Just one Fix

Ohhhh, poooo! Once again the **** internet natzi's won't let me see this link! **** them to the frozen wastelands of hell! two more weeks to go thank goodness.

~Chris

Here you go, Chris...
Feature: Just One Fix Written by Steve Bauman

Gamers like to joke about "addictive" games. But are they truly addictive or just another scapegoat? A special report. By David Cotriss

Madrid was kicking butt in Norrath. The Great Shaman of the North was a master of adventure, a goal-oriented, monster-slaying overachiever rich with special powers and items. But Dennis Bennett, Madrid of the North's real-life counterpart, was failing college, ruining his marriage, and being a lousy father to his infant son. Madrid may have been a lord of the epic, never-ending fantasy world, but Bennett was just a game junkie ruining his life.

Computer game addiction has become a hot issue in the last few years, with some parent groups fearing the influence and addictiveness of DOOM, Splinter Cell, and The Sims as much as crack and heroin. But thats absurd, right? Maybe not: Anyone that's ever played an MMO gets a little taste of the brown (heroinware), a touch of techno-tweak, or a little rush of online angel dust. Players call EverQuest "EverCrack" for a reason, because there is a thrill, an actual high from leveling that they recognize as addictive even if it's technically not addictive.

There is genuine concern over the effect of games on players who lose control. Support groups have sprung up for recovering addicts and one - olganon.com, or Online Gamers Anonymous - has even created a twelve-step program based on AA. EverQuest-Widows, the Yahoo group for people who have lost loved ones to the game, is now over 2000 members strong. But are these games a form of computer cocaine, or is something else the matter?

A Dark Tale from NorrathWe bought EverQuest in November of 2002 at my sister's urging, says Emmy Pierce, a mother of three. The kids and I would play maybe half an hour a week, just when we truly had nothing better to do, but my husband was instantly hooked. As Pierce's husband retreated from their kids and her, she came to blame the game. We had grown to hate [it] for taking my husband from us.

Pierce joined EverQuest-Widows after her husband's second real-life affair with someone from the game. 'I was desperate to find someone else who understood what I was going through. Everyone here kept saying I was making too much out of the game and that it had nothing to do with anything.' She says that her husband was fine when he wasn't playing, but as his hours spent with the game were increasing, she struggled to support the family. 'Things got worse as the baby got older and needed more then a bottle and diaper change. I would come home and he'd be in his crib crying while his dad was on the game. I had our 10-year-olds watching the baby. Everything my husband talked about had to do with EverQuest. It was as if it was his reality and we were all a fantasy life he could visit occasionally.'

At a particularly low point, Pierce received a phone call from someone her husband had married in the game. 'The woman called my house demanding I wake our husband up', she says, still shocked. 'When I confronted him over her, he told me I better not talk bad about his friends.'

Pierce's husband was a raving success in Norrath: He had a devoted EverQuest wife and a maxxed-out character. But in the real world, he abandoned his computer programming degree, dropped out of college, and lost his wife and kids.

Going BadWhile not physically addictive in the same manner as cocaine or alcohol, games are psychologically addictive, similar to other activities like gambling or shopping. In his book The Heart of Addiction, Lance Dodes writes, 'Physical addiction is neither necessary to nor sufficient for an addiction.' He says the addictiveness of an object or substance is less important than the person using it. 'It is the person who endows the object or activity with the property of being addictive.'

What does this mean for games, MMOs in particular? There are characteristics of them that are compelling when someone predisposed to addiction engages in them. While not physically addictive, these characteristics do produce a neurological response. Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack, director of the Computer Addiction Studies Center at McLean Hospital and assistant professor of Clinical Psychology at Harvard, says that MMOs have a higher level of addiction than other games. Their addictiveness can be understood in terms of reinforcers, a concept developed by the late scientist B.F. Skinner. Like rats in a cage pushing on a lever to receive a food pellet, games like EverQuest are a form of operant conditioning.

In other words, the impact of the behavior or operant in this case, the playing of EverQuest is increased by a reinforcing stimulus, leveling. 'In the games, there are lots of different levels of reinforcers,' says Dr. Orzack. ?[They say] 'I've got to keep going no matter what.' And there is a real response from the brain to reinforcers. 'When people get somewhere they want to be and are satisfied, there are brain changes.'

Lost in Star WarsTom Hernandez was an EverQuest player, but stopped because, as he puts it, 'The time I spent playing was useless.' But problems started when his wife delved deep into Star Wars Galaxies. 'The more she got into it, the more she had to get to that next level,' he says. 'Her character has been everything: a dancer, musician, entertainer, doctor, etc.'

As Hernandez' wife avoided their real life issues, including their son's autism, she began playing Galaxies more frequently, increasing her time online to 60-70 hours a week while working full time and eventually married someone in the game. 'She even sent out e-mail wedding invitations and kept a scrapbook of the screenshots from their wedding,' he says. 'She and her new cyber husband began planning to get married in real life. When I found out, she blamed me and we both filed for divorce. The judge gave me the kids and the house.'

Hernandez doesn't blame the game. 'Just like anything, these games aren't by themselves dangerous,' he says. 'It's how the person reacts to it.'

The Blame GameDr. Orzack, who was one of the first clinical psychologists to identify and treat game addiction, agrees. 'There's compulsive behavior that goes on in all kinds of addiction,' she says. 'People get into areas where they start to do things regardless of the outcome.' Dr. Orzack has found mitigating psychological factors in all of the game addiction cases she's treated. 'In many cases, game addicts are depressed or may have had a long history of depression. The people I interview and treat may have obsessive-compulsive disorders and anxiety disorders, phobias, things like that. These all are prevalent.'

Dr. Orzack says certain kinds of people have a predilection toward game addiction. 'The people who are more vulnerable are lonely, shy, sociophobic, or often have had other addictive behaviors.' She has also found that people who connect more to objects, like those with Asperger's, also seem predisposed to game addiction. But what is most important to note is that game addicts have chemical differences or imbalances because of their associated disorders. 'Since there are usually other things that are going on with game addicts, that's where the imbalance is.'

The Players, not the GameNick Yee, a graduate student at Stanford University, has collected online data from over 30,000 MMOs players over the last four years. His findings, presented at nickyee.com/daedalus, are considered the most extensive in the field. Yee's study focuses on the people who play these games. 'Only certain people enjoy playing MMOs,' he says, also noting that people with problems typically have other disorders. 'It seems that certain people are predisposed to develop problematic usage patterns,' he says. 'Online survey data suggests that they are more likely in players who have low self-esteem, low internal locus of control' meaning they feel they have no control over their lives and high stress in real life.'

To Yee, the amount of time a game is played is not the best factor for determining addiction. 'Some people have a lot of time and it doesn't negatively impact their lives,' he says. 'In fact, in my opinion, it's okay to lose sleep once in a while as long as it's not right before an exam or a work presentation. After all, we all have hobbies or passions that excite us.'

But people who use games to escape real problems should proceed with caution. 'The reason why MMOs may be so intoxicating for these individuals is that they are temporarily able to overcome these anxieties,' says Yee. 'Players who have low self-esteem can feel powerful and competent. [They] can avoid thinking about them by immersing themselves in a fantasy environment. Players who feel they are not needed in real life can play a support class like Healers and feel valued.'

This last example gets right to the heart of what makes MMOs in particular more potentially addictive than your average twitch game: they offer social rewards. 'For some of these individuals, the sheltered space of an MMO actually helps them cope and overcome their anxieties and problems,' says Yee, 'but others subconsciously begin to believe that the degree of satisfaction they derive from the virtual environment cannot be achieved in the real world.'

Death and NeglectYee ends his report with a sobering thought: 'Are there players for whom the happiness they derive in the virtual environment is significantly more than what they could achieve in real life because of their circumstances'? It's a scary notion, but there are some real world examples. Shawn Woolley, for example, was a 21-year-old with epilepsy; his mother, Elizabeth Woolley, feels that the 12 hours a day spent gaming induced at least eight seizures. She's spoken of her son's depression and schizoid personality disorder, and feels that the game fed these problems. At one point, Woolley broke down into tears because he was betrayed by a member of his guild. His mother believes that an EverQuest event preceded his suicide.

Then there's the case of Mary Christina Cordell. Her three-year-old daughter Brianna suffocated in the car while Cordell played EverQuest for two hours. She had repeatedly compared the game to drug addiction and blamed it for the break-up of her marriage, but it took a horrible tragedy to end her addiction.

Happier Worlds
Is it possible that the world of Norrath was a happier and more rewarding place than the real world for these individuals? It's a consistent theme, but it's crucial to note that in all of these instances, the players had other associated disorders that drove their addiction. 'In a way, critics have conceptualized games unfairly,' insists Yee. 'We seldom ask the same questions about other hobbies.'

'Just remember it's only a game,' implores Tom Hernandez. 'Keep that in mind and don't put it above anything in the real world.' EverQuest and other MMOs may just be games, but it's important to realize how overwhelming they can become. To downplay their significance isn't fair to people who work hard to be successful at it or to the addicts.

If you think you might be addicted, Dr. Orzack recommends treatment with a therapist or counselor that deals with non-physical forms of addiction like gambling, as they'll be better equipped to deal with game addiction. And Orzack recommends the book Ten Days to Self-Esteem by David Burns as a good self-help starting point.

Not an addict? Then, by all means, enjoy the game. Even critics acknowledge that games are not addictive in and of themselves. Just use some common sense when you play and don't become entirely consumed by your game. The real world is still here.

'It's about conscious moderation, and knowing when gameplay is beginning to become problematic,' says Yee. 'For most players, this doesn't seem to be a problem at all.'

I was astounded by the mass of data and the social maps.
This is a must read..www.nickyee.com/daedalus/...001473.php

Edited by: Medea at: 11/12/05 10:07