Game Addiction a "National Health Problem" in Australia

[Radelaide]

Methinks Michael Atkinson is at it again. Can you honestly justify a gaming addiction? Yeah, I can understand being addicted to games like WoW, due to the game requiring such a heavy involvement to "level up" (or whatever the kids are calling it these days), but this is just another ploy to make Australia a censored, dull nation that thrives on conformity and normalcy.

 

[IxionIndustries]

Oh mercy me! I sit at my computer for more than eight hours a day! I've got a serious medical condition!
I need to go to Australia and gets me a Video Game Vaccine!

Methinks Michael Atkinson is at it again. Can you honestly justify a gaming addiction? Yeah, I can understand being addicted to games like WoW, due to the game requiring such a heavy involvement to "level up" (or whatever the kids are calling it these days), but this is just another ploy to make Australia a censored, dull nation that thrives on conformity and normalcy.

Australia will never be normal. Have you heard of the Giant Fucking Spider Outbreak?

 

[Labyrinth]

They can, and regularly do, run Counter Strike.

I'm talking about the laptops. I know that the Dells (Hah!) we have at school run Warcraft 3, UT 2k, Quake 3 and CounterStrike. Ahh, fun time.

 

[Silva]

This is hilarious.

If we Aussies said half of the stuff said about Australia in this thread about America, you'd all be up in arms wanting a flame war.

Hypocrites.

With that aside, I should point out that despite how "normal" or "lightweight" some of you think an eight hour session is, you'll all be complaining in your 40s about your terrible skin health and back problems. It's not a healthy lifestyle. It could be if balanced out with a good ten minute break every hour with ergonomic stretching, but such things are still in primitive form thanks to MMORPGs and other games that don't even allow you to pause or leave for a while, all for social reasons.

To the other Aus people: this is also a bad opportunity to bag the Rudd Government. After all, the Opposition Liberal Party would love to have already had this claimed about 20 years ago, not to mention banning waaay more games. That is, after all, what the Liberal Party does. Ban fun things.

We should simply be proud that this problem has taken this long to hit us, and ready to balance it out by setting a good example.

We have to remember that all things can become an addiction, from twiddling thumbs to picking nails to videogames to drugs to smoking to alcohol to eating. There's no action that we can do more than once in a lifetime that humans can't get addicted to. So if one of those actions becomes addictive on a wide scale, it makes sense to allow health companies to help those who have a problem. It's just stupid if we think that banning the action itself will solve addictive tendencies, which isn't the case with the Australian Government here.

I should also note here that the Herald Sun has a few issues with videogames because there is a gender divide between those that play games and those that read the Herald Sun. It's a question of pleasing their demographics that they report such things. "Psychologists say" indeed. But we all know how one faculty can get deterministic and decide that it should lord it over the others. It's just funny when psychology thinks it has the authority to boss medical associations around.

 

[Nanissimov]

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! THAT MADE ME LAUGH SO HARD! GAMING IS AN ADDICTION, WHAT NEXT?! LOLOLOL!

 

[Lost In The Void]

Man, what happend to you australia you used to be cool.

Hey Australia still cool...wait they made the whole world censor Fallout 3.....Australian people=cool
Australian Politicians =/= cool

 

[Brett Alex]

This may be confusing to people outside Australia, but this is one article in the Herald Sun.

I say again, The Herald Sun.

This is the same newspaper who publishes a column called "Go home darkie" (it might not actually be called that, but thats really what the writer is implying.)

I think thats all I need to say as to the validity and importance of this article. If it can be called that.

 

[I III II X4]

I know the Koreans are crazy about their video games but I didn't know the Auzies were in that big a predicament. It's most likely some overblown issue that's being turned into and issue during an election season.

* Ding-ding*

Somebody get this man a prize, he's got the answer.

Anyway, does gaming, without breaks, cause problems?

Yes it damn does. Now...would I call gaming a National Health Problem? No, no I wouldn't, however, sitting in front of a TV without moving for a few hours can do serious damage.

All they need to do is encourage the gamers to get active...maybe by playing laser tag...or just moving. Ultimately, its their bodies, though, their ruined forms do become a burden once the government and its citizens finds themselves paying for the health care of the crippled masses.

 

[smallharmlesskitten]

I don't blame them a bit. Seriously, what else can you do in Australia other than watching dingos eating Babies and playing video games. That whole bloody country is a goddamn desert.

So, they have a point.

Fixed

 

[RelexCryo]

As an Australian, I predict a rapid, misinformed and utterly pointless response from the Rudd government.

Oh wait...
He is the one who claimed that putting more computers in schools would be the foundation for an "education revolution"...

Man, what happend to you australia you used to be cool.

They heavily controlled Australia's guns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Australia

The governement basically got into a "safety before freedom" mindset. In a nutshell, I think that's what happened. I'm not saying making it illegal to own a desert eagle .50 cal made the country less brave or anything, but rather that the current mindset is more heavily focused on safety than freedom- and that is what lead to greater restriction of rights in general, including the talk about restricting the internet. There are a lot of people saying, "Human Life is so precious, the government needs to be able to control and resrict anything/everything to protect it." That basic philosophy has lead to several different forms of restriction.

Video game control is simply a natural result of that philosophy. "Safety before Freedom" means that if something might be dangerous, you control it, rights or no rights. In some of these interviews, he openly admits he is stepping on adult rights,

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/88986-Australias-Atkinson-OK-With-Restricting-Adult-Liberties

yet he argues that it is a small price to pay. That is the basic problem here- the Safety before Rights mindset.


Just my admittedly questionable 2 cents.

 

[manic_depressive13]

wow... what a joke...

I hadn't even heard of the Herald Sun until just now. I had heard of the Sun Herald though, so until people explained that it was a tabloid I assumed the Herald Sun was just from some backwards land where people wear hats on their feet. You know, Tazmania. But seriously I only read the Sydney Morning Herald because it's actually a REAL newspaper.

Besides, you can't really blame Australians for being addicted to video games considering we can't go outside or anything without being bitten by a funnelweb, or have a koala leap at our faces. Seriously, those things are like headcrabs.

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

Further proof that Australia just loves jumping on the bandwagon of idiotically-handled 'problems' long after the dead horse has been flogged mercilessly and turned into glue.

No, just the Herald Sun. Sydney Morning Herald is our real newspaper, Herald Sun is the equivilant of your tabloids.

Ah, I see. Makes sense.