Addiction to Online Gaming Growing Among Young People
Addiction to online games is becoming more widespread among young people, according to a treatment center in Britain.
Owen Bowcott of the UK’s Guardian writes that as games become more visually enticing and the recession leaves people at home in front of computer screens, therapists are encountering more cases of people being addicted to these activities.
Therapists warn that in extreme circumstances, players can become detached from normal existence and forget to eat or sleep as they interact with screen characters such as wizards and monsters. People can also develop posture problems.
Broadway Lodge, a residential rehabilitation center in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, that normally deals with alcoholics and drug addicts, has recently treated a 23-year-old for his addiction to online games.
"He was staying online for seven or eight hours at a time. We developed a treatment for him which followed the 12-step [abstinence] approach, but you can't tell someone never to use the Internet again. He had eating issues, he wasn't eating properly. He did very well. He has…the mechanisms now to cope with it,” said Brian Dudley, the center's chief executive.
"The problem is not just restricted to young kids. We know parents who are hooked on these things. It's only a small percentage of people who get addicted but it's also only a small percentage of people who gamble too much. I don't know anybody else who is treating [such cases] in this country. There's no helpline," he added.
Peter Smith, another counselor at Broadway Lodge, said: "It's not unusual for people to get so obsessed with online gaming that they forget to eat and drift towards an anorexic and undernourished state. You can play online with people around the world, so it can be at odd times of the day—when it's 5pm in Chicago or evening in Japan. You have a relationship with characters in the game that give you an artificial feeling, created by your body's natural endorphins, when you have killed some monster or solved a problem."
Online Gamers Anonymous classifies "massively multiplayer online roleplaying games" as being the most addictive. Their website reads, "Success in these games is highly dependent on the amount of time you put into them. Playing the game casually will leave you trailing behind others who put in more time, possibly making you feel as if you aren't as good or are falling behind."
These games "encourage interaction amongst other people and development of groups, allowing people to flourish socially online, providing an escape for their struggling social life"; however the games could also ruin a "successful social life."
