Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, Halo, and World of Warcraft are familiar names to nearly all of us. They are all best selling games of major video game consoles. Over 19 billion dollars were spent on video games in the United States during 2009 alone (http://vgsales.wikia.com). Video game consoles are present in 65 percent of homes in the United States (http://www.geeksaresexy.net)! With the increasing amount of time that people are spending on video games, one is left to wonder, is possible to become addicted to video games? Do we need video game addiction to be an official diagnosis? Yes, because if it is its own separate diagnosis there will be more focused treatment.
Anyone old enough to remember Video Arcades will probably remember when video games cost a single quarter to play. Yet there were always those who managed to spend entire days playing with only a few dollars. Even in the early days of video games there was evidence that people were becoming hooked. Whether video game addiction is an official diagnosis is disputable. Certainly there are people who play a great deal, but the question revolves around whether the players suffer. Compulsions, cravings, and withdrawals are all associated with the word addict. Addiction has been defined as "being abnormally tolerant to and dependent on something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming" (http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu). With the use of the less technical definition of addiction, pathological use that is damaging, then video games are certainly addictive. Here are some of the symptoms associated with Video game addiction.
Psychological Symptoms
Feelings of anger and frustration when not allowed access to the video game
Loss of interest in p...
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...s there can be more focused treatment, and with an official diagnosis more people would be aware of the problem at hand. Those addicted could finally get the proper treatment they need.
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As a result, it raises the question whether playing video games excessively is an addiction or not. There are arguments that are made that correlate addiction with video games; however, there is no such addiction. There is no such addiction due to external issues, personal issues and flawed case studies.
...ple, how addicting they can be, but overall they have more positives than negatives. Video games train people, control violence and anger, and improve brain functioning ability, which by far outweighs any negative arguments against video games.
Massoud, Justin. “Video Game Addiction – Five Extreme Cases.” Asylum For All Mankind. Aol Inc. 3 November 2009. Web. 5 May 2014.
Addiction has been defined as "A primary, chronic disease, characterized by impaired control over the use of a psychoactive substance and/or behavior. Clinically, the manifestations occur along biological, psychological, sociological and spiritual dimensions (2)." While there is currently no category for video game addiction in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3), which is the manual utilized to diagnose psychological disorders, video game addicts are often described by clinicians in the field as displaying many symptoms characteristic of other addictions. These behaviors include failure to stop playing games, difficulties in work or school, telling lies to loved ones, decreased attention to personal hygiene, decreased attention to family and friends, and disturbances in the sleep cycle (4). Withdrawal symptoms can even include behaviors as severe as shaking (5).
First of all, you should keep in mind that video/computer game addiction is not an official DSM-IV diagnosis but many institutions worldwide do researches about the problem. According to the Brown’s (1997) component model the symptoms must be present for a significant period of time in order to indicate addiction . The symptoms are social withdrawal, preoccupation with computer games and lost of interest in other activities . Although many gamers won’t realize that they enclose from their social circles, their friends and families are usually the first to notice. For example, you call your friend to go out with you as you do every Friday, but suddenly he often starts to come up with excuses not to. After a while you find out that he started to play this video game and he always talks about that. You become aware that something is happening with your friend. Peter Yellowlees, M.D. psychiatrist in UC Davis Health System says: “The best way of finding out if somebody has a problem is looking at how much time they spend on the games themselves. If that spending time is actually affecting their live and causing them to do or exclude other things, that’s a...
...Walsh suggest that moderation is the key to dealing with an addicted adolescent, limit the amount of time they play the game, and ensure that their priorities are taken care, school work, chores, or family time. If this does not work than Walsh recommends removing video games completely. Additionally Walsh argues that if people are partaking of media, movies, video games, or surfing the web, they are not outside playing, or participating in sports. They are not getting enough exercise, which can lead to obesity, diabetes, and other health related issues. Video games can be a positive aspect of adolescent or adult life, the key as in most things is moderation.
When you think of children playing video games you probably think of a child sitting in front of a TV or monitor for hours on end. This is not the case with a lot of games. Now while there may be a fair amount of children who do this there are a lot who know how to moderate their gaming and exercise. Some medical professionals have actually recommend patients to play video games as part of their treatment.
Studies have shown that there is a wide variety of physical and behavioral effects that video games can have on their players.
People who are addictive tend to obsessively go on online and follow up one of their role models or to play videos to create different characters in the virtual world. One of the mains reasons of why people become addicted to the internet is so they can escape their realities. People, who usually had unfortunate childhoods, try their best to find a way to become distracted with their own life. If they are not happy with themselves, they play videos games to create characters online or they obsessively update themselves on others that they wish they could be. Another reason why people become obsessive because it is a way for them to meet others online that share the same interest. From personal experience, my father used to have an obsession playing “World of Warcraft.” If he had the choice to, he would not leave the house and would play until he had to go to sleep, rinse and repeat. In a military family, it was common for us to constantly move around and for my father it was difficult in finding friends. My father would mostly play the game to find others that had the same interests that would keep him company. If my father didn 't realize how badly the game had corrupted his lifestyle, the addiction may have became more
Video games are often portrayed in a negative manner because they are seen as having an "addictive" quality. Addiction has been defined as "A primary, chronic disease, characterized by impaired control over the use of a psychoactive substance and/or behavior. Despite the wonderful benefits games offer as diversions, spending too much time, to the neglect of normal life duties, and social development with direct contact with others can and often does happen. Clinically, the manifestations occur along biological, sociological, spiritual and especially psychological. Some psychological effects that affect the behaviors are failure to play outdoor games, difficulties in work or school, telling lies to everyone, decreased attention to personal hygiene, decreased attention to family and friends, and disturbances in the sleep cycle. Many video game addicts have strug...
Tamsyn, Burgmann. "GAMING ADDICTION A GROWING CONCERN." Record, The (Kitchener/Cambridge/Waterloo, ON) n.d.: Canadian Reference Centre. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Game addicts cannot go on about that day without playing a game. They will spend at an average of twenty-four hours a week on gaming alone. Many game addicts forget about the everyday basic necessity such as eating, bathing and sleeping and continue on their games. Seungseob lee, a gamer addict who did not take care of himself, “played Starcraft for more than fifty consecutive hours at an internet cafe before suffering a fatal heart attack” (DAnastasio). The game addiction’s danger to health is tremendous mostly among adults and teenagers that are not under adult supervision. A solution to the game addiction problem would be simply prevent the person from accessing the game, but that also causes major problems. Brett, a gamer addict, thought of suicide when he wasn’t allowed to play his video game. He states, “At the time [I] felt anything had to be better than not being allowed to play Counter Strike” (DAnastasio). Brett ended up getting depression and started failing his classes. Brett cut himself away from the world and won’t even come out of the room. Excessive gaming can also “. . . induce pseudo hallucinatory-like experiences” (Clark). It happens when the gamer gets off the game after a long hours of playing. The gamer feels as if he or she is still in the game. One game addict claims to see and hear the zombies out the window of his home. These hallucinations can cause serious psychological and
Video games are not considered as a serious addiction amongst teenagers and adults, often being compared to severe cases of addiction, such as drug abuse or alcohol abuse that may result in the appearance of a decrease in the severity of the addiction. However, video game addiction is a serious matter and has unhealthy consequences for an individual 's life and their health; spending too much time playing video games can take a great toll on one 's physical and mental well-being. Continuing unhealthy patterns of video game activity for prolonged periods of time can result in mental health issues, physical health problems, and a decline in a social life.
Several years ago, technology and child’s play were not such as extremely developed as today. Thousands of teenagers have video game as their primary form of entertainment at home. The disagreement about violent video games is because they focus on several subjects such as violence scenes, pornographic content, racism and other resources. For many years, researchers have been debating if video games can cause dependence or not. However, an expert, Jack Flanagan believes video games have a really negative effect on a person’s life and even for children. Jack states that video game addiction exists, and can have the same effects as drugs and alcohol (Netzley 36-37). This shows that video game addiction can be like other addictions
Video game have been claimed as addictive, a waste of time, and a distraction. While this does apply to some people, others have found the benefits to playing video games. These benefits include simulating working environments, helping people escape working environments, and giving great experiences. Although these benefits seems to be beneficial, it still stands that video games are a waste of time in which other things can be more productive.