Gaming Addiction?

[franticfarken]

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7KMMTNG

This is a small survey in order to develop a webpage for our school assignment, ironically we chose the topic gaming addiction.

If you have any arguments or views about this whether you think it's truthful; the effects of it, or if you had any moment in your life where you were addicted to something please feel free to make your statements heard.

When the website is completed, I will post it in this thread as well.

 

[Harlemura]

Filled that out for ya there, what a guy I am.

I did used to think I had a bit of a problem towards video games because it was basically all I'd do in my spare time, but that's just because there were a bunch of good games at the time.
League of Legends has proved to me that I can and will stop playing a game if I don't like it.
[sub]As long as I'm not being peer-pressured into it.[/sub]
[sub][sub]God I hate League of Legends.[/sub][/sub]

 

[J Tyran]

Gaming addiction is a very real thing, it can have some devastating consequences for the sufferers. People have played MMOs so much they have neglected children to the point of death, even sold their children to fund it. Other people have played games for such a long time over a very long period they have dropped dead at their game from a combination of fatigue and malnutrition.

Other people can lose jobs, wreck school or college and damage relationships. I personally had one gaming friend who played so much he neglected his wife just after she had a baby, their relationship broke under the strain and they got divorced. He just moved in with his brother... and kept playing.

The main thing to understand though is out of all of the 10s of millions of gamers only a tiny percentage end up with a problem that effects their lives to a large degree, the media hypes it up like its an epidemic and its simply not true. A larger percentage of people that drink alcohol, gamble or people with legitimate prescription medication get addicted and wreck their lives than gamers do.

Filled it in, thought it could have used a third option for some of the questions. Things like N/A or maybes etc.

 

[Bertylicious]

I've never bought into it to be honest. If a person is neglecting other aspects of their life, like feeding their kids or themselves, in order to play games then I'd say they've got an underlying problem which is manifesting itself through gaming.

What I mean to say is; if we got rid of gaming utterly tommorow, even getting rid of chess, cards, hopscotch and riddles, people with psycological problems are going to manifest through other means.

 

[Rastien]

I've never bought into it to be honest. If a person is neglecting other aspects of their life, like feeding their kids or themselves, in order to play games then I'd say they've got an underlying problem which is manifesting itself through gaming.

What I mean to say is; if we got rid of gaming utterly tommorow, even getting rid of chess, cards, hopscotch and riddles, people with psycological problems are going to manifest through other means.

Couldn't agree more, some of the people i used to play wow with claimed to have a wow addiction which in my opinion was rubbish as if they wern't playing wow they would only be playing some other game. Blaming wow for all their short comings was naive at best whilst the game can be addictive if they wern't playing that they would only be playing some other game simple really.

Which is why I never bought into the whole 'quitting' wow thing no one quits they just get bored and move on

 

[Angie7F]

I dont understand how gaming can be an addiction and can be seen as being problematic when there are just as many people out there who are obsessively hanging out with people.
My best friend is such an extrovert that I think it is an addiction to party, but it is always the introverted hobbies that get the blame.

 

[Nexxis]

Gaming addiction is a very real thing, it can have some devastating consequences for the sufferers. People have played MMOs so much they have neglected children to the point of death, even sold their children to fund it. Other people have played games for such a long time over a very long period they have dropped dead at their game from a combination of fatigue and malnutrition.

Other people can lose jobs, wreck school or college and damage relationships. I personally had one gaming friend who played so much he neglected his wife just after she had a baby, their relationship broke under the strain and they got divorced. He just moved in with his brother... and kept playing.

The main thing to understand though is out of all of the 10s of millions of gamers only a tiny percentage end up with a problem that effects their lives to a large degree, the media hypes it up like its an epidemic and its simply not true. A larger percentage of people that drink alcohol, gamble or people with legitimate prescription medication get addicted and wreck their lives than gamers do.

Filled it in, thought it could have used a third option for some of the questions. Things like N/A or maybes etc.

I agree with you. I believe that gaming addiction is a real thing, though I think there is a thin line between an addiction and irresponsibility. I have a family member that straddles that line. I don't really count him as having an addiction, but he has missed important dates and events so he could play games. This is a guy in his 40s with a wife and kids doing this. He's missed work to play games, as well.
I've had a few friends who were addicted to WoW. One blames it for making him lose a job and girlfriend. I didn't know him during that time of his life, so I have no idea if it's true or how bad it was. I had another friend who kept playing it even though he didn't like it. He would log in as invisible to IMs in the hopes of avoiding people so that they won't ask him to raid with them. One of his friends called him up in the middle of the night to lead a raid and he did it. I had to convince him to, at least, take a break from the game for his own health. Eventually, he did give it up and was better for it. While I don't think there is an inherent problem with WoW, I do think it can bring out bad behaviors in people. It and other Blizzard games are the only ones that I know of with a deathtoll (people playing those games to death).

 

[Gameguy20100]

Oh I do not like this topic I used to be a massive wow junkie.

I also don't like hearing about people worse than me because it's a chilling thought.

 

[franticfarken]

With regards to the survey, I completed it, but I feel the questions could have been worded differently. "Do games show impulsivity" is kind of ambiguous. (Sorry, don't have exact wording, it won't let me go back.) Having these answers as binary choices also made it difficult for me to answer, I would have preferred answering on a scale (strongly agree to strongly disagree).

Sorry about the extremely mediocre survey. We will get to work on modifying it as soon as possible.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Filled that out for ya there, what a guy I am.

I did used to think I had a bit of a problem towards video games because it was basically all I'd do in my spare time, but that's just because there were a bunch of good games at the time.
League of Legends has proved to me that I can and will stop playing a game if I don't like it.
[sub]As long as I'm not being peer-pressured into it.[/sub]
[sub][sub]God I hate League of Legends.[/sub][/sub]

I know your pain when it comes to LoL. It's a great game if you have the time to get into it, but I really don't have the kind of time you need to do it justice, and what's worse, many of my IRL friends play it. For a while there, I went through a period where it was just about all I could play, not because I wanted to, but because every time I'd sit down to play a game, some friend or another would be asking me to join a game with them. So, like, I'd go to boot up TF2 or something and wind up playing LoL instead.

OT: I guess game addiction exists in the same sense that, say, porn addiction does, but we're talking psychological addiction here, not physical. You can get psychologically addicted to pretty much anything, as long as it's pleasurable.