South Korea cures Starcraft addiction. Or do they?

Dead Guy

Dead Guy

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No. Or do they? No.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-08/19/starcraft-addiction

Eleven participants had been categorised as having "Internet Game Addiction", because they played Starcraft on average for at least four hours per day, which actually seems quite modest. However, six of them had been absent from school for more than two months because of their dirty little habit, while two of them had actually been divorced because they played so much.

The group was given Bupropion, an antidepressant and smoking cessation aid for six weeks. After the trial period, their group’s cravings to play Starcraft apparently decreased by 23.6 percent and total playing time decreased by 35.5 percent.
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This is unbelievably stupid. The fact that they even got funding for this crap makes me angry.
 
1. 11 people do not a group suitable for statistical analysis make.
2. 4 hours does not an addiction constitute.
3. ????
4. PROFIT!!!

The bottom line though, is that this is a hobby. If you enjoy something, you should do it 4 hours per day. Furthermore, what effect did this have on a control group? Did it decrease their interest in other hobbies? Do you seriously think people should take drugs to cut down on freaking star craft?

The only thing this proves is that some people in south korea are retarded. Their definition of addiction is a game time of more than 30 hours per week, and they consider 3 days per week, less than an hour per day "healthy". This is simply a shitty study. Self rated craving scores on a visual analouge scale! YAY!
 
Dead Guy said:
1. 11 people do not a group suitable for statistical analysis make.
2. 4 hours does not an addiction constitute.
3. ????
4. PROFIT!!!
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Its a new kind of field its clear that it needs more research. But they start even here already to do more research regarding additctions and its relation to games particiularly addictions regarding the internet in general which are known for some time(multiplayer games, chating, browsing, sex addictions etc). What you have are symptoms and internet/game addictions (if it really is) have a lot in comon with the symptoms of quite a few forms of addictions. One of them is when people report a suffering the other when it controls their usual life so much that they cant even complete the most simplest tasks. And I think missing for 2 months in school cause you want to play Star Craft comes pretty close to addictions and the definiton of "unhealty"

I remember how they have shown someome which was so heavily in WoW that he played it pretty much all the time (if he wasnt sleeping and he didnt sleep much). Even the rare times he went out to meet with a friend he had a laptop with him for checking his WoW and playing. He admited that he would love to quit it and that it was a burden but he cant stop playing it.
 
That's great, but that's not the inclusion criteria of the "internet video game addiction" group. The criteria are more than 30 hours per week gaming time. A perfectly healthy person can play that much.

If you don't go to school or get divorced and also play games 30 hours per week, those two things aren't necessarily connected. Or, the gaming is not necessarily the cause of the divorce/absence from school.
 
Usually a habit is an addiction when it interferes with normal parts of life, like work, friends or school. I'm all for battling addictions, and I don't see why someone couldn't be addicted to games if they can be addicted to gambling.

That doesn't mean this specific study is any good, though.
 
Dead Guy said:
If you don't go to school or get divorced and also play games 30 hours per week, those two things aren't necessarily connected. Or, the gaming is not necessarily the cause of the divorce/absence from school.
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And if you loose your job and end homeless on the street it isnt necesarily connected to your alcohol adiction and yet many people exactly cause of that do loose their job and homes. Its not the definition of the adiction if you loose something exactly cause of that but that you can loose it (and some do). It depends a lot about if people are suffering from it. There are many forms of addiction. Games fulfill that criteria just like anything else. And if someone is playing a lot and explaining that he would love to stop it cause he is suffering from it then I definetly see why someone would call that an addiction. The first moment you cant willingly stop something chances are high that youre addicted. Regardless if you love it or not.
 
Maybe they were addicted talking all day about strategies and did only a few matches per day. :P
 
yeah because drugs are an excellent replacement for video games.

IMO, 9 out of 10 people who think they need them, do not need anti-depressants. They need to evaluate their lives like real human beings, stop being so emo, and make shit right in their life, through action, not drugs. Kids crying non stop? Beat the shit out of them. Wife a raving bitch? Slap her and send her to her room to think about what she did.

Simple really, yet it seems we are slowly being conditioned to accept that everything wrong in our lives is the result of something that can be cured by a pill.

People that should be hanging themselves (the only acceptable anti-depressant IMO) instead are just slugging around breathing up all my air and reproducing spawn that will be coddled and sheltered all their lives, and end up also needing cymbalta.
 
You're a cynic.
Cynics are nasty people, nasty people are dull and boring.
Stop breathing my air you dull and boring cynic!
 
Heheh did i strike a nerve? Im sure you can call a doc and he will set you up with a perscription in no time.

“Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.”
 
mobucks said:
yeah because drugs are an excellent replacement for video games.

IMO, 9 out of 10 people who think they need them, do not need anti-depressants. They need to evaluate their lives like real human beings, stop being so emo, and make shit right in their life, through action, not drugs. Kids crying non stop? Beat the shit out of them. Wife a raving bitch? Slap her and send her to her room to think about what she did.

Simple really, yet it seems we are slowly being conditioned to accept that everything wrong in our lives is the result of something that can be cured by a pill.

People that should be hanging themselves (the only acceptable anti-depressant IMO) instead are just slugging around breathing up all my air and reproducing spawn that will be coddled and sheltered all their lives, and end up also needing cymbalta.
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I'm sure your expert psychoanalysis will help all those people dealing with depression. They just need to man up and not be depressed anymore, you're a genius!

Or, y'know, there are a lot of real mental illnesses that can be 'cured' with medication.
 
Sander said:
Or, y'know, there are a lot of real mental illnesses that can be 'cured' with medication.
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Sort of. But it's very over-prescribed. Especially in the US.

SkuLL said:
Seriously, what? Smoking is a dirty habit, sure. Gaming is IMO one of the cleanest habits out there :look:
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Not the way I play them :smugoticon:
 
The rant wasnt meant to be a personal attack. In my experience, from seeing a shrink back in Highschool, all he wanted to do was put me on medication. I said NO! and ya know what? It was for the best, for me.

Why did i get all emo back then and even need a shrink? Adderol. The miracle ADHD cure, which socially neutered me. I became an introvert. The life of the party retreated into his room to play videogames 10+ hours a day. It was a problem.

So my options were to either take more Rx, changing me further, socially, mentally, whathaveyou. Or take some time for some healthy SELF examination of why I was at where I was at. In the end, I think i turned out pretty good, and whats better, every time something fucked up happens to me, I dont have the impulse to run to the Doc for a pill.

Now let me explain a friends situation, who is on the other side of the spectrum. He is the type, to see the doc, and say YES YES YES I NED THAT THOSE THESE AND THE RED AND BLUE PILL. I would walk into his room and see 13 RX bottles, some for pain, anxiety, depression, some more for pain, a few study drugs like Ritilin, and Adderol. I mean, if these drugs work so well, why does he try to kill himself still? Why hasnt he been cured?

I am ALL FOR! people taking the drugs, if it is shown that it actually helps these people. But there are so many variables not taken into consideration by the doctors, that you have this feeling in the U.S., that they are overperscribed. And today, drugs are actually MARKETED to you. When I was 10, I never heard on the TV, "Does your regular anti depressant not anti depress you enough? Good! Have Cymbalta to piggyback your regular shitty anti-depressant!" And don't get me started on these side effects/// they would keep me depressed if anything.

The cynical nature of my posts, well, thats just my attempt to be entertaining. Big Dennis Leary fan. Bill Hicks. ect.
 
mobucks said:
The rant wasnt meant to be a personal attack. In my experience, from seeing a shrink back in Highschool, all he wanted to do was put me on medication. I said NO! and ya know what? It was for the best, for me.
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Fine. But now you're projecting what works for you specifically on 90% of the people out there - does that make sense?

Psychological issues and the medication of those issues are relatively poorly understood and it's pretty likely that there is systematic overprescription. But there's a difference between overprescription and 90% of the people on drugs needing to just stop being depressed (which is hardly an answer).

mobucks said:
Now let me explain a friends situation, who is on the other side of the spectrum. He is the type, to see the doc, and say YES YES YES I NED THAT THOSE THESE AND THE RED AND BLUE PILL. I would walk into his room and see 13 RX bottles, some for pain, anxiety, depression, some more for pain, a few study drugs like Ritilin, and Adderol. I mean, if these drugs work so well, why does he try to kill himself still? Why hasnt he been cured?
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These drugs generally don't pretend to be a cure, but a mitigating factor. Would he be better off without those drugs is the question you should be asking, not "why don't these drugs fix everything?"
 
Hes an iraq vet, so when he came home, they put him in the military psych ward after he went knocking on the white house door asking to use the bathroom so he could yell at Obama about healthcare.

Worse than any flew over the cookoos nest i tell you.

But you're right, and i did ask myself if he wasnt on a "cocktail" of doctor perscribed uppers/downers 24/7, maybe he wouldnt be so fucked up.

The scene i imagine, is that scene in Requiem for a Dream, where that Mom is trying to tell the doctor shes having weird experiences on the "mothers little helpers" and the doc just nods, not really listening, while writing a new perscription.
 
The prevalence of teenage depression, and not just teenage but depression in society in general, is frightening. Gaming for most players in a form of escapism, and sometimes I think it might actually feed (inadvertently) people's anxieties and depression - (gaming as a form of emotional cushioning!!!). Do people ever question whether games can actually be bad for us? Let the studies begin…
 
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