Fitting it's on Vice. (Incidentally, I usually avoid Vice because of their knee jerk, sky-is-falling articles.)
First, I'm not dismissing the contents of the article: There are people who get addicted to anything. It just happens that games can be highly addictive to people with specific personality types, in certain age groups (sometimes not), or have less-than-stellar social skills. It's a problem, certainly.
Second, there's something dangerous about these kinds of articles. As usual with similar circumstances, we have the typical army of "we must do something"s who make demands of the medical profession (or government) in the hopes of combating such a horrible, horrible disorder. Here's the money quote:
The [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders] warns that such "persistent and recurrent online activity results in clinically significant impairment or distress," adding that certain neural pathways are triggered just like a drug addicts' would be when ingesting their substance of choice. To put that comparison in perspective, there could be about 1 million more diagnosable dependent gamers in America than coke addicts.
(Emphasis partially mine; "1 million more" is emphasized in the original.)
Yes, it's true there are people who go on gaming binges and die--like what recently happened this passed week in South Korea--but I'd argue that gaming addiction very likely has fewer overall deaths than highly addictive drugs or alcohol. I can't help but read articles like this and wonder to myself: Are we really living in a society where we have to legislate everything for fear it might hurt someone?
Then I read the warning labels on everything from posters to furniture kits.
Sigh.
So yes, doing too much of anything is bad, but if you're going to pick something, you might as well pick something that's less likely to harm others. If you're addicted to games and don't smoke, well, props to you.
Everything in moderation.
I still had to share this, though, because I had a hard time getting through this article without getting annoyed.
