While some people use addiction to refer to any habitual or semi-compulsive activity that is under a user's control, I am personally offended and morally opposed to any usage of the word addiction that compares someone's unsightly habit to a real addiction, that is a psychological and physiological dependance on something which is beyond their control. To me, an addiction that doesn't fundamentally affect someone physically, psychologically, and socially isn't worth the name.
I don't mind when people talk about addiction in an ignorant manner casually, but I'm at the very least when the language of a real problem is co-opted to address something that isn't a real problem.
WARNING: Actions and topics possibly inappropriate for younger or sensitive readers described below
I knew a nice, quiet, normal girl who used to volunteer in the old folks' home with me. One she went into her elderly neighbor's home to steal a pickle jar full of change that he had. When he came home and discovered her, she attacked him with an ax and left him, with his arms and legs chopped up so he couldn't get to the phone, to bleed to death. That's one of the
nicer stories I have of what heroin addiction does to people, what it drives them to do.
Gamers might choose to wrap themselves up in a different kind of social interaction (or a solitary game, in some cases) rather then get out there and deal with reality directly, but that's not an addiction. I've spent hundreds of hours on some games, but there is never a time that a gamer couldn't stop themselves. If I was finishing FFVII for the first time and my brother had walked into the room bleeding heavily there's no chance I'd tell him to sit down and wait for me to finish rather then driving him to the emergency room. Substitute in an addict who hasn't had a fix in three or four days and just got a bag or two of the good stuff and you'd have a room with one person high and the other dead.
End violent content
When people talk about addictions to games, exercise, caffiene, porn, sex, or any number of other things I find it very difficult to take them seriously. A physically, psychologically, or socially beneficial activity (as all of these are in some way) lends itself to overindulgence, but addiction is something much more serious. Referring to something someone overuses as something they're addicted to is wrong, because it misdiagnoses as symptom as a problem. Are bulimics addicted to dieting, using laxatives, or purging? No, their problem is much deeper and those things are just symptoms of what's really wrong.
From 7th to 10th grade I read between 150 and 400 pages of material every day. Books, magazines, newspaper, webpages, it didn't really matter to me. I didn't have a single person I could call my friend (with any degree of confidence) for all that time, and it was entirely my choice. If I had a novel in my hands no matter where I was people were a whole lot less likely to try to talk to me, and when they did I could be totally disinterested. My parents didn't like it, but when I was reading at least I wasn't playing video games. By the end I could read a book in a day, and get by with less then 2 sentences to other people in the same time. I had no other hobbies, my academic work suffered, I gained weight, and, like I said, even my family didn't interact with me.
But
I wasn't addicted to books, not even a little bit. I was just afraid of normal social interaction, not being good enough, rejection, and all the other things angsty kids the world over whine about. One day I was reading along and I realized that I should stop, so I did. I quit cold turkey, and I didn't experience a whit of withdrawl. Now I can read a book or not and the idea of "relapse" is laughable, because I wasn't addicted to anything. I could stop playing games exactly the same way, because (though I've now played Oblivion for over 30 hours this week) I'm not addicted.
* How much gaming is too much? Is the "too much" border better represented by a number of hours or a percentage of free time?
Percentage of free time, I'd say, and too much is when it becomes less important then the activities it's replacing.
* Have you ever been addicted to a MMO?
No. In my opinion it's impossible to be addicted to an MMO.
* What makes MMO games addictive?
MMO's at least partially fulfill people's need for social interaction, respect, and cooperation. MMO's give people a sense of progress and allow them to develop a skillset and gain things (a leveled character, items, etc.) which have widely accepted value within the game. The existance of other players validates the experience to some degree, because the player can compare themselves to those others. Of course escapism and habitual practice play a part in the appeal of MMO's. An MMO can be quite fulfilling at times, and the more someone invests into something the more they
want it to be worthwhile, but the sum of all these factors still falls way short of real addiction.
* Once a person recognizes his or her addiction, what can he or she do to break the habit?
Someone who seriously thinks they have an addiction and really wants to end it usually removes the apparatus and means, hoping that will be enough to break the addiciton. A real addict will find a way to get these things back somehow, but a gamer who made their platform incapable of playing games would have a lot of trouble restoring that. A PC gamer who thinks they're addicted could remove and destroy their RAM, CD/DVD drive, games, and put all their financial matters into someone else's hands. They could use the internet only with filters like elementary schools have (that block game sites) or under supervision of someone else. I have a friend who removed himself from the internet to remove temptation, and a gamer could do the same thing.
* What should a Christian's purpose be in playing a MMO?
Maybe to vent a little aggression in a healthy manner, certainly to love others and to glorify God by appreciating the art that He has made man capable of producing.
* How do MMO's differ from other games in terms of social interaction?
They allow it, and they allow more opportunities for cooperative interaction then other games. They also allow for people to amass wealth, gain status, collect things, and compete with others indefinitely in a safe and nonthreatening environment. The only things that one invests in an MMO are time and money, and there is no death, disease, or real loss to risk this investment. If things get screwed up too badly the game will just be reset to a couple hours/days earlier and everything is fine again. The social interactions are similarly worthless, because no amount of questing together or fighting side-by-side will make someone care about someone else in the way that a real friend does, and there are no real penalties for mistakes. Someone can screw up on an MMO with no fear of real repercussions for their actions.
EDIT: To support my assertion that gaming addiction isn't a real addiction, I went to the Gamer Widow website and read all of the stories they had up by former "addicts" and gamer widows. Here are some quotes from these people which I think support what I've said completely.
"The problem was not the game playing. It was me. I was afraid to change, afraid of any discomfort. I was afraid of people's opinions of me, afraid of confrontations (otherwise known as true communication)."
Scott
"I have renewed and improved our [(she and her husband's)] mutual association, renewed our willingness to make sacrifices for each other, and renewed the reasons why we "signed up" for an eternity of each other's company in the first place."
The Katipo
Marriages often have rough patches, and an inattentive spouse, letting the romance go cold, beginning to take each other for granted, etc. etc. The excessive gaming in these stories is
never the real problem, and the "addiction" is nothing more then overuse.
"I realized that in that week I hadn't cleaned, I hadn't paid any bills, and the worst thing, I didn't answer a phone call from my mom. (All my family lives in Canada, I live here in the US with my husband. His family is my only family and a call from my mom means a lot to me). When I realized what this game was turning me into I immediately quit."
Lyoness
Addicts don't just realize their addiction is hurting people and quit. It's a struggle, at best, and it's usually a long process full of relapses and pain.
There was
a case recently where a Korean couple was playing WoW at an internet cafe and their baby died because of their neglect. Were they addicted? No. People should know better then to leave a 4 month old alone at home for 4 hours (which is how long they were gone) but they could have just as easily been at a movie or dinner. It isn't that unusual for people to leave infants home alone even if it is wrong, and blaming an "addiction" is just a convenient way of ignoring their personal responsibility.
I am not going to stand for it any more when people act like their choices are beyond their control. Stop passing the buck, stand up, and own your sins.
Sorry if I came down on you a little hard, Tek, but this issue has been getting more and more press lately and I'm tired of it. Ignorance and an inability to analyze things closely would be great excuses for people mistaking bad habits for addictions, but an implicit assumption that they're equivalent offends me.
