I'm fighting an uphill struggle now at 29.
Our brains are an electro-chemical system and I would argue that the stimuli that make you feel important and good about yourself can be just as addicting as putting that cigarette up to your lips, especially when you and the rest of the world appear to have given up on each other. At 21, when you still have pretty much everything going for you and life hasn't completely knocked every one of your plans for the future out of whack, it's pretty easy to think idealistically about how everyone should be able to feel/be/do exactly like you.
Re:I quit my job due to game addiction... (Score:2, Insightful)
Now I restrict myself to raiding (Sun/Tues 6:30 thru Midnight and Mon/Wed 7:30 thru Midnight). I feel this is a pretty reasonable compromise.
I am again working full time...
When I quit I had saved up quite a bit of money and I just decided to live off that. Getting back into the work environment was a pretty serindipidious (sp?) event, an old friend called me and had a job opening, and I had decided I had to start working again.
offtopic: i don't understand why I was modded troll. I made a sincere and true comment that was related to the article.
Re:Nothing like FUD... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Game addiction is real but not a big deal (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nothing like FUD... (Score:1, Insightful)
Being a normal teenager is not a crime or a... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Self-control (Score:3, Insightful)
I ended up making 2nd in my graduating class of 360, got a full scholarship to an in-state public university, and graduated with a BS in Computer Science. That whole time during school I gamed a lot, and these days, I still game a lot (probably 3 hours per night) and manage to hold down a good job and do other things (I hunt/fish & fly small airplanes).
I just don't see gaming as the villain that people try to make it out to be.
Game addiction? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I quit my job due to game addiction... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where are the parents in all of this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where are the parents in all of this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on where you live and if you fear for your life with your kid. One of the major problems in inner cities on the east coast is many single mothers fear their 15-18 year old that is in a gang and is involved with drugs and guns.
So much to a fact that they fear if they stand up to their kids they will be physically hurt by them or a gang member. I remember reading in a newspaper about one single mom turned her kid into the police for robbery and it was heradled in the right direction for reforming children.
Of course I live in a city with over 300 murders per year and many people are killed for just being a "snitch" and many of the inner city poor are afraid to talk to the police, but I can understand when some parents actually live in fear their kids.
However... If your kid lives in surburbia and you afraid to discipline him from taking away your game cube because it will hurt his feelings then... Well you are bad parent.
Re:Where are the parents in all of this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe when someone is deciding how to handle a problem with their own child, doing anything isn't good enough? Maybe they want to do the right thing
It's odd to me that some Slashdotters take "the parents should be responsible" to mean "the parents should do all parenting alone". Parents are responsible for the behavior of their children, but if the behavior surpasses the parents ability to moderate/fix/heal, then why on earth should we mock the parents for seeking specialist help? Are we going to make fun of all youth counselors and child psychologists now because "You're the parent, you make the rule?" Part of holding parents responsible for their own children should be allowing them access to the tools they need to do that job right.
-stormin
Re:I can't go to the clinic... (Score:5, Insightful)
Likewise, a lot of retired people play golf all afternoon six days a week. Are they "addicted" to golf?
Gaming is just another form of recreation, and like any form of recreation, some lazy slobs will do it to the point in which it interferes with their various "obligations" (school, work, family, etc.)
That's hardly the same thing as somebody who suffers violent withdrawal symptoms when they go for a day without cocaine.
Re:wha? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why did it not 'mean' anything in real life?
Are the people on the other end of those guildies not real people?
Did they not enjoy your company/help/etc?
Perhaps they needed a connection with someone as much as you did?
Seems like you could be affecting real life, possibly more lives than otherwise.
--in the same vein--
What would be real life then?
Anything past eating,pooping,sleeping ? (and sleeping doesn't even FEEL all that real
Bowling with friends is more 'real' than questing with guildmates somehow?
etc
--You get the idea--
Sure we can't live online 24/7 and there is stuff we have to do. Doesn't make it any less real
Avatars are people too.......
come on (Score:2, Insightful)
When I was a kid my parents didn't put up with this behaviour. Playing too much video games? Cut power to my room! Harsh? I hardly think so.
I blame a lot of this kind of trash on pussy foot parents.
Parents have to be involved with kids. You can't raise a good kid though this bullshit of purely peace, love and happiness and "non aggression". Not to be confused with hitting children. Parents can't just let kids get away with things and think pills or avoidence will solve it.
Why is your experience not 'real life'? (Score:5, Insightful)
Before Everquest existed, I 'was somebody' online - ran a guild on a MUD (although not as big as yours), and eventually even ended up running the MUD itself. There were definitely some stretches where I'd often spend 16 hours a day on the computer.
But I've also 'been somebody' in real life too. I have a real job with real responsibilities and most of the people I work with I have met once, or no times at all, and interact with almost entirely via computer. I'm also the president of one national non-profit organization with a few thousand members I never see, and run another business with 30,000 customers I don't see either.
And I find that I often spend 16 hours a day on the computer.
Now, most people would consider my job, my non-profit, and my business to be 'real life', and I enjoy them. So why are people who enjoy spending 16 hours a day doing something else on the computer not doing 'real life'? I really can't think of anything that's much different between the 16 hours a day I spend playing networked computer games and the 16 hours a day I spend doing various forms of (enjoyable) work. And while you may have felt compelled to play more everquest because people were depending on you, how is that any different than me feeling compelled to go to work for the same reason?
Computer games are certainly no less productive than the time I've spent shooting pool at the bar. But somehow going out and shooting pool at the bar is OK while playing games at home is not - why? Also, why is someone who spends 16 hours a day reading books and/or watching TV considered to be doing 'real life'? All you're trading is a networked screen with a non-networked screen or page.
Playing on the computer a lot, in and of itself, isn't an addiction. It's only natural that you're going to do the things you enjoy doing as much as you can, and playing computer games isn't any different than reading or anything else, except people who do those other activities want to pretend their life is more meaningful than computer gamers I guess.
People need to understand what an addiction really is. If you are COMPELLED to do something so much that it interferes with your ability to pay your rent, feed yourself, or maintain relationships that are important to you, that's an addiction. If it consumes all of your free time, that's just recreation. And I think it's a tragedy to try and label someone an 'addict' just because of their prefered form of recreation.
Anyway, the time you spend on EQ was real life. And it wasn't because you were 'addicted', it's because you enjoyed it. Not playing anymore wasn't an addiction-ending event; you just stopped enjoying playing so you stopped playing. Simple as that.
Re:wha? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are a different person than you are then. The people you met while playing EQ were at different stages in their lives. Those who took it upon themselves to keep up with you after you left were affected as much or more by the in-game community as you. Those who didn't probably never saw it as more than a game anyway.
Re:Being a normal teenager is not a crime or a... (Score:2, Insightful)
And you know what we do with those kinds of kids? Give them drugs that fuck their brains up.
As a parent, one of the most disgusting things that I have seen in recent years is when I picked up one of my better half's "women's" magazines. I will refrain from giving out the name both in fear of lawsuit as well as the fact that they are practically all the same. Almost all the ads in that magazine are for drugs to "fix" your kids. Too hyper? Got a drug for that! Not able to concentrate? Yup, got one for that too! Are they not social? Drugs, drugs, drugs! And ho-lee SHIT have you seen the side effects on those poisons?!!?! Good god I'd rather my kid be a bit energetic rather than having nosebleeds, no appetite and vomiting everytime she actually manages to cram down a bite to eat!
Makes me wonder how we can tell our children to "Say no to drugs" all while filling 'em up with them. I guess as along as they bear the name "Glaxo" or "Merck" then it's perfectly fine.
Re:Where are the parents in all of this? (Score:1, Insightful)