Video game addiction: Real or not?

Okay, whats with all this bull**** targeted at video games. People are always calling me an "addict" or I don't do anything besides video games. my parents used to tell me that they were ruining my life and I was being sucked into a black hole and it's all because I play video games. What the hell? I don't even play that much (4 hours a week). Whats even worse is that I actually believed them once but then I took a logic to knee. People are addicted to drugs because they need to get high, I don't play video games because I want to get high, I play them because they are fun. They tell me I can't tell the difference between video games and reality, I do know that video games are digitized pixels on a TV screen and the programing is just codes of 1 and 0 and if they're gonna get so pissed over that I think it's THEM that can't tell the difference between video games and real life. People that murder over video games just have mental problems. Anyway my parents think video games are worse than Hitler and should be stopped. I wanna know what you guys think about this and if you have a reason to think I'm wrong I'd be glad to hear it.

Well... Its always easy to blame the media.
Always looking down Gaming, making it seem like using technology as entertainment means NERD/LOSER/NO LIFE.
Who watches this you may ask? Well... The older generation who can't take advantage of modern technology. (Mostly the elderly or teenagers who only use $2000 computers for facebook)

Trust me, I feel your pain.

Alot of people think I'm stuck in a rut but I think I'm living a comfortable lifestyle.

lmao alot of it is bullshit, its hard to explain to people who dont game the appeal of video games, same with anime they just see it as a waste of time, no matter how much or how little time you spend with the hobby.

on the other hand they are people who ARE really addicted, not that its the fault of the games themselves the people just have no self control. like my cousin he games every free moment of his life, he has lost jobs from retail stores because of stealing the games he wants, now he lost his place because he cant make rent, all because he calls out to stay home and game. people can be addicted to anything but its the people that are the problem.

People call 4 hours a week an addiction??? I'd barely call it casual gaming -.-

I used to be a serious hardcore gamer. The reason I stopped was because I beat Mass Effect 2 on the hardest difficulty, and Dead Space 2 on the hardest difficulty, and maybe Amnesia. I play games maybe 2-3 times a week for about 2 hours, and on my days off 5 hours with my gf.

WoW players demonstrated addiction to gaming. There's even documentaries on those people who openly did interviews and such for the program. Mind you, it's only one example for one game.

While there's alot of BS about addiction to gaming, some are irrelevantly true.

It's not video games "are" an addiction; it's video games "can become" an addiction.
nya~
There's a real difference.
There is a new definition of addiction now... erm... it was something like
well whatever, I'm sure you can google or wikipedia it.
It's about if the you're controlling the object, or the object is controlling you, that's one of the fine lines between addiction and hobby.
nya~
or so that's what I'm heard, I'm tempted myself to say that I've become addicted to VNs, heh.

It can be addictive, like World of War Craft or CoD, but it's up to the person to know their limits. Addiction is when you can't even fathom the thought without your "abused" substance, be it games or drugs. But most people aren't addicted, just people looking for fun.

It can become very serious. I've seen some people on campus that would just play video games and not attend classes.

Why are you still living with your parents then if your old enough to move out? Unless....

lol but dude never said he still live with his parents tho....

yes it could happen it happend to me a couple of years ago,i would buy 2 new games every month so yeah it could get very bad but lucky i'm over it now but i still play videogames now and then but not that much as i used to.

Yes, i can speak for myself. I have been addicted to Diablo 2 and World of Warcraft over the course of my life span. Don't play either atm but i REALLY wanna play WoW right about now.


When i was a lot younger, i cried when my mom threatened to take away diablo 2 because i was mis behaving (to be fair, my brother was the one starting the fight). Man i was hooked on that shit

I think it's all based on your mental state...there have been incidents of people becoming addicting to sports or even H20, so a video-game addiction doesn't seem too far off

Ooooooh my bad, didn't read the whole thing :O

Always read all the way through, or you goof up lol Just like with Ikea assembly instructions...

[size=12][/h]If 4 hours a week is bad, I'm the fucking devil, with nearly 5 hours of games a day

Honestly, I think the folks over at Extra Credits did an awesome job on talking about this subject, so that's a nice two part episode to look at should you ever get the chance.

As for real or not, I don't believe addiction is the right word for it, thus I don't believe in it, but I do believe there are those out there that do rely or fall back on them more then others, whether out of boredom or hobby.

I'm called a video-game addict, and told that it is destroying my life, yet all I do most of the time is read my e-books, browse the net, draw or simply watch the movies I *cough* from the net.

When I'm not using the computer, I'm reading my paper-back or hard-bound books, playing sports, going out to drink coffee/tea, going out with my friends, normal stuff (except for doing chores [actually, no, there is one chore, keeping my room clean and orderly, since I don't want the payed people to go around my room])

People in my household cannot tell the difference of what I'm doing on the computer(they simply brand me as playing when I'm using the computer and when I try to correct them.. they get mad. Frustrating).

There is such a thing as videogame addiction, just as you can be "addicted" to anything. And, well, as it implies, being addicted is very much a problem. How severe a problem? It'll be a case-by-case thing. But videogame addiction is real and it is something that is horrible and causes numerous psychological deficiencies. Probably not to the point that anyone is murderous - being murderous is a completely different thing entirely, and not connected to the addiction itself - but certainly would cause social abnormalities, videogame dependency (bad!), etc. etc.

The question, then, is whether you have it. The answer is no.