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Revisiting the Internet Addiction Hype - Gaming & Teens

Revisiting the Internet Addiction Hype - Gaming & Teens

Article by Molly Shaw
Does your Teen Live a Second Life Through the Monitor?

As one of the first countries to have nationalized cheap broadband access, 90% of South Korea's households are now avid subscribers. As a result, PC Baangs (Internet cafes), have become some of the most lucrative businesses in the country. Teens swarm to these dimly-lit cafes before, during and after school to escape reality and play games like StarCraft, EverQuest, and Warhammer. In addition, countless online auction sites have popped up, targeting teen gamers addicted to buying virtual commodities. Because of their growing popularity, several cable channels are broadcasting online gaming competitions. Just as reality TV stars have reached A-list status in the U.S., top StarCraft gamers make six-figure salaries and have celebrity status.

To fight the war on web addiction, a growing number of hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and Outward Bound-like boot camps are offering treatments. Many of these therapies stress physical activity as a means to strengthen the addicts' bodies, weakened by sleep deprivation and sedentary lifestyles, and help them reconnect emotionally to the physical world.

We're back to conceptualizing the pervasiveness of internet use and gaming as 'addiction' and focusing on the amount of time spent online gaming.

So what is so addictive about these virtual realities? Playing MMORPGs and Second Life can have a therapeutic effect on players by filling emotional or psychological voids they experience in real life. These virtual worlds allow teens and adults to live fantasy lives through their alter egos, A.K.A. avatars. Players find approval, recognition and respect in their alternate realities, and form virtual relationships that are sometimes even more fulfilling than those in real life.

While the article makes some interesting points, and perhaps valid ones - there's no empirical research to support any of these claims & assertions. We have numbers, we have the amount of time people are spending playing online games - but what we don't have is any social research or context to understand what's really going on here - other than psychological speculation & old paranoia. There are always extreme cases out there, but we can't generalize this to the population...

posted by Netwoman @ 10:51 AM