If You're Addicted To World Of Warcraft, Why Not Get Therapy For It In The Game?

from the I-can-think-of-a-few-reasons-why-that's-a-bad-idea... dept

While we tend to have trouble with the idea that there's a real "addiction" issue with video gaming, there certainly are some people who have trouble leaving the game. And, there have been plenty of therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists popping up with offerings to help "video game addicts." But how does one stand out in the space? How about by treating the patients directly in the game itself? Apparently, that's the plan of one psychiatrists, who wants to start getting other therapists to join the game and treat patients within it. Wonder if they'll try to convince the offshore "gold farmers" that they need help...

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Internet-Addicted Kids Are Aggressive, Study Says

from the if-you-accept-they-exist dept

A new study from Taiwan says that teens with signs of "internet addiction" are more prone to aggressive behavior than other kids. While the researcher behind the study says that it could simply be that violence-prone teens are more likely to be heavy internet users, rather than the internet somehow causing this sort of behavior, it's hard to take anything that talks about "internet addicts" too seriously, since the evidence of internet addiction is fairly flimsy. The issue is that the "addictive" behavior -- heavy internet use -- is often just a hint or symptom of a bigger problem, something that some treatment centers for compulsive internet or video game users recognize. But this study sounds even flimsier than usual: it describes signs of internet addiction as "preoccupation with online activities; 'withdrawal' symptoms, like moodiness and irritability, after a few Internet-free days; and skipping other activities to devote more time to online ones." That sounds an awful lot like general teenage behavior, just replace the internet with some other activity. It also goes on to say that teens who spend their time online researching and studying are less prone to aggression than those who go online for gambling and porn, among other activities. If anything, it sounds like the researcher understates the degree to which the tail is wagging the dog here.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Video Game Addiction Center Realizes That Compulsive Gamers Aren't Addicts

from the well,-duh dept

We've discussed in the past how ridiculous it is to call video gaming an "addiction" when almost all of the evidence suggests that compulsive video gamers are usually retreating to video games as a result of some other issue. In other words, rather than an addiction, compulsive video gaming is often a symptom of something else, and the treatment should focus on that other thing, rather than trying to "detox" someone from video games. It seemed like almost everyone who was screaming for video games to be declared an official addiction stood to benefit from such a classification (thankfully, the AMA refused to make it an official addiction).

Now, even those who would benefit from it being called an addiction are admitting that it's not. A clinic in Europe that was designed to treat video game addicts is now admitting that compulsive video gamers are not addicts, and shouldn't be treated with traditional "abstinence-based treatments" that are commonly used in dealing with various addictions. Instead, just as plenty of others have noted in the past, the trick is not to worry about the video gaming, but to actually figure out the root causes that made the person retreat to video games. Not surprisingly, it's often social issues, where kids feel isolated and haven't learned to communicate socially with their peers, leading to trouble at school. It's great to see that even those who were making money off of the false "addiction" claim are finally admitting that it's time to rethink how compulsive video gaming is diagnosed and treated.

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Kids Use Mobile Phones Too Much? Send 'Em To A Mental Hospital

from the seems-a-bit-extreme dept

We've noted in the past the, well, addiction some people have to calling any sort of regular usage of something an "addiction." It's quite common with all sorts of technologies. Often there doesn't seem to be any actual evidence of an addiction -- or, if there is, it usually becomes clear that the problem is somewhere else, and the people simply turn to technology to avoid that other issue in their lives. Either way, it still seems a bit extreme to hear that, in Spain, parents have sent two children, aged 12 and 13, to a mental hospital to try to help "cure them" of their mobile phone "addiction." As parents, what was wrong with just taking away their mobile phone?

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Some Psychiatrists Addicted To Prescribing Internet Addiction

from the must-be-good-for-business dept

Over the past few years, we've seen so many "calls" to label the use of certain technologies as "addictions" that we've noticed something of a... well... addiction by some to call for new technology addictions. Among the long, long list of possible addictions has been email addiction, web addiction, online porn addiction, video game addiction, internet addiction, and mobile phones or other gadget addictions. Almost every time, the call for addiction comes from a psychologist or psychiatrist trying to build up a reputation for treating such "addictions." It must be good for business (and perhaps a lot less harrowing than treating some other types of addictions).

So it shouldn't come as any surprise to see a psychiatrist now calling for internet addiction to become an officially classified addiction in the next version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (basically the official rulebook for such things). Of course, there are a few problems, including the fact that research has shown little evidence that the internet is really addictive, and almost every story of internet addiction really tends to be about deeper issues that resulted in someone seeking an outlet on the internet (from depression, bad family situations, alcoholism, etc.). Focusing on the "internet" part tends to have people trying to treat a symptom, not the disease. Hopefully, this new push will follow the same path as the one last year to have video games declared an addiction too. It didn't take long for that idea to get shot down.

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RIM Toys With Blackberry Addicts Again; Cuts Off Users For 3.5 Hours

from the want-to-stay-connected? dept

Last April, RIM woke many Blackberry users up to the idea that they might be Crackberry addicts by having the system go offline for a few hours overnight. It's amazing how people recognize just how dependent they are on a service once it goes away. The eventual excuse given by RIM (a botched software upgrade) was unconvincing. However, there hadn't been any more outages, so questions about the service died down. However, with widespread Blackberry outages Monday afternoon, lasting about three and a half hours, impacting all mobile operators, some of those questions are going to be raised again. The Blackberry system involves all traffic going through RIM machines, and a cascading problem across those machines can certainly cause quite a bit of trouble. At some point, people are going to start asking if there isn't a more robust, distributed way of offering a Blackberry (or Blackberry-like) service that would be more immune to these types of issues.

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If You Could Vaccinate Your Kids Against Drugs, Would You?

from the just-say-no dept

Researchers are working on a cocaine vaccine that uses the immune system to attack cocaine molecules, rendering them ineffective. The vaccine, which is currently in clinical trials, could be a boon to recovering cocaine addicts -- approximately half of which relapse within a year of detoxification. With the vaccine, the biochemical pathways through which cocaine works are blocked, so, taking cocaine does not come with an associated high so addicts do not become re-addicted. Of course, the vaccine is in no way meant as a replacement for drug treatment, since it does nothing to treat the underlying psychological factors of the addiction. It is not mentioned if the vaccine can be used before addiction occurs -- or even before cocaine is ever taken. Granted, the current trials do not include that use, nor do they include children, but, if it were available, would parents flock to their doctors and have their kids vaccinated? And, what other maladies could be treated in such a manner? Reports from the 1900s indicate attempts to create an alcohol vaccine. More recently, Celtic Pharma's nicotine vaccine works on a similar mechanism to the cocaine vaccine, but for nicotine. Sure, you'd be hard pressed to find detractors against a cocaine vaccine, but if a nicotine vaccine became available would the tobacco lobby be worried?

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Korea's Internet Addiction Bootcamps Mistargeted

from the the-symptom-rather-than-the-disease dept

For years, we've pointed out how ridiculous it is for people to be blaming internet addictions for things, when almost every case of "internet addiction" that's demonstrated that the actual problem was something else, and the internet usage was just a way of "escaping" from those other problems. It didn't help that many of the big supporters of "internet addiction" happen to be the people (i.e., doctors) who are most likely to profit from such a thing existing. On top of that, reports have shown that so-called "internet addictions" tend not to be particularly harmful, and it makes you wonder what the big deal is. However, more recently, we're seeing some governments take the "threat" seriously. The NY Times is running an article about a "boot camp" in Korea to help cure kids of internet addiction, incorrectly suggesting it's the first such camp in the world. Earlier this year, we pointed out that China was opening a summer camp for internet addicts, which followed Chinese attempts to cure internet addiction with electric acupuncture, shock therapy and special halfway houses.

Still, as you read the NY Times piece about the Korean boot camp, you see that the folks running the camp are marking the same assumption: that it's the internet or computers to blame, and therefore, the solution must be to remove kids from the internet and computers entirely. This is fighting the symptom, not the disease. There's a reason why people started spending so much time online, and simply taking away access probably won't change that. The one kid that the article discusses in any detail started spending more time online because he wasn't very popular in school. Taking away the internet isn't going to fix that. There's no doubt that some people can spend way too much time at their computers, and it can potentially damage other parts of their lives -- but simply blaming the internet and pulling it away completely seems like a cure that's not likely to help very much. If the real problems that lead the person to spend so much time online aren't dealt with, then they will simply manifest themselves in some other manner soon enough. Calling something an internet addiction seems easy enough (and it's catchy, so it gets headlines), but if people are treating the internet part, rather than the real problems, it's not doing anyone any good.

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