Do you stay up late in a dark room – save the glare of the television – staring at the box while doing little more than moving your thumbs? Does your urge to vanquish foes from another galaxy, or to rob and shoot, or to be a hit man, or to score the winning touchdown interfere with your life? If so, then you might be addicted to video games.
Marketing freshman Arturo Vinveza said he plays “FIFA 08” or “Halo 3” four to five hours a day on his Xbox 360. He said video games aren’t always a problem.
“As long as you can balance your schoolwork and your gaming life, you’re pretty good,” he said. “I think they’re very sociable and a healthy part of every college student’s life.”
English literature freshman Pendray Winkleman spent $650 on his addiction in one day.
“I was playing ‘Halo 2’ on the regular Xbox, I beat it and decided that if I could get a ride, I would buy the Xbox 360 and ‘Halo 3’ on the spot,” he said. “Not to be deterred, I procured a ride. I went to Best Buy and bought ‘Halo 3’ and the ‘Halo 3’ Special Edition (for) Xbox 360, insurance and an extra controller. It cost me around $650. When I got back, I had dinner, then played for 10 hours straight that night.”
When asked whether video games have hampered his studying, Winkleman responded, “Absolutely. There’s no question about it. I don’t study at all. I do assignments, but I don’t study because I’m always playing, or hanging out with people who are playing. I do have a warning for others. Don’t put your games and system in someone else’s room in an attempt to play less. You’ll end up just moving in with them.”
Drama sophomore Nicholas George also said he is afflicted with video game addiction.
“I play (Playstation 2); I’m a classics man,” he said. “I love that I can play all of my PS1 games on PS2. I absolutely love the entire ‘Hitman’ series. I play my games in exactly one hour, then another for an hour each in a cycle. I’m kind of OCD about it. I also love the entire ‘Jak and Dexter’ trilogy. I have wasted a good chunk of my life on ‘Grand Turismo.'”
George has a problem with not finishing the games he begins, he said. Winkleman agreed.
“With video games, unlike a lot of people I know who don’t finish the whole thing, for me, it just doesn’t feel right for me unless I finish every little thing about the game,” he said. “I finish everything in it.”
George has also suffered academically.
“I once missed a midterm my freshman year because I had been playing for 14 hours straight. I was playing ‘Hitman,’ and I just kept winning and winning. So next thing I know, it was 7 (p.m.), and I had missed my mid-term.”
Psychology freshman Dirk Llorens plays four times a week, with sometimes more than two hours solely spent on the game.
“Sometimes I’m playing, and I tell myself that I might as well play for another hour,” he said. “When I eventually finish, I find myself too tired to do homework or papers because I’m tired from video games.”
History freshman Alan Hutson has felt heavy repercussions from excessive playing.
“I like to play ‘Medal of Honor’ maybe three times a week for four hours at a time,” he said. “It has interfered very much. I have a problem. I get too into the game, and the time just flies by. I’m then like, ‘I forgot to do my homework. I forgot to write that paper or pick up my mom from the airport.’ Oh crap, it’s my parent’s anniversary!”
He really meant it. He pulled out his cell phone and called his parents.
Hutson also actually did forget to pick his mother up from the airport, he said.
“I kept on trying to beat this level I was on, and I couldn’t, so I kept trying and trying,” he said. “The time just flew by. I looked down at my watch, and I realized that I had forgotten. I picked her up eventually, but she had had to wait for, like, two hours.”
According to the Beijing News, a Chinese man died in September after playing video games non-stop for three days. BBC News reported a South Korean man died after playing the computer game “Starcraft” for 50 hours non-stop.
Although video games aren’t considered addictive by the American Psychological Association, these students find it hard to put them down once started. Even though neither the APA, nor anyone for that matter, has published any criteria for diagnosing an overuse or addiction to video games, many still consider video game addiction real.
In June 2006, Smith & Jones Addiction Consultants started the first game addiction center in Europe. McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., a Computer Addiction Services center, did the same.
A Web site named Online Gamers Anonymous features a 12-step program as well as message boards, allowing recovering “addicts” to talk about their problems. Its designer and former Web master Jacob Walther wrote he played 7,000 hours of “Runescape” and 4,000 hours of “Counter-Strike.”
China is taking a different approach to treating the supposed addiction than Europe is. According to http://www.vnunet.com, in February 2007: “China is employing a hardcore (program) of boot camp-style military training, psychological (counseling) and even electrocution to deal with the problem of Internet addiction,” a problem closely related to video game addiction because of online gaming.
Andrew Poland can be reached at [email protected].
