Have you ever saw a person on Cops being arrested for selling their body for money? They are dressed up like a crackhead, clothes dirty, face covered with sores, orange Cheetos stains all over their gray sweatsuit and when the officer breaks them down and they finally admit why they are doing this, have you ever heard, "I needed money to help my addiction. I'm addicted to MMORPGs."
I understand that these types of games are highly addictive and I have seen people, my old guitarist for example, spend months in his basement unemployed, playing for hours on end, never seeing the light of day, and considering buying adult diapers all for the game of WoW. Nine months later he snapped out of his WoW coma and deiced to rejoin the real world. He never did any harm to anyone around him, he still took awesome care of his kids, although he had his week moments with the adult diaper thing but honestly, how could we classify this as addictive?
How many kids each year find one toy and become completely obsessed with it? Remember back when you were four or five, there was that one toy that went everywhere with you. That one toy became your life as you spoke for it, moved it, and interacted with it. But as with any toy or game, you grew out of it and moved on. At one point you were addicted to the toy, so should the phrase 'addict' be applied to a child who plays constantly with a toy? MMORPGs are toys, they entertain and at one point, you'll grow out of playing them.
I do understand that there are the rare cases where people cannot overcome the addicting nature of playing a MMORPG game. In a previous article we have read in this class that dealt with sending these 'addicts' to rehab that cost almost ten times as much as a years subscription to WoW, family members stage an intervention and save these gamers. But should we be associating the words addict, addiction, and rehab with the video game world? Here is another way to stigmatize the whole gaming society so that mothers in Utah can ban together and overact, taking their translucent cases all the way to DC, making a false stand on how MMORPGs cost their sons a chance to get into BYU when they really had no drive in the first place to go to college.
I suppose there is no real way to keep people who play MMORPG games from becoming an 'addict'. Gamers who have that addictive personality will continue to play until they collapse and go into convulsions; seriously, did anyone check to see if this kid had any previous medical conditions? If you know someone who seems to be addicted to these games, talk to them, explain your concern, recommend seeing a doctor and if they refuse, well you can't save everyone. They made their own choices in life and these are their consequences that go with it.
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I wondered the same thing as your last statement. Where were this kid's parents? Obviously, we can't stop grown adults from doing as they please, but parents should be more attentive to their children. Honestly, tell the kid "no", the follow temper tantrum is not going to kill you.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the previous mental conditions as well at times. If you know that your child easily get addicted to things or has no self control then why would you buy that child a computer? Seriously if people just used their heads once in awhile then so many problems could be avoided.
ReplyDeleteI think there are a lot of people with addictive personalities. But those people aren't so prominent in society as a lot of politicians and 'concerned parents' make them out to be. I fall into a mode of 'one more level' on a lot of games, especially MMORPGs. Does that make me addicted? No. On the other hand, there's people like my ex who have the desire to do nothing but sit at home, smoke pot, and play WoW. Literally, no desire to do anything else. Those people are addicted, but I think it's a flaw with the person and their social structure rather than something innately dangerous about anything like a videogame.
ReplyDeleteTo build on the previous comments here, firstly, most parents are oblivious to youth culture. Even in an age where parents themselves probably grew up with the same tech their children now use, they still remain ignorant to the youth culture itself. But if I remember my story, and I could be wrong, the kid's parents were completely apathetic. The man who died was playing at a korean computer center, kind of like our coffee shops I think, but you know, for games. It usually boils down to kids not having involved parents, but when it's an adult there does seem to be addictive elements that contribute to people spending their lives in front of the monitor.
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