Talk:Video game addiction

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This looks like a shoddy copy+paste from a right-wing anti-game article. User:SpawnOfEvil

Contents

[edit] "Possible Causes"

It doesn't explain the causes of addiction. More work definitely needs to be done on this section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.89.155.119 (talk) 08:02, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible Causes section is not only grammatically pathetic, but is inherently contradictory. Fix it. 142.179.73.188 (talk) 01:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Citation Needed"

I honestly think people sometimes put the 'citation needed' markups just to be a-holes...I mean some of the things people put them after are just ridiculous. "The sky is purportedly blue in most areas of the Earth, and some even report it having clouds![citation needed]" --NLUT

Fair enough, but if you're going to say it's a proposed form of psychological addiction, you might as well prove that someone's actually proposing it, etc. In your example, we're looking at common knowledge. Also, if you need proof, in most places looking up outdoors will prove the statement, so this is an easily verified statement too. In this example, we're looking at hearsay. -Caudax 05:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Whoever wrote this article is plainly and simply a dumb ass. 2*31=62 and 3*31=93. 93 and 61 DO NOT correspond with the 140 hours. So which is it, 140 hours or 62-93 hours. I mean seriously before you write something that other people are going to try and use to learn please please please do your damn math, especially if it is just simple multiplication and division.

[edit] Regarding the Stub template

I notice that I hadn't mentioned why I flagged it as a stub. The reasons for that are as follows:

  • First, the only sections that seem to be worth keeping are In popular culture, See also, and External links. So we've effectively got a sufficient lack of content.
  • Second, as per WP:Stub, "Another way to define a stub is an article so incomplete that an editor who knows little or nothing about the topic could improve its content after a superficial Web search or a few minutes in a reference library." For evidence, see [1] and [2]. Front page of a search for "game addiction".

Before this goes back and forth, please discuss it here. -Caudax 05:42, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding Infobox Hell

While there is some obvious aesthetic displeasure involved in this edit, I felt that it was necessary to include these templates. There is definitely good reason behind having an article like this, but right now it is suffering from too many flaws, among which are:

  • Article is biased towards assuming that video game addiction simply exists in the way it handles the subject matter. It acknowledges there is debate, but, aside from that acknowledgement, ignores it altogether. This is regarding the neutrality issue.
  • Article contains weasel words.
  • A lot of this stuff comes from seemingly nowhere. This causes both problems with citations and original research.
  • Article doesn't read like an article. It needs clean-up.

To be honest, the article's current state is basically horrible. -Caudax 00:38, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, I'm going to see if I can redo this article in the next few weeks. Also, remember to put new topics at the bottom of the page. --Ubiq 05:24, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
This article still looks to me like it's got a lot of room to improve before it could be called unbiased.
For example we imply that "video game addiction" and "video game overuse" are the same thing. The wikipeadia article on addiction says "An addiction or dependence is a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity". And as far as I can reason, addiction would mean that it's an obvious thing to define and diagnose once the guidelines are laid out and proven. While overuse is a term that could mean anything. Is one cup of coffee a day overuse? Is ten? Is a hundred?
I'm also removing "According to the synthesis of research presented to the American Medical Association in June of 2007, those who overuse video games often find themselves more successful in conducting virtual relationships than real world relationships.[8] A 2004 study on internet addicts, which population includes online gamers, found four common indicators: (1) shyness, (2) lack of spiritual faith, (3) belief that others are controlling their lives, and (4) an elevated belief in chance as an influence on their lives.[19] as it's under the heading Possible causes which it doesn't seem relevant to. If someone wanted to reuse the scentence elsewhere then I would ask that they fix the misuse of "real world" I know it's a casual distinction term between the internet "world" and the planet earth but it's a term that is blatantly misleading and connotates (or is it connotes?) the fallacy that people on the internet aren't as real as the people that live next door to me.--ASA-IRULE 06:24, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article needs some work

I think we both agree that this article definitely needs some work. I think it comes from a well-meaning point of view but I'm unsure whether it can be salvaged in current form. So much POV and un-encyclopedic style, my head hurts :)

I'm adding the pages needing attention tag, hope that helps somehow. Goodralph 07:57, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I've added {{disputed}} and {{POV}} tags to the article. Honestly, I don't think it can be salvaged at all, although that doesn't mean we should VfD it, as there ought to be an article on this subject. However, this article is a great example of exactly how not to write a good Wiki article, and beyond the actual quality of writing, I'm 99.9% sure that at least one of the images in the article is a copyright violation. Junjk 19:37, 31 July 2005 (UTC)


3/08/2005 I think the chalenge will be finding someone who uses the internet and has an interest in writing an article about not spending so much time on computers.

I just changed the summary of the article. The claim of an invasion of addiction seemed a bit radical. Reference to goblins, fireball and fragging are also not relevant to the issue, as they relate more to gamer culture than to the actual problem. The intro needs a lot of work, the story of little Joe, although entertaining, is clearly not encyclopedic. However, the school vs. game addiction topic is very relevant and should be expanded. More to come from me. Feel free to keep improving it. --Uberfrank 20:07, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

8/7/05

I seem to be the only one that recalls that Wikipedia is not the place for original theory. Much of this article is speculation, not fact, and the article fails to highlight that this is a new and highly disputed topic. Furthermore, information about game genres belongs in the game genre section, not here. I could go on - there shouldn't be sections that are 'Coming Soon,' there are parts that are clearly unecyclopedic, and there are even parts that insult the reader's intelligence - but suffice to say I'm deleting everything except a modified version of the opening paragraph.

If anyone reading this wishes to expand upon it, please, please do your research and cite the articles you're quoting; otherwise, we just have an argument and a series of outright accusations. --Bobquest3

Hmm I'm not fond of the article to be honest, quite a few of the points are conjectures at best, and deviate from the point of an encyclopedia, which is to provide factual/documented information in a scientific manner. PoVs do not belong in an encyclopedia unless in context (for example, a citing a PoV within a historical event). --Mendietta 21:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


Lamoxlamae 01:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I tried my best to clean up the article and make it more objective and less emotionally-swayed as well as to ephasize that Video Game Addiction is currently speculated with little research done into it as of yet. The area on "reported cases" has been completely removed as it was distracting and nearly-impossible to verify as actually being caused by gaming addiction and I added a section on possible symptoms of gaming addiction. The beginning has been restated to be clearer and less emotional as well.

The page, however, still could use a little more verification if anyone is up to finding out if any group has actually been researching video game addiction as an actual addiction! :)

[edit] Proposal to merge to Computer addiction

Looking at the two articles, it seems that there is a lot of overlap. The other article isn't very good either, and I think merging the two would be beneficial. Nifboy 04:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the proposal. Video Games are played on numerous platforms, not necessarily just computers. Heyfoureyes 17:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, but I understand where you're coming from. This article needs to be put in better wording, at the moment is just seems to be discussing addiction to online gaming such as MMORPG's. However I do think the articles Computer_addiction and Internet_addiction_disorder need to be merged, or sorted out somehow. --Code E 11:25, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree as well. They're very similar in nature, but as we've seen, video game addiction sometimes leads to other problems, such as acts of violence like Counter-strike players attacking each other after playing each other at a cyber cafe or Korean MMORPG players dying due to self-neglect. There are some interesting end-results here, which I think warrant a seperate section. --Roy Laurie 22:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

While I agree with your other statements, acts of violence at a Counter-strike LAN can't quite suggest that the game playing itself caused or "lead to" the violent behavior. While seeing violence and/or participating in agressive games (football, rugby, soccer, etc.) can correlate with violent behavior, we should be careful not to imply causation, especially when saying something like "video game addiction sometimes leads to [acts of violence]", when in fact many addictions can "lead to" violence. --Ubiq 09:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Article is totally one sided. Makes it seem that playing the game is just an addiction when many other reasons lead to over playing a game one already likes. Like not being treated by your spouse as you would like. I am speaking from experiance

Have you considered mergeing all 3 into sections under the title Technology addiction or Computer and console addiction? or some other all round title. Small highly related articles spread out like this don't do much for the encyclopedia (remember to always view it from that point) as people searching for gaming addiction may well enter computer addiction. As a single article (but in subdivided sections) this would become a much stronger piece. --Errant Tmorton166(Talk)(Review me) 21:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I think theese articals have alot of overlap and changing the title to incorperate all of them would help an average person and make wickipidea more user-friendly. Bfissa 17:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree as well. Let's do it. --DanielCD 18:23, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the possible merging of the two articles as "Gaming Addiction" relates directly to the cause. Also the chemical reaction in the brain is the result of the title of the article and not that of "Computer Addiction". In my opinion there should be more on the article describing the public reaction, i.e. how the ones affected by it feel, and how the majority of people view those who are addicted. Also how the relation of deaths relate to the games themselves, whether they are violent, or encourage a sense of fictional settings as with the addiction. I also moved the section of "6year old harry burned his house down whilst his family was sleeping because they took his computer away from him after playin 24 hours space raders game". It lacks detail to any possible real event and could be vandalism, perhaps an attempt to direct a personal insult to someone. --Aeryck89 18:35, 19 September 2006 (UTC)


I also disagree with merging. Game addiction is a subset of computer addiction, but it has some unique attributes that do not apply to other types of computer addiction, and it is definitely significant enough to deserve its own article. Edrigu 16:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I also disagree due to the very fact that video game addiction is NOT solely a subset of Computer Addiction. If you look at Video Games you will see that it also includes Consoles and Arcade Machines and many other ways of playing video games other then computers. -- User:Lab_Dragon 16:11, 27 October 2006 (EST)


Someone can be addicted to their computer without being addicted to games - IRC channels as an example. I disagree with merging the two articles. This article should actually be renamed to Digital game addiction, since Game addiction should encompass physical games as well (like football or rugby). --Mendietta 21:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly disagree that the articles be merged. First, I should mention that I have studied this matter extensively over the past two years, and that of all the psychology related articles I've come across on Wikipedia, this one is one of the most disappointing. Secondly, there seem to be some misconceptions that need to be cleared up. Game addiction is not a subset of computer addiction. As someone already stated, games can be played on multiple platforms, including PC (usually online but not always) and console (sometimes online, but traditionally not online). The biggest problem that needs to be addressed is differentiation (and understanding what is different about each addiction). Any games played online are likely going to have extra aspects that can be addictive (socialization, competition). These are aspects that most (offline) games don't have, and why it has been suggested that online games (MMORPG games for example) have such a much higher addiction rate (because there is a higher psychological basis for addiction). The following is a suggestion as to how the articles be divided and written:

Online gaming addiction - would have sections for research on MMORPG, FPS, RTS, and other types of games. Would discuss psychological and physiological (chemical) aspects of the addiction. Since this is a relatively new addiction, it might be appropriate to include research on addiction rates and other relavant things (like history, however short). A good place to start for research is Nick Yee. Look up the Daedalus Project, as he's got piles of research on the matter. There are also other notable resources and if I get the time, I might try to add them in here (or maybe just create the article myself).
Gaming addiction (offline) - would mention the physiological aspects of the addiction (increases in NT levels like dopamine), discuss rates (which I doubt would be very high), and perhaps history. I couldn't see this article being very big, as offline gaming addiction hasn't been highly reported or researched.
Internet addiction - would include chat rooms, forums, social networking sites (Myspace, facebook), other websites like Wikipedia (wikipediaholics), and YouTube (I've noticed multiple people on there admitting to being "addicted", whether they really are or not). Focus would be on socialization as one of the main aspects of the addiction.
Computer addiction (offline) - I'm sure this hasn't been reported or researched much but it does exist. As to where to start or what would be included, I really don't know. In fact, it may not need to be written at all.

Again, these are just suggestions, but the main two to focus on are Online gaming addiction and Internet addiction, as they are much more common and researched. Additionally, I think it is important that those involved in the writing of these articles to have some prior, and in-depth knowledge of addiction in general. It boggles my mind how there would be an article for game addiction which lumps offline gaming and online gaming into one addiction. Especially when the underlying reasons for each addiction are fundamentally different. If I come back to this article in a month without seeing progress, I'm going to take it upon myself to rewrite these articles and make them much more informational and accurate than they are now. --Ubiq 09:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

consider computer and videogame addiction to be the same as technological addiction. although reasons for addiction and the symptoms may differ, both are primarly integrated of the same orgin. try generalizing any tecnological advancement in the video screen, (what i believe) the primary cause for addiction, to be technology addiction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.229.206.144 (talk) 21:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Possible Diagnosis Criteria"

It seems this section was simply copied and pasted from Internet addiction disorder with "internet" replaced with "game". What's with that? QRX 16:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Template Overload

The templates for cleanup and the like are really growing on this article, do we really need 6 or 7? Is there any way to say the same thing with 1 template instead of 3? 58.108.235.216 20:15, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible causes?

Almost all test and research happened 11 years ago. Is that the only research there is on this topic?

I've just updated it with the most recent information I could find. It meant a lot of cutting, but most of what was there smacked of original research to me. There's certainly room for a lot of expansion if reputable current sources can be found. Moonriddengirl 19:07, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Nice job of updating. Much of this comes down to how one defines "addiction." Within the medical community, "addiction" refers to a disease state, one that has been well described, well defined, and well characterized. Addiction is quite different from use. One can be addicted to alcohol, for instance, without needing to drink a great deal of alcohol; one might drink a great deal of alcohol and not be addicted. The quantity of use is not germane to whether someone has addiction.
So there are two issues here: use and addiction. If problems result from a certain degree of use of videogames, then that's a public health issue related to use. But that has nothing to do with the disease of addiction. It may well be that someone could have addiction to videogames, but that hasn't been demonstrated within the scientific literature. All we know for certain is that some people spend a significant amount of time playing videogames, just as people spend a significant amount of time watching football, working on their car, or knitting. Until we have clear science supporting the presence of a disease state related to this activity, we can't even begin to say that there's such a disease as "videogame addiction." Drgitlow 21:37, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
video game overuse, the term proposed by the AMA, seems like a much more accurate term to me, whether the APA decides to include it in the next DSM or not. Based on all the reading I've done today, it seems that a good bit of the motivation for it is financial, to give insurance companies incentive to pay for treatment for sufferers of poor impulse control. Not that I mean to sound unsympathetic to that. It's just a shame that big business becomes so involved in medical policy. Moonriddengirl 21:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, the "overuse" term was a successful bit of procedural change in the AMA House of Delegates the other day. The title change makes it clear that the report is addressing the potential harm that can result from excessive use of videogames, and that needs to be studied further. That seems reasonable to me too. Drgitlow 04:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move

Why is this article at Game addiction instead of Video game addiction or something similar? Yonatan talk 22:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Good question. Video game addiction would be far more precise. Moonriddengirl 13:55, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
It seems that this move hadn't been done, so I moved the page, and fixed the double redirects the move caused. --Dreaded Walrus t c 16:14, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

It's worth mentioning that the On-Line Gamers Addiction help or whatever it's called is a front for a Christian conversion group. I'm fairly certain it should be removed with a prejudice. Of their "12 steps", at least four would fall under the tentative category of "Addict Yourself To Jesus Instead". Genocidealive (talk) 21:04, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] I wish to add additional Research

I wrote this article in reflection on the current trends in Video Game Addiction with a hypothesis in the decrease of sociability. The address to my article is http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/582943/a_study_into_social_functioning_in.html. Feel free to look it over and see if it's worth adding to the External Links section as opposing research, even though my sample of people is relatively much smaller than an actual full-on University study. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Psypho (talk • contribs) 02:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is the RuneScape picture and caption valid?

The second pic "Youth spending seemingly endless hours playing RuneScape". We can't see the game and it adds nothing to the article, for all we know it could be someone checking their email for the first time in a year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FlashNerdX (talk • contribs) 00:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)