Posted on 04/21/2009 6:40:58 AM PDT by Schnucki
Nearly one in 10 American children who play computer games are pathologically addicted, according to new research.
Some young gamers show at least six symptoms of gambling addiction, such as lying to family and friends about how much they play games, using the games to escape their problems and becoming restless or irritable when they stop playing. They may also skip homework to play games or spend too much time playing and do poorly in school, the study shows.
Douglas Gentile, director of the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University, where the study was carried out, said in his report: "The present study was designed to demonstrate whether pathological gaming is an issue that merits further attention. With almost one out of 10 youth gamers demonstrating real-world problems because of their gaming, we can conclude that it does."
The findings are based on a national sample of 1,178 boys and girls aged 8 to 18. Almost 90 per cent of the children who completed the online questionnaire said that they played computer games.
Boys spent an average 16.4 hours a week playing games and girls 9.2 hours. "Addicted" gamers played 24 hours a week, twice as much as casual gamers.
Of the gamers, 8.5 per cent exhibited "pathological patterns of play" gauged by the presence of at least six out of 11 clinical symptoms as defined by the American Psychiatric Association that indicate damage to family, social, school, or psychological functioning. The most common symptom was children skipping household chores to play games.
A quarter of gamers said that they played to escape problems, and nearly as many admitted to playing when they were supposed to be devoting time to homework. A fifth of gamers said that they had botched schoolwork or done poorly in
(Excerpt) Read more at technology.timesonline.co.uk ...
Everyone has their “addiction.” Our “addictions” change over time. What I wasted my time on in college was different than how I waste my time now.
Pikers...
Freepers run at least one in three for addiction here...
Good grief. I suppose those who read books to escape the stresses of life, or watch TV, movies or surf the internet are also ‘pathologically addicted’. If I run, play basketball or bike, am I an addict too?
Just another glaring example that we are a culture of ‘victims’. “Poor us, we are poor victims who have no responsibility for our own care - we need President Zero to save us all.”
Desktop Tower Defense is the monkey on my back.
WoW really screwed me up. I get cravings sometimes, but I know, and don’t play.
Are you saying that Dungeons & Dragons is a gateway addiction to policital activism?
I can quit EVE anytime. Really, I can. I mean, really.
Keeps my teen busy and may reduce the amount of temptation to do mischief. At first, I was worried about the addiction, but then I saw friends kids who are already in trouble with the law. If a little HALO will keep him from trampy girls and drugs because he needs to play... I am ok with it. He spends a lot of time reading and doing things with us.
Good to know this only affects children. /sarc
It's right up there with my addiction to FreeRepublic.
No, not Dungeons and Dragons. It was euchre.
Same here; my boys have their friends over to host HALO parties, Rock Band Parties (I play too, love The Who downloads) and have Madden tournaments (my son plays his CD of NFL Films music in the background).
It’s how they socialize. So what, big deal. As you say, it’s better than boozing, drugging and thugging.
I totally agree.
We had all the systems when my kid was a teen, and what I found, at least in our case was the “addiction” happened in spurts. A new game, or a new system, would bring about constant playing. Then the level of interest would die down.
Once my son was in college, he hardly played except occasionally when they’d have all night HALO parties where they’d hook up four different play stations in different parts of our house and each station would have 4 guys playing. (We never got much sleep on those nights, LOL.)
When I was a kid we watched TV, today’s kids are more interested in playing video games. Not much different from me being on the internet, IMHO. As long as it doesn’t interfer with responsibilities, I see no harm in video games.
One in ten computer gamers are 'pathologically addicted'One in ten computer gamers
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