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Video: Addicted To Video Games?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Health Care, Technology, Video

Just FYI, some people have died after marathon sessions playing games like Everquest and World of Warcraft.

Sad but true.

It’s good to see the psychiatric community is addressing this before it gets even more out of hand.

Now if we could only have a more open discussion about mental illness in this country…

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 and is filed under Health Care, Technology, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Video: Addicted To Video Games?”

Jeremy Says:
July 6th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Yeah! this is pretty funny stuff. I’ve even heard that some of these “competitive gaming venues” have reserved the right to do on the spot drug testing if they suspect a player is under the influence of any banned substance. Some venues claim that they have had few instances but nonetheless instances where drugs like methamphetamine were suspected of being used to gain and edge on competition. They think this is happening because the stakes and value of first place finishers has become increasingly more valuable over the past few years and that people by nature will try to cheat the system where they can. Video games aint your momma’s PAC-MAN of yesteryear, it’s a matter of life and death now :)

Concerning mental health in America. We got the best mental health care system in the world. It’s called the state and federal penitentiaries.
Daniel Merritt Says:
July 6th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Without denying that there’s something wrong if somebody routinely plays a game for days on end, there seems to be too much focus on the ‘video games’ and not enough focus on the ‘addiction’. I think fear of new technology and nostalgia for the ‘old days’ makes a lot of people think the issue is confined to computer gaming, and that the solution must involve dealing with games. Anything taken to extremes is an addiction; it seems strange that we would define dropping out of school to just play video games as a psychiatric disorder but not dropping out of school to just play basketball constantly.
Justin Gardner Says:
July 7th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Concerning mental health in America. We got the best mental health care system in the world. ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s called the state and federal penitentiaries.

Sad, but seemingly true.
Justin Gardner Says:
July 7th, 2007 at 1:51 am
Anything taken to extremes is an addiction; it seems strange that we would define dropping out of school to just play video games as a psychiatric disorder but not dropping out of school to just play basketball constantly.

Ummm, no.

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