Video game addiction is an easy subject to write about — especially if you have a personal experience to share about your supposed ordeal. It’s hot, it’s current, and it stirs debates. It’s the right formula to create interest for an otherwise boring writer with very little to say.
Over the past few years, numerous writers have touched upon the subject, in an almost universally negative manner. Some of these articles had salient points, but most of them, just as they’re still being written, have little merit for even existing.
“Addiction” is but one of those words thrown around recklessly by two-bit bloggers who want to show off some hardcore gamer cred, often by mentioning the amount of hours they’ve spent in World of Warcraft, carrying it a trophy of their trauma.
It’s easy to pull an entirely arbitrary figure out of the air (or out of your ass) and write “You’re addicted to Game X if you play it for X hours a day,” but the truth couldn’t be any more different. In strict and simple terms, addiction is a dependency. It has to lock you in a state of mind and make you suffer for refusing to indulge in it. If you’re addicted, you’ll know it.
Equating video games to crack would be an insult to the average crack addict.
It needs saying that there’s a difference between genuine addiction to games, and simply having little else to do. For the most part, what some call ‘addiction’ consists of nothing more than enjoying what you’re doing, who you’re doing it with, and spending time with it. It may seem pointless, but it’s not too different from watching episodes of 24 back to back, despite knowing that Jack Bauer will stop the terrorists at the end of the day.
Reading some of these articles can seem insulting to your intelligence, so let’s just examine the single most common argument about the supposed ills of video game addiction and tear it to shreds.
“It’s a waste of your time and money.”
It’s worth noting that entertainment costs money, and video games are no exception. Spending hours with your head buried in textbooks and journalistic magazines may be a better expense of your time, but realize that everyone has different hobbies and no one should be expected to conform to a single model of spending your time and money.
It’s easy to draw an anecdote about someone you know, who’s given up their free time to pursue achievements on their 360 or bring up that one person you used to talk to every day before he lost interest with your banal personality and ditched you for his guild.
For every schmuck who turns into a veritable hikikomori, there’s a hundred others who are perfectly capable of balancing their daily forays into World of Warcraft with their pursuit of a career. It’s no more different than wasting away in front of a TV for hours after work.
No one will deny that genuine addiction does exist in the form of psychological dependence, but judging others for how they spend their time and money by labeling their harmless hobby an addiction only complicates the issue and makes it more difficult for those genuine addicts to seek help, and it serves to stigmatize otherwise normal people.
Simply put, there’s a lot of things you could be doing with your time, but wouldn’t you rather be having fun?
I think you nailed it.
I like to think I’m one of those people who perfectly balance WoW playing with other things: life, career, marriage and other videogames (what other games LOL!?! jk).
I must note however that I saw for the first time a actual instance of catassing. On an episode of Real Life: I’m addicted to videogames (on MTV) a woman was too busy playing Halo ODST (of all games..) to clean the cat box. The boyfriend comes in, smells it… is disgusted and has to clean the box himself. I always thought that was just one of those silly things on the internet, but apparently, catassing is real.
You know, it’s funny, but we never hear about other mainstream hobbies being addictions.
Why isn’t there a treatment camp for ESPN addicts? Who does intervention for trout fishing addicts? Can we please get some help for the Superbowl or the NASCAR or the fantasy football addicts? And there needs to be a 12-step program for muscle car addicts.
Very true. Although one could say that someone is addicted to a game because of his/her many hours spent on playing said game, the word “addicted” shouldn’t be used with such a direct meaning. As you’ve described in the blog itself, an addiction is not the same as the need or longing to have fun by spending time on something enjoyable. Same goes for couch-potatoes, blog readers, blog writers,etc. Saying someone who loves games is addicted to gaming, is like saying that a painter is addicted to painting.