Drug of Choice
Internet addiction: the seedy underbelly of the information superhighway.
Table of Contents: | Take Ww's Checklist | Is It A Scam
May 14th, 2008
Higher Ed | Reed College is exceptional for more than academics. It’s one of America’s most permissive colleges for experimenting with drugs.348 comments
May 7th, 2008
Best New Band 2008 | Portland music insiders take our local scene to the chopping block—and come out with 10 new faves. 0 comments
April 30th, 2008
For The Love of Politics | WW’s endorsement page-turner has all the candidates worth falling for this election.36 comments
April 23rd, 2008
Say Amen, Somebody | African-American ministers struggle to make their voices heard in America’s whitest city.25 comments
April 16th, 2008
Green With Envy | Seven things Portland should do if we’re serious about being green.64 comments
April 9th, 2008
Kvetch Fest | 27 things we hate about the city we love.227 comments
April 2nd, 2008
Bitter Pill | A Portland doc flips on big pharma and reveals its “dirty little secret.”32 comments
March 26th, 2008
Gunfight at the OR Corral | A crusader who fought the Mob or a long-established Oregonian? Inside the shootout to become the next attorney general.13 comments
March 19th, 2008
Lean Cuisine | Has Portland lost its insatiable appetite for its restaurant scene?41 comments
March 12th, 2008
Barack In The Day | Long before Obama ran for president, he was a state senator in Illinois. Here’s what he did.118 comments
 Keyed up: Chad Johnson drinks Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi and plays World of Warcraft, the crack of computer games. |
[February 27th, 2008]
Every addiction has its tools of the trade—the corkscrew, the ashtray, the needle, the tiny spoon.
This Lake Oswego condo also has the telltale gear of a junkie.
A bottle of Clear Eyes.
A half-dozen containers of Ice Breakers mints.
Shakers for salt, pepper and garlic salt, to spice up microwaveable dinners.
A 40-inch Samsung HDTV and an Xbox 360.
And, blindingly close to the TV’s glare, a cushy recliner.
The resident of this den of iniquity is Chad Johnson, a 35-year-old unemployed abuser.
His vice is the Internet. He’s been hooked for over a decade.
Most days, for up to eight hours, Johnson is plugged into a liquid-crystal display, checking his stocks, making a “concerted effort” not to look at porn, playing Halo 3, or losing himself in the digital version of crack cocaine—World of Warcraft,
Is he actually addicted? “I would definitely say yeah,” says Johnson.
So are an estimated 9 million other people in this country—which, if true, means the Internet is more seductive to Americans than cocaine (with 6 million regular users).
The idea that Internet use can be addicting has been passed around like an email virus since the mid-1990s, when Americans started logging on in large numbers. The notion that it can be more menacing got attention this month after Steven Kazmierczak’s shooting rampage at Northern Illinois University.
“COLLEGE KILLER CRAZY FOR VIOLENT VID GAME,” screamed the New York Post. The tabloid noted Kazmierczak’s ominous fondness for the shoot-’em-up game Counter-Strike.
The theory is expressed in more nuanced terms by Portland psychotherapist Jerald Block, one of the country’s leading experts on Internet addiction. Block downplays the violent content of the games, but believes both Kazmierczak and Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho showed signs of an unhealthy “computer-person relationship.”
Block is a 43-year-old psychotherapist with a graying reddish beard and a paunch. He is no Luddite. He sold Apple II computers in high school and studied industrial engineering at Columbia University, after which he worked as a computer consultant. He first noticed signs of addiction in the mid- to late ’90s among his colleagues. “I remember seeing people in this trancelike state,” Block recalls.
A few years later, he went to medical school at Yeshiva University. While training, Block treated a female stalker in a psychiatric emergency ward. She had been interviewed by six other therapists, but Block was the first to realize her stalking had begun online.
After opening a practice in Portland in 1999, he started looking for signs of Net addiction among his patients, and developed his theory of “pathological computer use.” As his writings on the subject got noticed, he began getting referrals.
Block, whose office is in the Pearl District’s Irving Street Lofts, has become perhaps the leading medical expert on a condition that has no official diagnosis but is widely called Internet addiction. He testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005 and has been quoted often in the press. He has an article on the subject coming out next month in the prestigious American Journal of Psychiatry.
Currently, 10 percent of his practice in Portland consists of Internet addicts. Chad Johnson is one of his patients.
His treatment?
He’s tried the Thoreau cure, prescribing outdoorsy vacations. “It does not work. They get enraged, and sometimes drop from treatment,” Block says.
Block has also recommended naltrexone and acamprosate—drugs commonly used to treat alcoholism, which are thought to block certain kinds of cravings—but no patients have taken him up on it. “A lot of people don’t want to get off the computer that much,” he says.
Ultimately, Block treats his patients by talking it out. This isn’t easy, he says, because “they have every reason not to talk about it.”
“Adults have tremendous shame about their virtual lives. They also find it enormously valuable and stabilizing. So they don’t want to put it at risk,” says Block.
For addicts, the computer becomes “a heat sink for aggressive or sexual impulses,” Block says.
He’s developed a rule of thumb: If an addict says he spends four hours a day on the computer, he probably spends eight.
Block is hardly alone in his field.
At least a half-dozen other therapists in Portland offer treatment for Internet addiction. And up I-5 in Redmond, Wash., Hilarie Cash counsels Internet addicts through her practice at Internet/Computer Addiction Services.
 Tech Talk: Psychotherapist Jerald Block has treated 150 people for “pathological computer use.” Image: Brain Lee |
“There’s a huge number at folks at Microsoft who are on computers all day. They play games. They go home and they play games some more. They can tolerate work because it fits right into the whole lifestyle,” says Cash.
She has run support groups for gamers, an addiction-prone group. But most clients seek help because they’ve gotten into trouble with their spouses over porn or sex chat rooms. Young men are the worst cases.
“These are usually guys who’ve flunked out of high school. They’re living at home. Their parents don’t know what to do with them. Most of them don’t date. They take care of their sexual needs with porn, and spend all their time gaming. They’re just a mess,” says Cash.
Both Block and Cash say the extreme consequence of Internet dependence is not the gun rage of a Kazmierczak or a Cho, but something far more mundane and predictable: lost jobs, failed classes, divorce. Among addicts, the “computer-human relationship” becomes more compelling than money or sex.
While both Block and Cash say addicts are almost always male, they apparently come in all ages. One example is Michael Strickland, a 58-year-old retired graphic designer in Portland. He beat alcoholism years ago, before online games even existed. But for Strickland, the computer proved just as habit-forming. He says chronic pain from a spinal birth defect exacerbated his growing dependence on World of Warcraft, perhaps the most addictive game ever designed. “It’s a monster, man. It’s got tentacles you can’t even see,” says Strickland.
WoW, as players call it, is the world’s most popular online game, with 10 million subscribers who pay $15 a month to play. The premise is basically a rip-off of Lord of the Rings. Players adopt an alter ego, like a knight or a magician, explore a fantasy world, dress up in magic armor and band together to slay beasts.
WoW is unwinnable. There is no end. Players join guilds with dozens of members, who become like bar buddies hassling you to stay for another round. Going “afk” (away from keyboard) for a “bio break” (the toilet) can bring reprimands from a player’s team leaders.
There is also the undeniable appeal of becoming a character that’s more powerful and successful than your real self. “Virtually everyone who spends a lot of time in WoW has something in their life they are hiding from,” says Strickland.
“Literally, I lived in a recliner and I crawled to the toilet,” he says of the days when his pain—and his WoW habit—was at its worst. The game is not only addictive, Strickland says, but “a replacement for life.”
Despite his pain, in the game Strickland “can walk, run, jump, even fly—I can go, go, go without stopping, and there is no pain associated with it!”
Strickland, who is divorced, even developed an online romance with another WoW player. “I’ve met many people who say they’re females—and I believe they are—who are married, and they want to have a relationship with me. They’re putting out these vibes, constantly,” Strickland says.
Vibes?
“She was talking about names of characters that had different sexual connotations in different languages. Stuff like that,” Strickland says. “I feel like an idiot. I hate to admit this, but I did get sucked in, because I was hurting. I caught myself in the middle of it and thought, ‘What the fuck am I doing?’”
After 2 1/2 years of playing—sometimes for up to a week straight—Strickland recently burned out, as many addicts eventually do.
“Right now, the last thing I want to do is play WoW,” Strickland says. “It just becomes a grind and a real drag.”
Still, he admits, “I might get sucked back into it.”
Luke is a fresh-faced 16-year-old private-school student in Portland. He doesn’t have a girlfriend. He has a cell phone, but not surprisingly, he’s more reachable by instant message. His MySpace page lists dozens of friends. It contains no mention of his jones.
Luke has put over 4,200 hours into WoW since middle school. He’d try to set time limits for his gaming, only to watch one hour turn into five, again and again. He found himself sleep-deprived, rushing to finish assignments between classes, and spending less time with friends. But he managed to keep his mom in the dark about his nightly habit. “I was a pretty sneaky player,” he says. If Mom came to his room, he’d quickly make his homework appear on the screen.
Story continues belowadvertisement
 “A replacement for life”: Michael Strickland has been a computer junkie since the days of Apple IIs. Image: Brain Lee |
“The game...is like a drug,” Luke writes. “The moment i know i was totally addicted was when i had a completely wow dream it was a circle of me, and like 4 other players, all were talking like my friends but in wow bodies and we ran around and killed stuff now, looking at people who are addicted, i feel bad...sort of compelled to make them stop.”
How does one distinguish between a bona fide addict and an office worker who for eight hours a day uses email and Microsoft Word and sneaks in a game or three of solitaire?
One sign is that addicts come to think their computers have human emotions. They intuitively understand the meaning of each click, tap and beep. They sense when it takes too long to start up a program. “They know when it’s sick,” says Block. “It’s like knowing your wife’s favorite rose.”
But, as with drugs, use doesn’t become addiction until the computer use causes real-life problems. It’s not what you’re doing on the computer that makes you an addict, but everything else you’re not doing.
^Take WW's Checklist
There is no agreed-upon diagnosis for Internet addiction. There may be by 2012, when the American Psychiatric Association publishes the next edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In the meantime, here’s WW’s own checklist. If you answer “C” to more than one of these questions, you might have a problem. —Corey Pein
Block spots Internet addicts with a checklist of his own devising, built around the acronym SIGNS:
S leep-pattern disturbance
I rritability before and after computer use
G uilt and attempts to hide or purge computer use
N ightmares and dreams about computer use
S ocial avoidance
Block says shutting off an addict’s computer can be a dangerous move.
In a 2007 article in the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, Block noted that Columbine High School shooter Eric Harris began plotting to blow up his school only after his parents kicked him off the computer. Block did not blame the violent content of the games but the abrupt severance from the shooter’s “virtual life.”
Block personally treated a young man who had been a heavy gamer for much of his life. At age 17, the patient developed a heroin addiction and dropped the computer. By 20 he was in rehab for the heroin but was developing a seven-hour-a-day online gaming habit.
“Take away the computer, and I don’t have a doubt he’d be back on heroin,” Block says.
(“Wow…I’m not gonna say it couldn’t happen,” says Ed Blackburn, who runs the opiate detox programs for Portland’s Central City Concern. But “none of our counselors have come to us and said, ‘Boy, we’re seeing a lot of people developing Internet addiction.”)
Relapse rates are high, Block says. There is no cure. Yet.
There are good reasons to be skeptical about Internet addiction.
For starters, everyday use does not pose a problem. “Honestly, nobody ever calls and says, ‘I need treatment and my life has fallen apart because I’m on email too much,” says Cash, the therapist in Redmond.
Second, psychiatric theories change with the times. For instance, in the 19th century, novels were thought to cause hysteria in women. There was a plague of books.
Third, Internet addiction is not yet recognized as a mental disorder in the United States.
There is also the fact that most Internet addicts have some other disorder. Chad Johnson, for instance, is schizophrenic. (Interestingly, he says he almost never has a delusion while his mind is focused on a video game.)
This is why some psychiatrists argue that Internet addiction is best treated by attacking a person’s deeper problems. “It’s not the computer itself, it’s particular behaviors on the computer—compulsively checking your email, or checking the value of your house. It’s a way of dealing with loneliness or depression,” says Portland therapist Melissa Owens.
Then again, other countries are already treating Internet addiction as a public health crisis.
In South Korea, among the most wired countries in the world, Koreans treat online gaming as a national pastime. Driven by press reports of people dropping dead of heart failure after days-long gaming sessions, the government there has trained more than 1,000 counselors to treat Internet addiction and set up nearly 200 treatment centers, including a boot camp-style clinic in the countryside. (The camp didn’t work, Block says. Too many patients relapsed.)
 Alternate universe: The little guy is Chad Johnson’s WoW alter ego, Vinan, a level 70 gnome warlock. The big guy is his pet demon. Image: Brain Lee |
The government estimates more than 210,000 children need help.
In China, too, thousands of Internet “addicts” have been hospitalized. The Chinese government, which estimates 10 million young people may be afflicted, regulates the amount of time people can spend online by limiting licenses for new Internet cafes, requiring online gamers to use their real names when logging on, and mandating software that makes the games harder to play after users exceed a three-hour-a-day limit. Addicts can be confined to military hospitals for up to 10 weeks, and subjected to martial drills, antipsychotic medication and “comprehensive education,” according to an email to Block from Ran Tao, a doctor with the Center for Addiction Medicine at Beijing Military General Hospital.
“At least in those Asian countries, they are clear about it being an addiction. They don’t have their heads in the sand about it,” says Cash.
Every addiction has pushers. Often, they’re former users.
Marcus Eikenberry is 37, big, bearded and tattooed. He started gaming with Ultima Online in 1997.
“I was working a 40-hour job and playing 40 hours a week,” Eikenberry says. Naturally, he says, his wife complained. Rather than quit, “I decided to make the game my job.”
His wife, a “casual gamer,” was skeptical, but Eikenberry’s online gaming business took off, and the marriage survived. His two sons, also gamers, help out at the office, and his younger brother is a full-time employee.
Today, Eikenberry owns what he believes is the largest company of its kind, catering to online gamers from all over the world. Markee Dragon Inc. is housed in a boxy commercial complex near Portland International Airport.
His company is like a combination of Citibank and Wal-Mart. He sells virtual items—like gold, magic swords and real estate in the form of castles, or even entire characters—for real money.
The business involves complex spreadsheets tracking supply and demand in different areas of the virtual world, as well as constant monitoring of competitors’ prices. He even benefits from globalization. Often he buys from Chinese “gold farmers”—who spend their days killing monsters for virtual treasure, often earning a real-world commission (in yuan) on the fake gold pieces that they gather. The farmers’ employers make their money by selling the virtual loot to dealers like Eikenberry.
His employees connect buyers with sellers and run what are essentially credit checks, because of the high fraud rate in the secondary market for virtual goods.
Eikenberry says he facilitates over $1 million a month in sales.
Eikenberry has no moral qualms about how he makes his living. “The people that are buying [this stuff] already know what the game is about. You can’t say that they’re naive,” Eikenberry says. “I’ve never thought about it as the game that’s the problem. It’s the person that’s the problem.”
At the same time, he freely admits: “If you’re not addicted, we don’t make money off of you.”
^IS IT A SCAM
Every addiction, these days, has a chemical fix.
Because Internet addiction is not yet a recognized mental disorder in the United States, there is no ready prescription. No worries: Big Pharma is on the job.
Forest Laboratories, a $3.4 billion pharmaceutical company, partly funded a 2006 Stanford study on the prevalence of Internet addiction. The study found one in eight Americans showed at least one sign of “problematic computer use.”
And a preliminary study, also funded by Forest Labs, shows some promising results treating Internet addiction with an antidepressant the company markets under the brand name Lexapro.
“Some people have suggested this is just an evil pharmaceutical empire that’s just trying go sell more drugs,” says the study’s author, Eric Hollander, who chairs the psychiatry department at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. “What I would say in response to that is that there is a subgroup of individuals who are biologically vulnerable” to Internet addiction.
“On balance I think that it’s essential to be able to do studies,” he says. “And nobody else is funding this kind of work.”
Lee Siegel, in his new book, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob , argues that the Internet is making us less creative and more isolated. Siegel was suspended by The New Republic in 2006 after responding under a false name to critical bloggers.
Psychiatrist Eric Hollander has compared gambling addicts to cocaine addicts, and found that their brains’ “reward circuitry” responds in the same way. He suspects the same may be true of Internet addicts.
World of Warcraft has over 10 million subscribers worldwide, 2.5 million of them in North America. By comparison, nearly 30 million people watch American Idol every week.
Chad Johnson’s favorite movie is The Matrix . He says he’s seen it 40 to 50 times.
Blizzard Entertainment, which makes WoW , was valued at $1.2 billion in 2007.
Block has noticed adults will cop to porn use but not computer gaming. “How are you going to talk about how you’re a level 70 wizard in World of Warcraft with a straight face?” Block says.
Sites like On-Line Gamers Anonymous and gamerwidow.com function as support groups for Internet addicts. The following comment is from wowdetox.com: “My wife left me because of my WoW addiction. She said enough was enough and it was time she moved in with a real man instead of a geek. She left me for one of our old guildmates who quit two months prior and sent me pictures of them and posted them on our guild website.”
Thanks for the interesting article.
Why didn't WW put this in the first few paragraphs rather than nearly at the end: "Chad Johnson, for instance, is schizophrenic."?
If I am to understand this correctly, any action that is compulsive and that causes you to have adverse affects occur in your life is now considered an addiction, and is "treatable" with the correct therapy and drugs. Let's think of some other things that have this same description;
Working a job "too much"
Going to school "too much"
Exercising "too much"
Going to political protests "too much"
wanking it "too much"
just about anything you do "too much" can cause problems in your life. This article is fairly weak.
In addition to this The false correlation between the "crazy" kids that shoot up schools and video games is a very lame attempt to take the responsibility of parenting out of the parents hands and place them on society's. Here's a good question, how the hell did Eric Harris get a f'ing automatic rifle to begin with??!!
Crappy parents = crappy kids
"Keyed up: Chad Johnson drinks Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi and plays World of Warcraft, the crack of computer games. "
The crack of computer games???
Reported.
What an insightful article, clearly you've done tons of research. Clearly you've taken the time to get both sides of the issue. Obviously you've interviewed some of the millions of people who enjoy internet gaming while living normal and stable lives. I look forward to your fascinating insights into those who spend hours per week on any number of different hobbies in future issues. Watch four hours of TV a day? You're an addict! Work a few hours of overtime a day? Addicted to work, oooooooh watch out! Play on a sports team and spend a few hours a day participating in that? Wow, you need help! Work out a few hours a day? OH MY GOD!
Actually on second thought, this is really a piece of shit article.
agreed
Uh Oh, I think someone is a little defensive about thier addiction...
I always find it interesting how people will address substance abuse or compulsory behavior in a person without looking into the greater psychological issues at hand. It seems far easier for society to deal with an alcoholic without looking into the depression that compels him to self-medicate by getting drunk. Is it really simpler to deal with a person's addiction to gambling or heroin than the social and psychological motivators behind it? Is it more convenient to treat someone compulsive computer use than his schizophrenia?
People seem to be more "addiction conscious" than they are "emotionally conscious". Unless a particular psychological condition has been given a buzzword and a sexy write up in Mass Media (complete with a handy prescription for it) the public at large seems to think that addiction itself is a disorder, rather than a symptom of a greater problem. I guess it's really easier to just sweep these unfortunate souls into treatment facilities and church-run programs like repentant flagellants than to take the time to listen to why they need to (insert problem behavior) to feel better about themselves.
The public at large still has the attitude that only the socially unacceptable possess any kind of expertise with computers. How much of these "addicts" behavior is motivated behind that perception? Already you've cited examples of self-shaming behavior: “How are you going to talk about how you’re a level 70 wizard in World of Warcraft with a straight face?” I wonder how much of this is spurred by the stigma of being labeled an outcast?
In the real world people have to follow a strict cadence of social interaction where your own status is already predetermined for you within a few minutes. Television blasts us with images of how we should look, what we should wear, what we should think in order to be considered "normal" in society. Combine that with the fact that Ma and Pa Average out there react to anything that smacks of freethinking or nonconformity with fear and disdain and it's no wonder that people are fleeing intimate social interaction for the warm confines of a completely autonomous and anonymous social environment of like-minded individuals.
There are people out there who spend 40+ hours a week glued to a chair in front of the television compulsively checking their TiVo - yet I don't hear anything about "television addiction". Are we going to reach the same moral quandary in our culture where television is a more acceptable vice than the internet - much like how alcohol is more acceptable than marijuana?
Love it.
Your daughter wants to play with you, in response you.
c. Yell "STFU newb!!" and slam the door.
I think it's pretty much universally understood that people who play that "World ov Warcraft" game are nothing but worthless nerds with major inferiority complexes & mommy/daddy issues!
And as for this so-called internet "addiction" thing - OH PLEASE! Drug addiction, yeah. Alcohol, sure. Internet?! For fuck sakes, act like a GROWN PERSON for once! Put the joystick down! Turn the damn computer off! Read a BOOK, go outside, get the red out ov your eyes! Stop being such a pissy little baby! You don't get "addicted" to being on-line; some people are just too damned stubburn inspite ov themselves, that's all.
Damos,
Don't play like you don't know anything about these games, or being on the internet too much. Your the one who had your mom catch you looking at porn on the internet, and the fact that it was just last year and you are 42 years old!!! How sick is that!
Get a life!
Gamers are "worthless nerds with major inferiority complexes"...As opposed to people who post nasty comments about other people online?
At least the WOW players I interviewed weren't jerks.
Well let me tell all of you a few things about ADDICTION! there is no cure,it has definite signs and symptoms, and it is fatal. Do you people know waht fatal means? You sound so ignorant,oh hell you are. Have you ever read the DSM4 for those who are lay it means Diagnostic Sat. Manual put out by the AMA American Medical Assoc. gives counselors the criteria to give a recommendation of treatment. If a client says yes to at least 3 criteria that person is dependent on what ever the addiction is! YES addiction is a very real,painful,crippling,and deadly disease. I have seen too many people come to my place of work seeking and begging for help, help to make the insanity go away. They say things like " If i don't quite, i'll die" or "I want the pain to stop" or "I just can't take it anymore, all the money being wasted,being dishonest, and not felling like myself". Yes i know it was there choice to try what ever that "FIRST" time, but after that they had no control. Their brain chem. is changed from that first whatever,the brain wants more it liked that feeling. All things with a brain have natural opiaites in the limbic system (pleasure center) and when released either by chemicals or pain or for ex: jumping out of a plaine the brain releases endorphines. That is the nuerotransmitter that makes us Feel Real Good. Ever hear of the "Runners High?" Same thing with internet addict. it effects the same part of the brain as effectively as any other drug!!! I would be glad to email you articles and info. on addiction i you are brave enough to look at your own reasons for gaming and being so defensive about people saying the internet or online gaming is addictive. MY quote "An Addiction of any other name, will still put you six feet!"
Yeah, I found it silly that they buried the fact that I am schitzophrenic back near the end of the article. It fits the goal of this story better if my REAL problem is the hours I spend on the computer.
I had assumed during the interview process for this that I might be the balancing part of the story where video game usage is actually very helpful as my doctor believes it has been at times for me. When a mental illness patient is unable to engage the real world when his medication is not fully doing it's job, as I am sure happens to many mental illness patients from time to time, I think playing an interactive video game can be more helpful to the mind than filling it with old Jerry Springer episodes and becoming a vegetable.
Does the story still have value? I think it does. I am sure there are many people who are ignoring family and work commitments that they have in their life in favor of the escape of a video game, and I hope some people do benefit from reading the story. I just think that the story was altered to give it a bit more merit at my expense.
I still think Corey Pein is a great kid and fun to hang out with and I hope for his success at Willamete Week.
Shouldn't you be busy playing WOW or something?
Dr. Block clearly betrayed his patient. He used an innocent unsuspecting Patient for an advertisement. Confidentiality lost out to greed. What ever happened to caring about patients and protecting them? He through this young man to the wolves for personal gain.
John,
On the confidentiality issue: When I asked, Dr. Block refused to discuss any of his patients' specific cases with me.
One major point the writer failed to point out - a lot of our lives are moving onto the internet i.e. music, food, clothing, news, discussion, dating. What does that say about human kind? I agree, excessive computer/internet usage is unhealthy. There is a reason many of us continue to flock home to use our computers. Lets see a story about that! Bring on the SSRI's and DSM diagnosis! That'll fix it!
Why did Willamette Week need to use full names and photos? That seems insensitive. Could they just identified people using something like \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Ted W.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"
The actual story was good but the article needlessly trashed the addicts.
Incidentally, I think the focus is off target. Violence is the REAL problem. The games are murder simulators. It is no wonder people are shooting up schools. There are many studies that prove exactly that. Where was this in the article?
Probably because no reputable study has ever found a link between playing violent video games and violent behavior in the real world.
FYI, clearly you're a discruntled, mean-spirited nerd with a nasty chip on your shoulders & a bone to pick with the world.
Your rather "mature" response to my comment prettymuch shows that.
In the end you just can't chop up a Ethernet cable and snort it off the dirty toilet seat at Hawthorne Hideaway can you? But if you could...
This is all really just a case ov ADULT BABIES with issues. Their mothers should just take away their internet privileges until they decide to GROW UP & get their shit together, that's all.
No therapist needed.
Now my mom thinks I need therapy because I play WoW with my friends...thanks.
I just turned 18, and I seriously doubt that WoW is a problem in my life.
We'll see about that when you're in your mid-30's & still playing WoW.
You don't own any firearms, do you?
omg this is the biggest piece of bull i have ever read. This guy really needs to get his facts straight. O and the worst is saying wow is a rip off of lord of the rings. Has this author read the books or even played wow. I bet the author just doesn't has 15 bucks to spend on wow so he is trying to bash the game.
And about that, the idea ov actually PAYING MONEY to play this childish LOTR-rip-off RPG? If that isn't a sure sign that someone is off their rocker, i don't know what is! Being chastized for taking a "bio-break"?! I see why they call this game "WOW"!
So what does Chad do for a living, if anything? Job? Who pays his rent and bills? Disability? Parents? If grown men like this are going to waste their lives playing games 24/7 I worry about future of this country. They contribute nothing to society. Unhealthy lifestyle the rest of us will end up paying for one way or another.
Turn off the computer, boys. Grow up. Join the human race. Quit being so self indulgent.
Addiction my ass.
I know many women who play this game, I know of aeronautical engineers working for NASA who play this game. It's not a game that is dedicated to lonely men living with their parents, but a game that everyone can enjoy, regardless of age, gender, sexuality or religious belief. This game promotes peaceful, cooperative coexistence rather than the fear-based reality promoted by our government.
And Mr. Abadon, please keep your oafish and ignorant opinions to yourself rather than make this world more chaotic and intolerant.
If you play MMORPGs, or even know what that acronym stands for you probably need to be on strong anti-psychotic, and no orange mountain dew doesn't count. You nerds are killing America, plunging us into a culture of over-weight albinos interacting with other people soley through the interweb. Sort of like people who obsessively post comments on the WWeek. Hey nerds, would it be too much to ask to end the inscesent Acronyming of everything, seriously that style is beat; or HN, WIBTMTATETIAOESTSIB. Are we on the same web page now? Really though the thing that scares me about ye ol' world of war craft; is that you nerds actually have jobs in the game. So you come home from a long day bagging groceries at the PennySaver, so that you can work in a cyber-tailoring shop in wow. Yeah we are really using the internet for its full potential. You guys know that Wow was developed by OXY, Axe Body spray and Dominos right? Its all conspiricy and they are playing you like a first level druid bitch with no cheetah
Uh, sorry to tell the story's author this, hope they're still reading, but Colorado cops say Aaron Harris was SET OFF when the U.S. Military refused to take him because he lied about taking all those meds.
The recruiters actually told the kid, and the folks, in their nice, suburban living room shortly before the horror.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/natio...
I helped local media cover the story and that fact was widely reported.
The computer obsession issue was not a major factor at all. All kids that age use computers, a lot.
I agree it's time for some fresh air, but like all "addictions", just substitute the word "chocolate" or "alcohol" or "golfing" and you can regurgitate the same story over and over again.
And the doctor dishing on his patients, is that legal, moral or what?
Is there a doctor in the house?
Sid-
I'm listening. The discussion has been interesting. Now, regarding "dishing," see Corey Pein's comments above.
As for Columbine, two comments: First, Harris had been rejected by the Marines but he had not yet been notified. He may have known, somehow, but I have seen no evidence to support that. If you think I am wrong, ok, that is possible; please give me a primary source reference.
Regardless, Harris and Klebold planned the killings in detail for about a year. Harris' rage cannot, therefore, be easily attributed to his rejection by the military. If you want to read my thoughts on Columbine, the peer-reviewed paper is posted on the web. I'd be interested in your comments.
Sid-
You got me curious so I checked my notes. See footnote #37 on pg 18 of the Columbine Review Commission, available here: www.state.co.us/columbine/Columbine...
Harris was never told he was rejected by the Marines. This is an example of where nearly all the media got it wrong.
Basically, what we're dealing with here are a growing number ov vicious nerds who are just mad at the whole world. They play these RPGs honing their SHOOTING skills, then when the time comes these nerds go out into the real world & start a massacre! It isn't Al Qeada we should be worried about - but wow-obssessed nerds!
That game ought to be BANNED!
Btw,
show me one female who plays WOW... who isn't morbidly obese.
30 seconds on Google, buddy: meetme.hotornot.com/r/?emid=NEOZSEN
Let me introduce you to schitzophrenia. I was a 3rd year civil engineering student when I had my first schitzophrenic episode. Typical onset for guys is around 21. I was hospitalized a number of times. I tried to complete my college education but having delusions occur at critical times such us during a midterm became too much for my wellness. Staying well had to become my focus. It has been my main focus for 14 years.
When I can work I do Data Entry. When I cannot work my parents cover me financially. So I produce no drain on the system of disability and welfare. I have been on my first medication change in 12 years of my illness this winter and so my only work has been as a helper to my folks, grandparents, and sister for the last few months.
I have said many times that I am the luckiest schitzophrenic on the planet. I have parents that can fully support me, and at the times when I thought my medication was poison they were able to put me in a care facility where I would remain safe until I finally would take my medication for long enough for it to balance me back out.
If I didn't have the family support that I've had I would be among the many men and women who end up crazy on the streets for much of their lives. If I had been born 30 years earlier I would have been sent to Dammasch and given shock treatments each week and stuck on Haldol until the side effects of the medication render me useless. Remember the Cuckoo's Nest?
With the intensity of my particular case of schitzophrenia I am hugely lucky to have been born at a time when medications are getting so much better than they used to be and I've got the greatest family and friends in the world.
I am grateful to see the stigma attached to schitzophrenia becoming less and less relevant. Today schitzophrenia is starting to be viewed as it should be; as a chemical imbalance, much like Diabetes, treatable by the right medication: In my case Seroquel; In theirs, Insulin.
On occasion a diabetic has an imbalance and needs a drink of Orange juice and eventually gets back to normal. On occasion I experience delusion and need to not have music on or people talking to me until I get feeling back to normal.
At times when I have needed to not be around people I have found that interactive video games have kept my mind engaged and focused on what's in front of me and my mind will return to normal quite quickly. Video games have been a valuable crutch for me many many times.
Video games have not kept me from work and if my friends or family ever need me for anything I do not turn them down in favor of video games. If there is one main valuable thing gained from this article I hope it is to be mindful not to neglect your work or family obligations in favor of your computer. I realize this article is about computer addiction but I hope that it also shines a light on mental illness.
I'm done here. Discuss amongst yourselves.
So in conclusion, you're a spoiled, delusional nerd who ADMITS to mooching off mommy & daddy b/c he can't/won't get his own shit together.
Case closed.
Again, The Pentagon says, in The Washington Post report I linked to, that they told Harris he was 4-F. The report also says the recruiter called Harris personally and left a "we don't want you!" message on his home phone.
Contact was made. Many times.
Harris wanted OUTTA Colorado... when The Army couldn't sweep him away, the bullets and the bombs did.
Oh, who cares about those two Columbine losers?! Spoiled rich kids who lived in a gated community & were want for NOTHING!
And Stephanie, i'll have you know my spelling is impeccable.
To Damos:
Speaking of needing a life... You can't think of anything better to do with your time other than tearing apart others? And if you are going to keep posting please make sure to spell your words right!
Damos wrote: "So in conclusion, you're a spoiled, delusional nerd who ADMITS to mooching off mommy & daddy b/c he can't/won't get his own shit together.
Case closed."
No, Damos, you don't know Chad. The only thing that is closed is your mind.
Next time you you break your leg, why don't you just get your shit together and get back to work? Oh, wait, you think a broken leg is real and schizophrenia is just a bad case of laziness. Lucky you that we live in a society where ignorance such as yours it tolerated.
Are there people that take advantage of the system, are just lazy or too pathetic to take care of themselves? Sure. But Chad isn't one of them. I've known him for about 8 years. Do you know him well enough to make that call you made? No. Definitely no.
If he's THAT bad off that he can't even take care ov himself, you'd think playing childish role-playing-games on-line all damn day would be the LAST thing on his mind!
Or is it that playing WOW provides some sort ov [warped] "therapy" for him? Didn't he claim that his delusions went down in frequency when he was playing that game?
It's "of." With and "f." I know it's petty of me, but all this "ov" stuff is driving me up the wall.
I found that the article to be interesting and fairly well balanced among the various opposing view points. IMHO, Internet use, playing video games, or anything else like that, becomes a problem when you lose control over it. That is one of the differences from just excessive use as with watching T.V. and other such activities that other people compare it to. Although I only played regular video games, for quite a few years I had problems controlling it as I would rather do that than more important things like my work (I am self-employed). I actually only played about 4 hours per day, on average, but I also did a lot of other things to procrastinate as well so that I sometimes would delay important, urgent work for several weeks or even longer. I am now slowly recovering, after getting counseling and joining on-line support groups like OLGA, but it is not easy. Also, I have read many stories of people who are much more addicted, such as to WoW or other MMORPGs, as they play around 12 or even up to 18 hours per day! In addition, they have a lot of trouble stopping, have withdrawal type symptoms when they do and often have at least several relapses while trying to recover. Regardless of what label you attach to it, this indicates to me that it is a serious problem for some people and they need appropriate help. However, I am in no way indicating that all, or even a majority, of on-line video game players or Internet users have such a problem, as I believe that it is only a minority, even if it is quite sizable.
RE: All these comments saying "substitute chocolate for 'internet' and you have another story, blah blah blah..."
The same can be said for your argument that goes something like, "Internet addiction isn't real. How hard is it to stop playing games and read a book, geez?"
I mean, try telling an alcoholic to sip some lemonade. Easier said than done.
Internet addicts are just as zombified as methheads. When's the last time chocolate or working out caused anyone to turn into a zombie?
Of course! I forgot about all those pre-Christian English speakers. Oh, wait...
It's "of." "Ov" is incorrect. Just like "majick." And "Xian." And "g*d," for that matter.
I just plastered a new bumper sticker on my new hot pink Lincoln Town Car, the one me and Clyde roll in:
"Computers don't kill. People do!"
There are currently more american's playing world of warcraft than there are operating family farms. If you want an example of an average american you don't go to a corn field in the middle of iowa you ask the guy with the level 70 raid geared warlock.
Video games are not and by their very nature cannot be physically addictive. This is the reason that the medical community refuses to classify internet addiction as an actual disorder.
Anything can become an addictive substitue. Shopping, gambleing, porn. I think that singling out world of warcraft as the sole contributor to internet addiction is like saying only gun deaths count as murders.
Internet gambleing, ebay, cybersex, compulsive email checking and any number of other behaviors can all qualify as internet addiction. And as is pointed out in the article the people are are "diagnosed" with internet addiction are actually suffering from something else and simply using the internet to self-medicate.
I wouldn't use this article to wrap fish.
Well you ARE certainly right that wow alone ought not be singled out. There are many things from the down-right trite to significant that people compulsively adhere to on-line.
And it's plainly obvious why the medical community refuses to acknowledge such as a ligitimate addiction.
The bottem line here is, GET A LIFE! Turn the computer off, for just afew hours. Go outside, hang out with people IN THE REAL WORLD. It's not that scary, you'll see.
Damos writes:
"The bottem line here is, GET A LIFE! Turn the computer off, for just afew hours. Go outside, hang out with people IN THE REAL WORLD. It's not that scary, you'll see."
Damos, you are the most frequent poster in this disucssion, how about you take some of your own advise and go do something productive?
The real world seems pretty scary with someone like you running amok, Damos.
Does that Damos Idiot even have a job? Or is he employed by the Willamette Week to insult each and every response made to this article? Or maybe every article put out by WW? He seems to be more addicted to insulting responders than those portrayed in the article as being addicted to WoW. Doth Protest Too Much!
Damos sounds like on of those forum trolls that posts ignorent stuff purposely to piss people off hehe. Anyway Mr. Damos while you judge us "nerds" for choosing to play wow with our free time, shouldn't you be our improving the world or economy or somthing? I see you have quite a few posts here so i'g guess you spend alot of time in forums/comments online??? I'm a B average student who works a part-time job at a local fast food resturant and still I have time for my friends and Warcraft. L2Adult
Damos, you really are a pathetic asshole. Obviously a sorry troll with NO LIFE.
It's too bad the writer didn't take a more critical view of the non-diagnosis of "Internet addiction disorder." Without a solid research foundation and no theoretical model (one was only developed only years after the disorder was proposed), it's fun to read self-selecting people ("Yes, I've got it, and I'm also a shop-a-holic!") and the therapists who are billing them for this non-existent disorder.
I suggest interested readers followup with a little bit more of a critical eye on this issue with an essay I wrote years ago, and which is still valid today:
psychcentral.com/netaddiction/
Do people spend too much time online doing mostly social activities? Why, sure! And they also spend too much time watching television, on their mobile, and a hundred other activities. None of which are considered disorders.
I just got back from yet another hard days' work & boy has someone gotten all obssesive! The truth has a mighty sting, does it not?
If you NERDS want to take out all your penned-up nerd-rage on me for being straight forward (something your parents clearly neglected to do) then that's fine with me. I'm a grown man & such things do not bother me.
But it still doesn't make YOU any less pathetic for playing RPGs on-line, living with mother, not having jobs, & generally being losers in society. Since your mother is [apparently] the one who pays your internet bill, maybe she should just take away your internet privlages until you all learn to grow up.
Damos,
There are plenty of people out there who take part in these online role-playing games, who are also productive citizens in society. Your level of narrow-mindedness is dissapointing to say the least. How someone of your "claimed" intelligence can systematically catorgorize any person who plays this game into a "nerd who needs to get a life", is beyond me. You intend to sound passionate, and just about the things you believe in. What you end up sounding like is a bigot, and a un-educated person, with no real level of self worth.
Congratulations. Before you feel the need to chastise and critique people on thier ability to act like "adults", you should probably be able to do it yourself first.
Now go to you room.
Damos is def. the person I want telling me how to be a responsible active member of society. If you don't believe me check out the link.
WOW, my 1st stalker! Why i'm, i'm... hardly impressed.
Just so you know, i pretty-much mean ALL that say & write. Therefore, there's nothing for ME to be "careful" about. So if you've dis-illusioned yourself into thinking you've "one-uped" me by tracking down a letter (one ov several i've had published in the Merc) ov mine, or a [fairly typical] photo ov me on a social site, well... sorry to burst your nerd-bubble. You'll have to try harder than that, & i DARE you to!
Just what did you hope to prove anyways, "The", if that is your real name which i doubt?
A final FINAL remark, just to prove a point that you are indeed a bigot. Be careful what you say...and especially what you write.
"Check out the 3rd letter down from Damos"
This was a fair piece, although I wonder why to focus was almost solely on Net gaming. There are other addicts out there, many of whom spend almost every waking hour posting on Internet discussion boards.
For example, over at OregonLive.com, one can see a poster who most commonly goes by RedFlyer who posts 16 to 20 hours a day, using many monikers. These include: JuanJalepeno, BusMallBob, blondbarking, MrBergis, TedKSucks, rotaxmax126, MEXCIANPride, TwoBuckChuck, Dually, TryingSkills, prostatepete, bipolarbear, BobbinWeaver, PaulLip, wereakingball, bedfordfalls, PuTtyIsDeAD, JoIIyOIdMan, COregon, JoeCOOL, PaddyMcGuire, Triarii, reformTrimet, observin, interest55, TypicalJoe, PDXDriver, LordofChaos, Dually, OregonTiger, GoDucks and dozens more.
This poster also posts nonsense posts on other local boards using the moniker names of people he does not like at OregonLive.
There are others like him at OregonLive and elsewhere. It would be interesting to have a follow-up feature on such people.
Yeah, that's why i don't ever bother going to OR Live. There seems to be ALOT ov people... that, or either afew people making ALOT ov posts & this is on-going, with hardly any slow-down it seems.
I wonder if the regulars on Oregon Live EVER leave their computers...
You should know Damos, You are on all the time. No goth chicks for you to fool?
On what, Arnold? Oregon Live? And what do "goth chicks" have to do with anything?
Gosh, some people can be soo un-intelligent.
Great topic! Weak article! This "drug of choice" is so prevalant, the author could have interviewed dozens of addicts and therapists about it. This should be a major expose, but I thought the article fizzled out after the title.
Hey Damos, for someone who spells everything "correctly" you sure manage to fuck up a lot (not alot) a lot of the time.
Plus I don't see how anyone could take you seriously just by looking at your picture, let alone reading your comments. You look like the neglected step-son of Ghengis Khan with a 500$ gift card to Hot Topic. Just another "goth" acting out a contrived role from entertainment based reality.
Now, on to what I initially wanted to say in regards to the article:
If gambling can be considered an addiction than why not internet gaming?
If you've ever spent more than a few hours at a time in a casino gambling responsibly you know how devastating it can be.
I watched a guy at the Tropicana AC who had holes in his shoes lose about 2500$ in a little over three hours at a poker table where the maximum buy-in was 300$.
"Often he buys from Chinese “gold farmers”—who spend their days killing monsters for virtual treasure, often earning a real-world commission (in yuan) on the fake gold pieces that they gather. The farmers’ employers make their money by selling the virtual loot to dealers like Eikenberry."
I would like to correct this. Chinese farmers selling to resellers is very common. But we do not deal with any Chinese farmers as we only buy and sell in the game Ultima Online. There are no farmers in that game as there are in other games. It's very taboo to be listed as buying from the farmers and I want to make sure it is clear that we do not.