the brownhaze: the dsutbin of the internet

Addiction

According to this news story, a clinic has set up a in-patients scheme to treat kids with computer game addiction. It sounds daft doesn’t it? Unless, that is, you have ever been hooked on a computer game.

Many gamers have experienced addiction in varying levels. A well produced game will always have that “just one more go” or “just 10 more minuets” factor that makes you want to keep coming back. When you really get hooked on a game the symptoms become very much like any other addiction. I can speak from experience because I have been addicted to cigarettes (which thankfully, I have now quit) and I have been hooked on quite a few games.

I suppose the way I would describe this sort of addiction is a irrational desire for whatever it is that you are hooked on. In the case of cigarettes, your addiction always tells you that if you have another smoke you will feel so much better then you do now, even when the situation is quite the opposite. Anyone who has been a smoker will be familiar with lighting a cigarette only to put it out after having a few puffs because they really don’t want it. Further to this, I recall that this delusion can be so strong that when I was laid up with a bad case of gastric flu (coming out both ends, inability to stand up without holding on to something, you know the sort) I would still attempt to smoke every few hour in the bizarre belief that this will make me feel better.

This can also be the case with computer games. When I have been hooked on a game it becomes quite irrational, for instance, while I may have been playing the game solidly fro a few days, when a mate rings me up to go to the pub I seriously think about blowing them out to continue playing this game, although you can be pretty sure that I will go to the pub when given this choice, I’m not that much of a sad loser.

To give you some idea of what this kind of addiction can be like, One of my worst addictions was a few years ago to a game called Spell Force, all elves, dwarfs and the that. I had some time off of work around about the time of WOMAD a few years ago, and all I did, apart from going to WOMAD was to play this game. Some days I would get up at 09:00 and played it until around 23:59, pausing only for toilet breaks and to quickly consume what ever food was required to stop me passing out.

Not what I would call a balanced way to spend my free time.

Computer games can be like drugs in other ways. When you play them you get a high, when you are in the throws of an addiction to a game you have an irrational drive to play the game over other, more sensible, things. When you stop, you have a hangover.

The gaming hangover isn’t like an alcohol hangover, in fact, its not too bad at all, unless, that is, you have to talk to anybody. After a long session on a game you end up as a sort of mindless zombie who does not poses the ability to communicate with other people (as by Bird knows all to well), you can be moody and grouchy. Woe betide you if you are in this state when you go to bed, you are not going to get a good nights sleep.

Then there is what I call “computer game psychosis”. This is a condition brought about by playing a first person perspective shooting game (like doom, half-life, unreal, quake, that sort of thing) for extended periods of time. The mental barrier that separates the real world for that of the game you have just been playing is temporarily weakened. You may find yourself walking down a normal street subconsciously checking windows and rooftops for the “enemy”, or thinking that you should “save” before crossing a road, really stupid. Thankfully this is a short lived condition.

For me, these addictions are quite short lived and, once I am over it, I tend to not play any computer games for quite a while afterwards. That is my experience of computer game addiction, nothing that I would have to go to the priory for I am sure you agree. I dread to think of the state some of these spody (almost exclusively male) kids are in when they are admitted. These will be kids with no friends who have been brought up on the Playstation as apposed to the ZX Spectrum of my generation, kind of like the difference between cannabis and heroine.

I can stop any time I want…. Cant I?

Labels: links, soap box

Thursday, June 01, 2006