Image courtesy of the AMA.
The American Medical Association (AMA) has announced that there's currently no such thing as true clinical video game addiction, according to a Yahoo News article. Basically their current investigation states that more evidence is needed before a thorough decision can be made about whether video game "addiction" falls into the same category as alcoholism or substance abuse, both of which have external chemical substance components that feed the addiction. Hey, game industry haters, take a page from the AMA. Follow the Scientific Method and get more evidence before making judgement calls about whether games cause violence. Dr. Louis Krauth says it best in the article when he says:
"It's not necessarily a cause-and-effect type issue. There may be certain kids who have a compulsive component to what they are doing".
Yay for common sense!
Am I addicted to games? No. Do I know people that are addicted to games? No, but I do know people that spend a large amount of time playing games in lieu of other activities such as drinking, following sports, hunting, going to church, and other such more socially acceptable addiction-type behaviour. They get misclassified as being addicted to it because they spend a lot of time doing it.
I've been a game player for 25 years, and I'd say that I'm probably one of the most psychologically grounded people I know. I've been through phases when I played a lot of games over a period of time, and in particular times when a game just wouldn't allow me to let it go and I wanted to keep playing it. I've had the same reaction to various books, roleplaying games, board games, collectible card games, movies, television shows and all manner of other activities. Currently my big thing is collectible pirate ships. Go figure.
Some personalities are keyed to be termed "addicts", but if you look deeper you'll probably find that there's more to it. Today's socially awkward members find games an entertainment medium as well as a social medium that's often highly charged with competitiveness. Years ago, it would have been chess, comic collecting or miniature model painting that was the escape from the social "norm". If you look at sports fans, movie fans, music fans, fashion fans or any other type of fan, you'll see the same behavior exhibited in those areas as in gaming; when you really dig something, you really dig it. The big difference between gamers and those other groups is that we're not out in the open as much, or part of a larger clique (pronounced cleek BTW, and not click - damnable Americans have a French language hate-on all the time…).
Here in Buckeye State Ohio, there's quite frankly a rather disturbing allegiance to the Scarlet and Gray. It's nuts. People are part of the collective whether they're really interested or not. They just want to belong to something that others are a part of. The difference with gamers is that they operate the opposite way. Gamers are interested in something and then become part of the collective because the social stigma attached to gaming is different; gamers are seen as outside the norm and pro-actively join the social group through interaction whilst college football fans join because of social and business pressures in most cases as I see it.
So, say it loud and say it proud. We're not addicts. We're gamers. We just like things that are different from you, and we're cool with that, so you might as well be as well. If not, then tough, because in the next two generations coming up, the Geek will inherit the Earth.
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