Which, if the dangers this programme warns about are real, is the direct equivalent of producing a documentary about alcoholism in which the participants are asked to get drunk for the audience at home. Joe played Call Of Duty on his 360 for the cameras, while Leo ran around the worlds of Warcraft. Both were filmed playing the games that had so harmed them. It's horrible." But Leo has decided to go cold turkey.īoth have stopped playing the games to which they were so seriously addicted. "I would never inflict this game on anyone. It has a "derogatory effect", he explains. Joe then wearily sighs.Īnother person, "Leo", believes he was addicted to World Of Warcraft. The "partly" betrays that the programme is deliberately deceiving the viewer, concealing information that fully explains his story. The lack of clarity betrays how carelessly this programme is written. One individual, Joe, is labelled as an addict, the proof being that he played games for two or three days without sleep, and, he explained, "that, to me, sounds like an addiction." He was thrown out of university, left thousands in debt, "partly from buying games."īeyond being gibberish on a comprehension level, one can either understand that he's in thousands of pounds of debt partly because he spent his money on games, or that the cause of his having lost his investment in university was partly caused by games. He, unlike any addictionologists or reputable addiction treatment centres, can tell when someone is addicted to gaming, and fortunately amongst their numbers are not his own children. The level to which gaming addiction as a reality is assumed is so absolute that at one point the reporter, bringing the episode's theme of anecdotes home, explains that while his son plays games, he "isn't addicted". Never mind the facts, the data, the proof we have an agenda here, and we're going to demonstrate it through unresearched, unevidenced, anecdotal stories. In fact, it clearly reminded me of that classic Brass Eye moment where DJ Neil Fox explains to camera that there's no evidence that paedophiles share most of their DNA with crabs, but it's still scientific fact. Seven minutes in it's admitted that there's no evidence that gaming can cause addiction, but long after they've made their position completely clear. This sort of scaremongering endangers such people by mis-labelling.įor the first seven minutes of the programme, reporter Raphael Rowe brings us many references to people being "addicts", people who suffer from "addiction". I believe that these matters deserve to be taken seriously. I believe that there is a real risk for those who use gaming to compensate for other negative factors in their lives, and for those whose gaming becomes problematic for any reason. But when I see others who are acting that way, on either side of the fence, I believe it should be loudly highlighted. I am not arguing that games are great, and any who say otherwise are wrong. Should other evidence come to light, should (substantial, scientifically organised) studies demonstrate new data, then I think it should be taken very seriously. What I do know, from an enormous amount of time spent researching the subject, and interviewing those researching the subject at an academic level on both sides of the argument, is that there is no evidence that games do cause addiction. I do not possess the evidence that gaming does not cause addiction. An openly ignorant series of anecdotes and half-truths, forming a dangerous, lazy treatment of a serious subject. It's something I expect of others when they approach the subject. And I want to approach the subject with appropriate scrutiny, and with evidence-based understanding. I have always approached the subject of gaming addiction with great seriousness, because it's my belief that if gaming is inherently harmful, I want to know about it, and I want to warn others who game. Timed to coincide with tonight's release of World Of Warcraft's Cataclysm, BBC 1's Panorama tonight covered the topic of videogame addiction.
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