Com 125: Assignment #14

Finally some freedom to rant about what I think is important. I'll make my view short and sweet.

"Some play themselves to death. Last year, the deaths of at least seven people were attributed to excessive game- playing. In August, a 28-year-old man died after nearly 50 straight hours of playing online games. In December, a 38-year-old day worker collapsed and died at an Internet café; his logs showed that he had played for 417 hours in his last 20 days." - International Herald Tribune

Do you see something odd about this?

Virtual Worlds are ruining the real world.

There. I said it. I'm prepared to burn at the stake. I see no good that comes from virtual worlds. I cannot think of one redeeming factor of these terrible advances in technology that makes them acceptable. People should be living in the real world, holding real jobs, and interacting with real people. I do not support the cop-out tactic of living vicariously through a virtual avatar and ignoring problems that effect people in the reality.

Addiction to these massive multiplayer role playing games is on the rise probably won't stop until something is done to prevent it. There is no single person to blame for this epidemic. I tend to blame parents, unless the player is a legal adult and can make their own life decisions.

An article submitted to the website Planetpapers.com, and written by a user dubbed 'guardianbooya' reads, "computer games are addictive because they create challenges that can be overcome." What happened to overcoming challenges in real life in order to feel successful? Shit, if I get an A in a class I feel like successful. If I were to play one of these games for 20 hours straight in order to kill some monsters, I think I would feel the exact opposite. No offense to anyone out there who plays these games, but seriously, get off the computer and come back down to planet Earth. Do something good for yourself, those around you, or your community, and then I will understand your feeling of success. To me, it seems that one's life is the worst thing that someone could possibly waste away. Sitting in front of a computer screen playing a game might be the biggest waste of time I can think of.

Some say that people get addicted to these games because it helps them escape the real world, and let them forget about their personal problems. Everyone has problems. In my eyes, to be selfish enough to become addicted to a game to escape them is no different than getting hooked on heroin to escape real life problems. Sane people are now devoting time and effort into developing rehab-like programs to ease people off of video games. So, the way I see it, not only do we have millions of people hovered in front of a computer screen wasting time when they could be doing something positive for the world, now we have researchers devoting their time to the rehabilitation of these people. WINK News reports, "China is expected to become the first country in the world to officially classify Internet addiction as a mental disorder."

A mental disorder. Internet and game addiction is now about to be considered a mental disorder. Right next to schizophrenia, OCD, and post traumatic stress sits Internet addiction. That is unbelievable. How could we have done this to ourselves? At lease with these other diseases, it isn't the person's fault. Those who are addicted to the Internet have done this to themselves. Is it bad that I don't feel sorry for them?


Sources:

1) Virtal Addiction. Planet Papers. Accessed Dec 5 2008. http://www.planetpapers.com/Assets/4191.php

2) Sang-Hun, Choe. Hooked on the Virtual World. International Herald Tribune. Accessed Dec 5 2008. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/11/business/addside12.php

3) Are You Addicted?. WINK News. Accessed Dec 5 2008. http://www.winknews.com/news/local/35188749.html