By John Walker on May 27th, 2010 at 10:52 am.
An absolutely remarkable claim has been made by a UK therapist, Steve Pope, that playing videogames for two hours is the equivalent of doing a line of coke. I attempted to speak to him over the last 24 hours with little success, the results below. Edit: Mr. Pope has since texted me a statement, which I will add below.
It’s from an article in the Lancaster Evening Post that really hits every clanging bell. Games are like drugs, games are addictive, games lead to bad behaviour, and of course, games lead to violence. Claims that are made, as is so often the case, without links to any form of evidence. But is this an example of a gaming website getting angry when someone says something bad about games? Nope, the reaction does not come from that place. It comes from one of having done a lot of research into the subject, and a desire for evidence-based science and reporting to be conducted in the realm of gaming. Because, as we’ve said a number of times, if games are bad for us then we would want to know. So let’s look at how this is written, and ask why.
This arises from an article in the Lancaster Evening Post (picked up by Game Politics). It’s written without a byline, but quotes therapist Steve Pope, psychology lecturer Gayle Brewer, and mental health practictioner Peter Wilson. Nowhere in the article (apparently an abbreviated version of a “full special report” in the print version of the local paper) is there a link to any research, a reference to a study, nor any evidence for any claims made. It’s purely anecdotal, stated as epidemic fact.
Perhaps this is why: Of the very many studies looking into gaming, attempting to find causal links to either addiction or violence, none has proven a link. This was the case when the previous UK government commissioned a massive study into the subject, the Byron Review conducted by Tanya Byron, which again found no causal links between gaming and addiction or violence. The UK Interactive Entertainment Association (formerly ELSPA) – the body responsible for alerting parents and adult gamers to the dangers of gaming – states there is no such thing as gaming addiction. Project Massive could find no link, and found the term “addiction” inappropriate. It seems, from current research, there is no such link.
However, and let’s be absolutely clear about this, people can abuse gaming. There are those who play games at the expense of their own health. There are those who play games so much they lose their jobs, relationships, and families. For a minority of people, gaming can be problematic. Which is why the vast study of hundreds of thousands of gamers and their relationship with gaming, Project Massive, has opted to use the term “problematic use” when describing the negative results of gaming. They found “addiction” to be wholly inappropriate, not only because conflating the effects of gaming and the effects of alcohol/drugs/gambling was completely inappropriate, but because there is no evidence that games can cause addiction. Those who already suffer from addiction, from either genetics or as a result of trauma, can excessively play games. Much as they can excessively ski, garden or go bungee jumping.
That’s what current research points to. Even the largest advocates of gaming addiction are backing down. Keith Bakker, who became internationally famous for his Dutch gaming addiction treatment centre, has now said he was wrong to call it addiction.
This new article begins with the line:
“A schoolboy today told of his torment after becoming dangerously-addicted to computer games.”
Let’s look at the evidence they offer for this opening statement.
“It was like it was a demon that had got inside my brain and I just couldn’t stop. If my parents tried to stop me playing, I would just flip.”
And that, amazingly, is as close as they get to explaining the cause. A demon.
Therapist Steve Pope (a lawyer with an Advanced Certificate in Counselling and a Graduate Diploma in Psychotherapy) explains that young people use gaming as an escape (something that would seem to be anecdotally accurate for some) and then “get hooked on the release of adrenaline it gives.” An extraordinary claim, given without any evidence in the piece.
He then goes on to deliver his headline-winning statement:
“Spending two hours on a game station is equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces.”
He also claims that gaming addiction is the “fastest growing addiction in the country”, links gaming to obesity, says it leads to crime, and “can spiral into violence”. Only with spurious anecdotes about unnamed children/teenagers he has seen.
We should look at one of those claims in particular:
“I saw one 14-year-old Preston boy who played on games for 24 hours non stop and had not eaten and was showing signs of dehydration. When his parents tried to take his console away, he became aggressive and threatened to jump out of a window.”
There are two possibilities here. Gaming itself caused this to happen. Or this person suffers from one of very many different conditions that can cause children and teenagers to behave in excessive, self-harming ways, and used games as part of this. Since all 14 year olds who play games don’t do it for 24 hours and then jump out a window, it seems reasonable to postulate that this individual has a distinct pathology that isn’t perhaps caused by playing a game. I’m being equally anecdotal, of course, but one situation is certainly more likely than the other.
Despite repeated attempts to speak to Mr. Pope, his promises to return our calls were not met, until we had held this article back for 24 hours waiting for him. He was keen to provide his side of the argument, and expressed passion for helping people to deal with their addictions. However each time I asked him if he had evidence for his claims he said they were based on his own experiences (“It’s about who walks through my door.”), and explained that he would need to call back. Understandably he was busy with patients. However, he was not able to call back at any of the times he suggested, including after work hours. In the few conversations I had yesterday, when I asked if he had evidence to corroborate his claims, Mr. Pope explained, “I don’t rely on reports”, and that he believes statistics are “lies, lies and more lies.” He told me that he definitely does have evidence to support his claim that gaming addiction is the fastest growing addiction in the UK, but has been unable to provide any of it so far. When I suggested that saying two hours of gaming is the equivalent of a line of cocaine was extraordinary, he expressed confusion that I’d think this. He told me I should read about the connection between cocaine and gambling. I replied that any link between gambling and gaming has been rejected, and was told that you get the same high, “when your level of kills goes up in Call Of Duty.”
We would still like Mr. Pope to send us the evidence to back up his claims. As we have always maintained in all our coverage of the supposed addictive properties of gaming, should harmful effects be demonstrated in controlled studies such information is of primary importance to us. It is not in our interest to ignore nor deny such evidence – we wish to protect ourselves and our readers. However, when we see claims made without evidence, we will continue to challenge them.
Edit: Mr. Pope, after failing to keep this morning’s arranged time to speak, attempted to contact me after the piece was published. He has since sent the following text explaining his position, again not including any links to the evidence he mentions. He is very critical of this post having been published without having spoken to him properly, despite his having been unable to keep any of his scheduled times to speak to us before we had to publish. He believes articles such as this could lead to deaths. This is his statement, minus his criticisms of our failing to speak to him:
“The human being can be, in my professional opinion, addicted to anything it finds pleasurable. There are links between the highs of gambling, and game stations which cause a similar pattern of behaviours in the brain as does class A stimulant drugs. There is a weight of evidence to support this. The test for me with any addictive process is are your actions having negative consequences. I see first hand the consequences of overuse of game stations usually with the sufferer using the game to escape the reality of life. And to the addictive personality this is dangerous. Invite your readers to take the test in the paper. I don’t do labels. I want people to recover and have balance in their life. The physical consequences are also horrific for the child of today which can lead to ill health through obesity etc. Please be balanced in your reporting as your views may kill people.”
No evidence has been offered at any point. There’s probably a rather good reason for this.
It’s important to state that Gayle Brewer’s comments are extremely sensible, calling for parents to regulate their children’s use of gaming, which is something that surely everyone would agree with. Peter Wilson’s comment was seemingly unrelated (“Whatever a person is addicted to, they can’t control how they use it, and they may become dependent on it to get through daily life.”). Then rather strangely the paper claims that the UKIEA declined to comment “on the issue of gaming addiction and whether they believed it was an issue they needed to tackle”, despite their making their opinions on the matter absolutely clear.
The reporting in the article is of the most remarkable irresponsibility, attempting to create a scare, rather than actively seeking available evidence. And the claims within it, so far, are completely without evidence, data or indeed reason. We want young people to be safe from any harmful effects that gaming may cause, and for this to be effective, much as with education about drugs, only accurate and demonstrable evidence is of worth. Indeed, anything else is potentially harmful.
The top image is by ‘perterbao’, found here.
Another bullshit claim that gaming leads to violence… I oughta kick that researcher’s ass!
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Well, phychology is called a “soft science”, basically it means people treat it as one, though it isnt.
Look at their “experiments”, the famous game changing ones like the Milgram or Stanford Prison.
They dont attempt to prove or disporve an observed phenomenon in according to a working model based on imperical evidence.
They just say, lets do this, and this is what happens…
Without control of variables and such.
In short; not science, just gobbldygook with some of sciences methods tacked on.
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Woah woah woah peter radiator full pig, criticising the WHOLE of psychology based on one dumb article about gaming would almost be as bad as criticising the whole of gaming based on a few mentally unstable gamers. Psychology is an extraordinary subject that has very much helped me out in life.
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Peter you are talking about very old experiments there.
Psychological studies do conform to proper research standards.
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Just because something helped you, HexagonalBolts, doesn’t mean it’s sience. There isn’t a relationship there, a cause-effect. You would know if you would know your SCIENCE. :P
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@Turin Turambar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology give this a read and pull your head out of your arse. I realise that wikipedia isn’t the most dignified of sources but I’ve already suffered my quota of fools today, so it will have to do.
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Also, the psychologists I know don’t think that statistics are not “lies”. After all, if you are working with statistics, you need to be able to find your own mistakes.
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“They dont attempt to prove or disporve an observed phenomenon in according to a working model based on imperical evidence.”
Disproved and empirical, but isn’t that exactly what psychology does in fact do?
Psychological statements are falsifiable in principle, so we would be remiss if we called it anything but a science. There are some wacky psychologists and experiments (the ones you pointed out, for example) but then, there’s some wacky scientists from other disciplines too.
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Milgram was arguably closer to a Sociologist in many of the things he did, but anyway….
It’s virtually impossible to be properly reductive when dealing with complex systems like human beings and their social relationships (indeed many of the Behaviourists thought you could do hard science on human behaviour. They weren’t all that successful and modern neuroscience has proven their approach faulty at best). I’m not going to call Psych and Soc hard sciences for a moment, but if the deciding factor is perfect variable isolation then much of medicine is also derived from ‘soft science’ since you can never tell from what works in vitro the effects that will carry over in organism.
Introducing artificial circumstances and just watching what happens has been a staple of many scientific theories (which then get followed up with proper controlled experiments). Psych does rely on proper science quite a bit, but there’s always room for quacks. As with anything.
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Statistical analysys is a HUGE part of psychological studies, the above guy should not be acredited with anything resembling a psychological qualification with that belief.
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@Peter Radiator Full Pig – Yeah, as others have pointed out, that isn’t what psychology is any more. There’s plenty of stats and proper scientific method in psychology today. It varies across areas (some social psychology stuff will have less rigorous methods than biological psychology for example) but it is still very much based on good scientific procedure for the most part (and the parts that aren’t should get properly criticized for it in peer review).
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The trick is, after 2hrs of gaming, play eve online…its like a double dose of laudanum.
It balances things out.
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Well first, hexagonal, im not basing this fact on one article.
Psychology, by necesity, deals with emotions and personalities.
How do you measure those? What instruent do you use to get data on these?
Even if you statistically analyse the result of how you get them (Questionaires, maybe?) the fact that you are dealing with unsure data, with no accountable error, from sources that may or may not lie, you arent going to get useable results.
Even if execute a perfect experiment that is flawed in its design, the experiment is still flawed.
Or, to counter it within its own framework, a recent study showed that judges in a match were more likely to score a person wearing red (versus a person wearing blue) better.
They switched the colours digitally, and the red one significantly more often.
So, then imagine it applied to all perbious experiments. Prehaps a red blue bias has renedered all the pervious results of certain experiments moot.
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ITT: People not knowing the difference between Psychology and a Psychiatrist/Psychotherapist (he’s referred to as a “Therapist” so could potentially be either, both or none).
Damn I’ve made that mistake again where I expect people to have some idea of the subject they’re attempting to make comment on the internet.
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@ Panik
Maybe you should try something else but mining or station hugging.
Whenever I play EVE my adrenaline is peaking – may have to do with me PVPing and EVE having one of the harshest death penalties of all MMOs on the market.
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Being a gamer over the years, I’ve been presented with ridiculous claims, the classic MANHUNT KILLS PEOPLE to PLAYING VIDEO GAMES MAKES YOU INTO A SEX-PERVERT.
But this has to be the stupidest, most ridiculous claim I’ve ever read. The government should take away his degrees and feed them to a fairly large alpaca.
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You’re assuming he actually has a degree.
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As good as cocaine? FUCK YEAH. Gaming is awesome. :-)
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Wouldn’t be fair to the poor alpaca.
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I ought to take a gameboy to nightclubs and let people use it, I reckon I’d make about as much money as the the coke dealers, after all, it’s the same as Cocaine.
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But this has to be the stupidest, most ridiculous claim I’ve ever read. The government should take away his degrees and feed them to a fairly large
alpaca.flock of chimpanzees.Fixed that for you. Alpacas don’t eat psychologists, you know.
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Long have I been using games and many a time have found myself digging through bargain bins in back-alley chain stores in order to feed my habit. Even buying “floppies” from “dealers” in the schoolyard, they called it “share ware” and I just kept going back for more. I was hooked.
There seems to be no end to this addiction.
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This is depressing, but more for journalism than gamers I think. You’d think that if anyone was going to critically analyze an argument or position before spreading it around, it would be journalists, but there you go. Always a few (or many) bad apples I guess. I should state that I don’t think all journalists are corrupt/lazy/inept but that’s why it’s always a shame to read this kind of thing.
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The problem is that doing actual journalism is far more time consuming and expensive than rewording a press release or taking the word of a self-proclaimed expert verbatim without actually checking up on any facts.
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Gaming leads to Cheetos and beard growth. FACT.
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I have both of those, and I’ve “been clean” for three weeks! (mostly for technical reasons)
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Well I’m bloody glad I’ve never tried cocaine then. If the high is only equivalent to 2 hours gaming that would be a terrible disappointment and awful waste of money.
In seriousness though, good article John. As ever, you’ve looked at the claims with calmness and reason and done your research a damn sight better than those making them.
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@Lambchops – Yeah, I thought that. I tried the MW2 demo when it was free, and must have leveled up like five times :)
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My wife has spent time with both people on coke and gamers (“separately, thank god” she says), and says that gamers are far less annoying and at the very least much quieter. Not that this necessarily has anything to do with addiction to videogames.
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It appears I’ve been wasting money on blow, in australia I could buy 4 copies of modern warfare for a gram, I truly have been getting screwed.
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John Walker is the Ben Goldacre of gaming
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I once tried to snort Portal through a rolled-up tenner. Never Again.
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The trouble with shooting portal is finding another vein to fire it out of.
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These ‘Portals’ are a crack in reality!
Crack in reality, crack cocaine. A coincidence? I think not!
WHAT ELSE AREN’T WE BEING TOLD?
(excerpt from the comments from the upcoming Mail special on portal 2)
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@Colthor, terry & Magiced.
You guys just made me lol so much I had to go do some Portal to calm down.
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Any particular reason for using the British ‘adrenaline’ and then changing to the American ‘Norepinephrin’ instead staying on a constant use and sticking with the British ‘Noradrenaline’? Sorry to be so pedantic.
Anyway, aside from that, it always seem to me that the people who make these claims base them on “solid evidence, you’re just not allowed to see it. Why? Erm… doctor patient confidentiality , yeah that sounds about right, I’ll go with that. But it does exist, honest”.
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Don’t worry John.
Some day your addiction piece will get the attention and recognition it deserved on publication.
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i stopped reading at “demon”. sorry Lancaster Evening Post.
anyway, why bother with what a random rag has to say? they print terrible shit ALL THE TIME.
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This is awesome. The value for money for individual games must have gone up after this discovery. Not only that but we have a new treatment in the ‘line’ for cocaine addicts that would stop many of the other problems associated with the drug.
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@Gianandrea
This makes the humble indie bundle look decidedly dark. First time is free ho!
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I tried grinding up old pc gamer demo dvds and huffing them. No effect. Will try mmo trial discs before moving onto anything more valuable, i can see this being an expensive habit.
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You need old Amiga Power cover floppies, ground up fine, dissolved in rum and then injected.
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No no. You should remove the harddrive containing your Steam/Games folder. Open up the harddrive and remove the magnetic discs. Put them on a slate of aluminium foil and apply flame. The breathe deeply of the fumes.
Effects may vary according to the quality of the games installed.
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I grind up floppies and magnetic discs. I call it Speedball 2-ing.
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Well played, Spacewalk, well played.
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After my periods of “Brutal Deluxe” I wake up surrounded by broken joysticks with all but one button torn out and no recollection of what happened over the past five hours.
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I will now ignore the actual article and go by the post title only:
Gaming two hours a day gives you energy and renews your self-confidence but is incredibly expensive in some areas of the world? I can’t see anything wrong with that.
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And the money all goes to a horrible, shady industry overlord.
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We’re getting a lot more mileage out of this analogy than I initially thought. :P
In other news, I play at least two hour per day, where is my free cocaine? I could use it just about now because I neglected to sleep last night and there isn’t a can of Red Bull to be seen. :(
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God knows that all my friends are on cocaine every time there’s a free weekend. Too bad my metabolism can’t deal with the good shit.
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Someone should totally contact Tom Bissell for comment on this. ;-)
The two things that amused me most about this article:
1) There are so many wonderful logical conclusions to draw from this argument. If gaming leads to an “equivalent high” as cocaine, and therefore games are bad, than what other equivalents could we come up with? Perhaps it should be noted that going for a jog raises your heartrate EVEN HIGHER!!! than cocaine, and therefore no one should ever exercise again.
2) This applies to so many articles of this ilk, but it’s always “REMARKABLE CLAIM” followed by a sentence beginning “One teenager…” And, of course, the operative word is “one”. Across a sea of millions and millions. You can only find one case to report on? Then regardless of whether it’s true addiction or not, it’s statistically insignificant beyond all belief. Which makes these bold claims such astonishingly Bad Science that I think I’m going to go insane.
Then again, that’s probably a result of all the fucking gaming I do.
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Is it an “equivalent high” or “a similar pattern of behaviours in the brain” as he goes on to claim? That the two are conflated shows how intellectually sloppy and unscientific this person is. The two claims are very different, the first is a specific, unsupportable claim with no evidence and the latter is so vague as to be meaningless. I’m not even sure what he means by that – is that supposed to be a reference to the patterns seen in brain scans? In which case, disparate activities can have similar patterns in some respects, without there being a meaningful connection. Perhaps he means the addiction response the brain has to cocaine is similar to what it has playing games – but that’s even more absurd and counterfactual than the first statement.
Bah, why even try to make sense of it – this is a man who claims evidence of games being addictive by redefining addiction! There’s a reason why we have a clinical definition of “addiction” that *isn’t* “something that has negative consequences.” That’s because pretty much anything can have negative consequences: oversleeping, spending too much time indoors, eating ice-cream, and even making spurious claims about addiction.
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My limited research shows no link between the results of the two headlined activities. I wonder if the Govt or even just a newspaper will give me a serious grant to do more extensive research. A full study is obviously required to answer the scientific debate brought up by these eminent(ly quotable) researchers. It won’t be cheap but someone’s got to do it, for the kids.
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I heard that one person, once, somewhere, died while putting on his pants. UNDERWEAR CAUSES DEATH, EVIDENCE SHOWS!
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The trouser incident in Blackadder the Third comes to mind. Best series of Blackadder, that was. <3
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“Underwear causes cancer, says study.” — The Daily Mail
“Clothes cause cancer, says expert.” — The Daily Mail
“Cancer causes cancer, says entirely credible teenaged mother of two.” — The Daily Mail
“Daily Mail causes cancer, says only flawless source of truth in UK (the Daily Mail). UK to implode from irony.” — The Daily Mail
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This is ridiculous scaremongering. Back in my wayward youth, years back now, I tried cocaine and I can assure you (anecdotally, of course) that the high is VERY different to that of “going up a level”. I can also state (anecdotally) that being addicted to a substance and repeated self-harming behaviour are also very different things. Typical of the media to play on peoples fears by suggesting a symptom as a cause.
Playing devils advocate though, the brain does reward itself for doing certain tasks with dopamine which is chemically similar to cocaine, but in significantly smaller quantities and far less dangerous. This is an intersting area but to suggest that gaming can induce the release of dopamine equivalent to a cocaine high is, frankly, ridiculous and irresponsible.
What we need is clear emperical evidence though. If we had actual research in this area then there would be a clearer idea. I’m pleased with this article though, it’s always best to fight mudslinging with maturity :)
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“Cocaine is a selective dopamine reuptake inhibitor, not ‘similar’ to dopamine.”
Literally found this quote just after posting. Ignore my previous ignorance. Should fact check before I post.
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Indeed. The key difference, of course, being that reward activity releases dopamine, which is a perfectly healthy thing, whereas cocaine prevents your brain from re-absorbing it so it’s effectively all just floating about and making you giddy, which is not a healthy thing. But, sure, both result in higher dopamine activity in the brain. I’ll go with that.
Of course, the ridiculous thing is that it’s borne of an assumption that “stuff that produces the same effects as a bad thing” = “bad”. Even if it did produce the same effects. It’s why the primary reasons people cited for the mephedrone ban were utter nonsense, and why – while I’ve no doubt that it’s a dangerous drug, probably, and research would have eventually proven that – the ban at this stage was stupid beyond belief… but that’s a different topic entirely.
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Yes, but as a DRI it does boost DA. (Although I believe it might be in different parts of the brain, I’ll have to check that).
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I should rephrase that, it boosts the levels of DA neurotransmission by preventing the DA’s reuptake into the pre-synaptic neurone (and then metabolism by an MAO), which of course has a stimulant effect.
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Hmmm… the reward chemical being constantly in your brain may explain why you become such an unruly and arrogant fucker on cocaine – if your brain is rewarding you for everything you do then that may be why you feel as if you can do no wrong when you’re high. Interesting.
Again, utterly unrelated to gaming.
This is turning out to be an intellectually rewarding morning. Awesome.
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Do you mean “causal” link? Also, what’s an “epidemic fact”?
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I assumed it was a typo of ‘emperical’.
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Yeah, I thought possibly “empirical” too, but “epidemic” would be a heck of a typo in that case. The idea of an “epidemic fact” is quite interesting, so maybe it was deliberate, hence my question.
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An epidemic fact is an interesting idea. I suspect that a large portion of my working day is now going to be spent browsing online dictionaries.
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Making stuff up, an epidemic fact seems like a good, more formal and therefore more impressive-sounding name for the Streisand effect, or that WinXP serial number 90% of the internet recognises on sight.
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I thought he meant “academic” as in “at least somewhat proven”.
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Ever-more-sidetracked, but I really had to say something: “user@example.com”, it wasn’t an XP serial key.
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Maybe this is why games are getting smaller, less exciting and less effective at stirring up much feeling at all.
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@ Lewis
No that’s because games are being cut with poor-quality console rubbish. Go straight to the source man, get the best stuff.
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The market floods with diluted product, and the price of the really good stuff immediately rockets to 50 quid.
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Seriously I know I guy from Germany, he says he can hook you up with some good stuff, and you can Pay Whatever You Want, with like, Money and Shit.
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Does this mean that DRM equates to being cut with rat poison?
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Nah, DRM is more like the dealer standing and watching you take the drug in question, so that you can’t possibly share it with anyone else.
Ubisoft’s DRM would be like having to phone up your dealer every time you wanted to take anything, to ask him if it’s okay.
DLC, on the other hand, would be extra bits of cocaine (flakes? granules? I don’t know) that you can add to increase the length of a line. However, it’d generally be of a lower quality.
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Almost tired of reading the comments on this article until I got to this point. Had a good chuckle.
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You know what else is addictive?
Making outrageous claims to gullible rubes in a public forum, so they will bring their children in to your clinic, and throw large gobs of money at you.
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Well, he *did* redefine “addiction” such that you are, in fact, correct…
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Addiciton or not, escapism is not good either, especially in the long run and games provide a perfect place to “run away” to. And ignoring/running away from problems and issues that need attention cant be good.
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Escapism isn’t good?
I think we need to burn Hollywood down, then. And wherever it is that books come from.
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Trees?
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You forgot to include music & theatre.
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Well, one could make the argument that only more immature works of art are strictly escapist, and the greatest artistic works use escapist language or imagery to tie themselves subtly back into our lives and the human condition.
Which, on the whole, is so much better than crack.
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An excellent read to start my day off, but god damn does this sort of thing make my blood boil. Its like gaming is a young teenager, and these ‘authority figures’ are obnoxious parents, constantly looking down on us no matter what cohesive and sensible argument we bring to the table. It depresses me to think that gaming will never be accepted as a varied and vibrant form of media because of the prejudices of stubborn, stupid people.
I mean, this chap thinks he understands how gaming is a form of escapism, but instead of looking at games of every genre and the multitude of different worlds one can become absorbed in, he jumps directly to CoD and some bullshit ‘adrenaline’ argument. Playing CoD multiplayer is in no way a form of escapism; to say so is to entirely misunderstand what escapism is. You do, occasionally, feel a surge of elation and increased heart rate at defeating 5 other people in a row, escaping from certain doom in a tactically hopeless situation, or any other exciting event in a multiplayer environment. But, as gamers, we all KNOW that its because we’re playing against real people, and that someone on the other side of the world is cursing your victory; not because of some insane bloodlust or craving for violence. But none of that is escapism!
Escapism is, as a 13 year old kid, coming home from another shit day at school, a day you’d rather just forget, and spending a few hours with your imagination utterly lost in Morrowind. Its like reading a good book, but you, to an extent, make the story. Your story, free from anything that you have to suffer out in the real world. Thats escapism. Im no longer that 13 year old kid, but I can still appreciate escapism whenever I feel the need to, diving into a world where I can roleplay to my hearts content. If anything, I feel pity for people who will never experience such things due to their blind misgivings about gaming as a form of media.
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This kind of thinking should die out eventually though. Every new medium goes through this phase when it’s new.
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how ‘new’ is new? :p video games have been around for decades..
but aside that… Escapism is good to an extent. Especially in the shit world we live in where everyone feels helpless to change anything and in many cases, are helpless.
video games allow us to relax and destress.. to enjoy ourselves, even if we live in a slum. when I grew up in a midwestern US ghetto, my escape was books.. id read until well past dark, and forget about everything. My younger brother used video games.. did it make us ‘bad’? not a chance.. we didnt join gangs, we didnt kill people. we grew up, got out of the slum, and had less need for escape.
who the fuck does this guy think he is, trying to demonize escapism? fucking idiot.. find the cause of the need to escape.. find out why the person gets addicted, SOLVE that problem… games are a method of escape, not a cause of addiction.
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Interesting theory.
In fact, I’m pretty sure that if people used video games instead of cocaine we’d not be in such a mess regarding traders and stock exchange.
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I’m just hoping all this crap will die out over the next couple of generations, along with the idea that only teenage boys and recluses in dark rooms play games.
That’s going to happen, right?
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Ozzy Osbourne’s a sitcom dad and commercial spokesperson, instead of the Human Incarnation of Satan, who will Addict your Child to Black Magickses, and the Taste of Bat Heads.
So, sure. Anything’s possible.
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Would it really be such a big deal if Britains fastest growing addiction was gaming? Surely better to have the tubby little fuckers sat on their arses eating skittles and playing games than on the streets knifing each other for drugs?
This report seems to be saying that if gaming causes the same high then it is a bad thing, surely other pleasures such as sex have a similar effect but no one compains that kids are addicted to sex. If a videogame can make you feel that good then its a fucking good game and deserves to be played, I would wager that Mr Pope has a serious envy for any child having fun and will soon write a report that playing hide and seek produces an adrenaline based high equal to heroin!
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The demon in my brain has gotten addicted to Tetris, so he’s no longer bothering me.
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Excellent article, John. I saw this on the Escapist a couple of days ago and I thought it was genuinely one of the worst newspaper articles I’ve ever encountered. Not just because its part of the anti-gaming bias (if this was the 50s he’d have said comic books had the same high as coke) but because the absolute paucity of journalistic merit. No fact checking, no data, just pure nonsense at high volume a la Melanie Phillips.
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Wait, gaming causes obesity and this kid forgot to eat. Surely opposites?
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He got so obese it overflowed and he became zero obese again.
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Articles like this don’t even deserve the effort of a response. The claims the article makes are so obviously spurious and absurd that treating in any way seriously implies that they may have some merit – which they clearly don’t.
Insert semi-obvious gag about weekend long CoD binge resulting in waking up hallucinating, skint and bollocks naked in a gutter with my half my septum missing
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bah, no edits here. Should point out that as always Johns article is an interesting read, but I think that even dignifying this sort of shit with a response lends the absurd claims a sort of second hand validity.
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John, I think you’re addicted to writing about gaming addiction. Your life would be improved considerably if instead you did a line of coke three times a day, after meals.
I have evidence to support this, it’s written on the back of an envelope in this pile of scrap paper somewhere. I’ll get back to you when I’ve dealt with the polic- er, patients at my door.
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Media in mis-reporting science in order to push an agenda shocker?
Like the article, I’m more interested in this guy who reckons he’s had enough people through his door with games related problems that he thinks he’s an expert on the subject. Methinks someone is trying to make a name for himself – what’s the betting he’ll be appearing on tele in the near future?
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Yeah, I smoked some Half-Life once, but I didn’t inhale!
But seriously do these ‘therapists’ have nothing better to do? Anything can be seen as an addiction, it’s all about context really.
I see a woman power walk the same route twice a day, every day. Is this an addiction? What about the guy who goes to the gym twice a day to lift weights, is he addicted? Maybe, maybe not.
The point is why do these people keep pointing their fingers at gamers all the time?
My theory then:
Mr Steve Pope and the like obviously suck at games, they probably got pwned online some time and now have formed an inferiority complex that they try and hide by discrediting gaming.
A classic example of self-denial via the medium of games. *adjusts monocle*
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We are doing it wrong. We need to make a game which pushes the “tabloid newspapers just like hiv”.
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Oooh… now there’s a game idea..
You play an ordinary human being till you pick up a tabloid, it then “reveals” that amongst the people around you there are EVIL GAME ADDICTS (and or immigrants/people of a particular skin colour/race/political leaning) amongst the population (in the style of “they live”). You then proceed to gun them down until the tabloid timer runs out, returning you to usual powerlessness till you collect another tabloid…
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If I may so bold, you’re gibbering. For example, Milgram’s Obedience Experiment was part of a number of attempts by Milgram and other to better refine the model of obedience Milgram postulated; in short, attempting to determine the relevance of the authority’s perceived expertise, the nature of the authority’s encouragement, the proximity and nature of contact between the subject and ‘victim’, presence and behaviour of confederates, etc. (As well as attempts to simply replicate the study, for example, cross-culturally and simply with different cohorts.) Specifically Milgram’s original experiment was attempting to determine the relevance of situational factors on an individual’s behaviour when faced with the choice to participate in acts seemingly at odds with their own moral intuitions. Psychology, as practiced today, is largely not a ‘soft science’ where no attempt is made to follow the scientific method; it’s a bloody hard one where it’s damn nigh impossible to devise a perfect experiment. Nevertheless, the attempt is made, papers are criticised for over-interpreting ambiguous data (as arguably all data is…) and the cycle of experimentation, control and hypothesis continues
More relevantly to the actual article – it’s wrong to disregard the relevance of low-level reward mechanisms in gaming, and the possible difficulties that those disposed to poor behavioural control might encounter with computer games. (Arguably some games, such as WoW, are very deliberately designed towards promoting habitual behaviour where there is likely to be relatively poor control). As Project massive’s abstract even notes “An individual’s level of self-regulatory activity is shown to be very important in allowing them to avoid negative outcomes like problematic use.” Teenagers and children, unsurprisingly, tend to be relatively poor self-regulators so it’s similarly unsurprising that there is a greater incidence of problematic use. None of this excuses the kind of scaremongering (which openly admits to disregarding research!) and exaggeration discussed in the article.
If I were to criticise John Walker for anything, it would be that, just like those who’s reporting he is discussing, he fails to establish very clearly what is meant by ‘addiction’ here. Quotes such as ‘They found “addiction” to be wholly inappropriate…’ seem somewhat disingenuous without this.
(Disclaimer: I have no qualifications in Psychology, but am an undergraduate studying the subject at a British university. Oh, and I play computer games…)
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*Sigh*. Above was in response to ‘Peter Radiator Full Pig’.
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What amazes me is a 14 year old playing on a console for 24 hours is clearly a problem with gaming, and not an excellent example of child neglect. I’m sure there’s laws regarding that kind of thing.
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Well yeah, anytime I hear “This 12 years threw a rock at his teacher” or “This one plays computer games for 24 hours” or anything of that ilk, what I’m really hearing is “fuck, people have no idea how to take care of their little fucking resource consumers”
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agreed whole heartedly..
if you let your kid sit on a game for 24 hours… and DONT try to figure out WHY the kid needs to sit on a game for 24 hours… you are probably the reason he sits on the game for 24 hours :P
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If this is true why am i spending all of my corps ISK on blow?
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Line of coke seems accurate to me.
I mean I always play Eve Online off the back of a dead hooker.
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Will it run in WINE installed on a dead badger?
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Great rebuttal John, and honestly more than any fool anti-statistician or fear and hate-peddling tabloid deserves.
One typo I spotted:
“…the Byron Review conducted by Tanya Byron, which again found no casual links between gaming and addiction or violence.”
I believe that should read “causal”!
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Casual gaming and casual drugs, no link. But arma 2 and crystal meths are linked.
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I don’t know, I think Peggle has crystal meth hardcoded into it.
speaking of which why do we not hear any reports of housewives farmville addictions?
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If gaining a level in Modern Warfare really was like a line of cocaine, parties would get a whole lot cheaper and a lot geekier too.
1 x endorse!
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What’s wrong with a little cocaine?
Stop demonizing pharmaceutical products just because they’re not widely accepted legally.
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A little? Nothing, but it will make you physically want more. Well, not directly.. but your body will react if you take less.
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Cocaine isn’t addictive. It makes you dependent. And it takes an absolutely massive amount of abuse to become dependent on it. All in all it’s really rather fun.
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Many students skip school to sleep, and can sleep for up to 24 hours in one go. They may also skip meals while sleeping and attempt to jump out of the nearest window if disrupted.
Jordan, who lives in Newcastle, said: “Sleeping in my bed was all I wanted to do and it was the first thing I thought of as soon as I woke up. I would sleep for hours on end without even realising.”
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It start off with just a nap every now and again, but soon I started getting powerful withdrawal symptoms everytime I went more than 12 hours without sleeping. I’m hooked.
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It was like some kind of demon got inside my head and made me sleep.
If my parents tried to stop me sleeping, I’d just flip!
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Hi, my online handle is Dawngreeter and I’m addicted to idiots. I can’t go a day without reading about some idiot or talking to an idiot. I really tried to, I just can’t pull it off. I firmly believe the only explanation for this is that I am subverting the entire humanity in order to feed my idiot addiction.
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There is at least some evidence of gaming addction.
But no, not really. Disgusting article, excellent rebuttal.
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Ya know, I have to say I agree with this guy. I mean, that last time I stopped playing the Starcraft 2 beta I thought to myself “Man, I would totally suck a d*ck to get more of that!”
Yup, it’s exactly like doing a line of coke.
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Hello. My name is Spinoza and I’m addicted to RPS.
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I believe in Spinoza’s god.
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Look, I know cocaine, and.. gaming? Gaming is no cocaine. Hell, gaming isn’t even taking a handful of clairitin D.
They really need to move the psychologists out of the sciences or even humanities departments, and right out into the street with the Scientology and chiropractors. Methodology my ass.
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Old! Like older than RPS.
Herr Marx was there before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_of_the_people
Replace Opium with Cocaince, and religion with gaming.
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It explains your demon, lack of -scientific- empirical evidence and it makes for good analogies.
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I’d like to wish Mr Pope well on his future employment at the Daily Mail.
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apparently i have been an addict for years….
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Hey! That’s my schtick
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sensationalising gaming is as addictive as methamphetamine
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two hours of cocaine?
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Equal to a line in Tetris, I hear.
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Magic H8: I applaud.
KG
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So I’ve done cocaine, then?
Awesome.
You’d think that much “cocaine” would be dangerous, though. By all rights, I should be dead. Maybe I am dead.
Awesome.
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Unfortunately other news outlets have picked it up (for example, I believe I saw this in the Metro this morning)
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Sooo… this is shaping up to be a bad week for gaming.
Seriously though, this guy is a prize douche. Gaming is way better than cocaine. You get the stellar high without the risk of overdose and you don’t have to put anything up your nose.
The only way this guy can win my affections now is to conduct a proper, controlled experiment, like a mammoth Pac Man sesh with his nuts in a tray of the white stuff.
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I’M A CRACKHEAD!
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I would recommend that you read the book ‘Flat Earth News’ and become as thoroughly depressed and cynical with the state of mass media as me.
Or not, now where’s that sweet hit of Mario?
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Between ‘Flat Earth News,’ the excellent Ben Goldacre, newswipe and more eclectic collection of smaller blogs and articles, I’ve pretty much lots faith in the entire British press. I can just about cope with the Guardian, but realise that a lot of this probably lies in my confirmation bias not triggering my scepticism when it might be required.
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This is fantastic news. We can now treat cocaine addiction using World of Goo. This should be celebrated.
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So now it’s “I’m a cocaine addicted person and am injecting cocaine into my daughters” as an allegory to my passion, and theirs, for video gaming.
Nevermind that they consistently bring home excellent grades, or that I manage on a daily basis a secure and structured home environment for them and my wife. And my video gaming buddies seem to be able to do just the same. And that all the kids I know around my neighborhood seem sane and intelligent enough despite their passion for video games. That I, in fact, don’t personally know one single person in my 30 years video gaming experience whose life got ruined by video games. Not one. Zilch.
I can see the argumentation against video games moving from annoying to highly offensive.
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A quick note: can people please confine correcting typos to email, if they think they’re important. They’re boring for other people to read, and irrelevant once the mistake is fixed.
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So, judging by its non-correction, “epidemic fact” wasn’t one? What does it mean, then?
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I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I wrote it on purpose. To me it means a fact that is widespread. I realise I’m not helping.
I’d argue that in the above piece I’ve worked really hard and done a good job, and perhaps that one phrase isn’t worth too much attention.
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@John Walker
Anyone who would say that this isn’t a bloody great piece of work and one of the reasons why we come to RPS must be fucking high.
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Well, there is only one way for us to find out. Let’s do some cocaine!
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All this article does is make it clear that making shit up and pretending it’s research can be disguised as presenting the results of actual research.
I can categorically state that doing coke is in no way like gaming. Even doing coke while gaming is a completely different experience to doing either one on individually.
In future I would like “scientists” making “claims” to back them up with some empirical facts from controlled experiments. Like scientists are supposed to.
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Any good scientist knows that plural anecdotes does not equal valid data.
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““It was like it was a demon that had got inside my brain and I just couldn’t stop. If my parents tried to stop me playing, I would just flip.”
There is no try. Only do, or don’t have kids.
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He says “…the consequences of overuse of game stations usually with the sufferer using the game to escape the reality of life..”
I used to use books and games to escape the painful reality of my life as a child, and I didn’t get addicted… he seems to be drawing a line from those he sees as patients, without studying the entire community. Of course he’s going to get a skewed view, if his source for the data is his patients, and only his patients!
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I got so addicted to books & music when I was a child that I still read 3-4 books every month often whilst listening to Radio 1. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve stopped going to real world bookshops & buy a few books at a time from Amazon (lets not get hung up on the fact that it’s generally cheaper to buy from Amazon). I still visit the local libraries on occasion but they just can’t satisfy my addiction to the level I require these days.
Oh and I also play games a fair bit as you’ll see from my Steam profile. But then I don’t spend any time sat infront of a TV watching the utter drivel that is peddled as “entertainment” these days (notable exceptions being Dr Who & Match of the Day) which is what most people who don’t play games appear to do every evening.
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Actually, this is one of the most apt comparisons I have ever read. Both are mild-to-strong stimulants giving a sense of power and sometimes a real disconnect from reality. Both are very prone to enslaving addictive personalities. Gaming has less of an impact on the body but saying that a 3-hour MP match is equivalent to a poker tournament or a line of coke seems very sensible to me.
Of course, journalists will use such claims as a way to demonise gaming, but we all know we can safely ignore them. As usual.
Oh and to the people claiming that they know cocaine and it’s nothing like gaming: nigga please.
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eh?
I’m a student, which means I can get away with playing four hours a day, several days a week. I also have a history of abusing narcotics, which, I’m glad to say, is a good few years behind me now. There is absolutely no game in the world that can cause a cocaine high, nor would I want there to be. You can be elated, invigorated, incensed and, I dare say, aroused by a game, but the same can be said of falling in love, sports and academic endeavors. Should we compare them to cocaine? Of course not, they’re bodily natural highs we get from doing what we find enjoyable. None of them compares to the artificial OHCHRISTMYHEARTFEELSLIKEITSGONNAEXPLODEFUCKMEIAMAWESOME high of coke. Not even two hours of headshots and monster kills can cause that effect.
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He said “a line of coke” ? Not two grams.
I’ve yet to experience that high you’re talking about, though I don’t usually snort more than 2 lines at once.
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well now, I’m exaggerating a little. But the rampant sudden charged high is nothing like even the greatest computer game moment.
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I’m unsure of the logistics of this high. The line of coke is gone in a moment, affecting you a short while after that. The 2 hours of video game is gone in… two hours? When does that start affecting you, during or afterwards?
Unless you take 2 hours snorting a line of coke, in which case that’s either one hell of a long line or one hell of a tiny straw.
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Perhaps ‘ve just not been playing the good games.
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re: “Oh and to the people claiming that they know cocaine and it’s nothing like gaming: nigga please.”
Well, if you won’t go for personal experience of the difference between them, then how about this. I’m a Neuroscientist and I can tell you that cocaine and gaming, absolutely, positively, 100% definitely do not have the same effects on the brain. I don’t know that gaming’s effects on neurotransmitters has really been studied, but I’d guess that you might see a small rise in norepinephrine release (depending on how excited your game gets you) and a small rise in dopamine release. Maybe.
Cocaine, on the other hand, very potently inhibits the reuptake of norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin at synapses. In simple terms, blocking reuptake means that these neurotransmitters hang around in the synapses and continue exerting their effects for a lot longer. While gaming might lead to a little more release of 2 of these 3 neurotransmitters, there is no way it could possibly have any effect on their reuptake, which is what makes cocaine so potent.
In short: the actual effects of gaming on the brain are nothing at all like cocaine. Period.
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Doesn’t fuck up your teeth nearly as badly though.
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I’ve been a gamer for years and I have tried coke a time or two. Not the same. Not at all. Then end. Also, don’t do drugs kids. :P
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The cocaine available in his area must be pretty terrible quality then and not worth the cash at all.
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24 hours non-stop is pretty hardcore, especially for a 14 year old. He’ll be the server first level 85 Paladin, no doubt.
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Sometimes I think seeing a therapist could be worthwhile, but just too many of them are utterly mental. It’s not just the odd Steve Pope straining for a marketable sound bite, either. Take this, for example.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0903/09032601
“The researchers questioned more than 1,400 mental health professionals on whether they would attempt to change a client’s sexual orientation, if requested to do so. Although only one in twenty-five (4%) said that they would do so, one in six (17%) reported having assisted at least one client to reduce their gay or lesbian feelings, usually through therapy. There has been little or no decline in numbers treated over recent decades.”
Kinda terrifying, really.
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“The human being can be, in my professional opinion, addicted to anything it finds pleasurable. ”
Well then, the clear solution is to ban everything that people could find pleasurable. “Ban everything…and then Ban Banning!”
Personally, I’m going to make my crusade against knitting. Grandma, don’t you realize that you’re wasting your life in that chair all day? What a sad case of addiction.
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I’ll go for whatever he’s playing.
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Gaming is a hell of a drug.
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What size line of cocaine? surely that has an impact.
Vice versa, what games? Is vice city a Tony Montana pile and world of goo just a tiny little bump?
WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW!
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Maybe we should conduct an experiment. Let Dr. Pope play a game for a couple of hours (any game, doesn’t really matter) then question him on his state of mind. Then repeat after giving him to take Cocaine.
I enjoy playing games. I also enjoy reading, watching films, comedy on TV and listening to music. I have never taken cocaine but I’m fairly sure that if I did, the experience would not be the same.
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What is this game station he speaks of!?
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Nice report Mr. Walker.
In my own experience, i´d give gaming a slight link to escapism.
If you´re not doing terribly well socially, or you´re introverted or something, you might find game to be a more worthwhile thing to spend your time on – its the bog standard geek stereotype, which i think has something to it.
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“Please be balanced in your reporting as your views may kill people.”
Is the best of sentences.
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THIS IS JUST FUCKING HOMOSEXUALITY I’D LIKE TO RIP THAT GUYS GUTS OUT AND EAT ‘EM AND POP HIS EYES AND SPREAD THE SQUISHED EYEBALLS ON HIS NIPPLES GAMES DONT MAKE PEOPLE VIOLENT
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Even your gravatar looks angry. That’s awesome.
What is it anyway, some kind of icecube cow hybrid? I’m a gravatarologist you see, it’s my business to find these things out. You would be shocked at how many people don’t know what their gravatar is.
The chap above us for example has a Stoneus eggus viridis That’s the Latin of course, there is no direct English translation.
A fine specimen indeed.
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>> He believes articles such as this could lead to deaths.
I’m sorry. But this person clearly does not deserve the attention he’s getting. This is all extremely offensive.
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Yes, I was particularly offended by that claim.
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So this is a smaller part of a print article. When was this supposed to have gone to shops, because I live at Lancaster Uni at the moment and the Lancashire Post is a paper we can get at the newsagents?
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It was published on Monday.
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If the only interaction he ever knowingly has with gamers is when they turn up at the headshrinkers, then it’s not all that surprising he should come to this conclusion. I guess if you spend all day trying to fix broken people, then eventually you’re going to start believing that everybody is broken.
If I tried cocaine and only got the same high from it as two hours of gaming, I’d be really disappointed. Maybe I’m just playing the wrong games.
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What a funny man.
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All those years blowing my NES carts when I should have been smoking them :p
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It is 100% medically accurate.
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I’d rank the idiots behind this, meaning the media and “practitioners” involved, slightly behind there people:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/may/24/mmr-doctor-andrew-wakefield-struck-off
…in terms of dangerousness.
They are the enemies of reason.
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Lies, lies and more lies?
I think we can categorically ignore someone who categorically ignores statistics and reports.
(PS: My Captcha says EULA. Really, RPS?)
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/sigh
Where do these wing-nuts come from?
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So we’re going to have a bunch of fat, violent criminals in the future? Somehow, I don’t see that happening.
Honestly, this sounds like the inverse of those wootards who push everything from Vitamin D supplements to magnetic therapy – instead of magnets curing all of your woes, video games cause them. There’s about equal evidence, honestly.
You’d think a lawyer would know how important that is, but then that’s probably why he’s a video game “addiction” therapist and not a lawyer any more.
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You don’t know many lawyers, do you?
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it’s true though seriously gaming is a gateway drug, one day i was playing tetris and next thing i know i was doing hits off of bong while playing katamari damaci with two guys i don’t even know
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Mr Pope (note: not medically qualified in any way shpe or form) has a BA in law, and a post-grad diploma in psychotherapy, along with a certificate in ‘counselling’ and runs a business which counsels drug addicts. I get the feeling that this article is an effort to drum up business by scaring parents into forking over their hard-earned to ‘fix’ their kids.
But then maybe thats just me being cynical.
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Good call Mandrill, I’d say. Not a clinitian of any stripe, eschews evil statistics and science, specialises in sports team motivation. Article invents disease and he provides the cure; classic snake oil formula.
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Yes, a study.
Anyways, anyone on RPS already doing a review on Legio? I’d be very interested in it, given that they so far haven’t released a demo.
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also in the news……
scientist claims “reading sensationalist crap in newspapers can make you stupid”
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Who needs evidence when you just KNOW something to be true? Facts can be so confusing to one’s view of the world.
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Rigorous scientific study is hard, which is I suppose why so many people choose to pull antics like this rather than conduct any. For reference, your first hint is when they go to the press BEFORE submitting a peer reviewed paper, that usually implies they know damned well their conclusions are going to get torn apart by real scientists that know better.
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@Peter Radiator Full Pig – Wow. What a startlingly ignorant thing to say. I have a degree (BScH) in Psychology (and one in another ‘Science’) and worked in the field for a while, and I can definitely say that I learned more about Scientific method, Experimental design, Statistical analysis and interpretation, inference and decision making, while studying Psychology than I did studying the 3 Pure sciences at High School and initial University level. I really don’t think you know what you’re talking about.
In short: You’re talking out your arse, and should probably stop.
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Gah!!!! Cursed reply function!
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Tell me, where might a chap purchase one of these “game stations” that Mr Pope mentions several times in his response to you? Surely a man with such a scientific and zealously defended theory backed up with all this secret empirical evidence would have done the research necessary to know such a thing?
On a more serious note – Mr Pope, you are kidding right? “Your views might kill people” is probably the most ridiculous and pathetic counter-argument I have ever heard in my life. You can’t win a debate by suggesting the other person is so wrong that by supporting their own opinion they are committing murder, any more than you can hope such a silly statement will lend any gravitas to your one-sided unsupported sensationalised ranting.
As for questioning the balance of journalism at RPS, John posted 12 links to support his arguments, each of which contain many more citations and evidence backing them up. How many were in the Lancashire Post again? I’ll give you a hint: it’s less than one but more than negative eight.
John also actively and repeatedly sought out your input and posted your response when you finally decided to give one, yet not once in the article in which you are quoted did the “journalists” behind it represent anyone with a conflicting point of view. Instead we get tenuous throwaway anecdotal links to obesity, suicide and cocaine. Balanced indeed.
Lastly, on the hilarious line of coke == 2 hours of gaming nonsense you spat out, I’m not sure whether to be more concerned about what your dealer is selling you, or what games you are playing…. either way, I’d ask for my money back if I were you.
(related amusement: http://south-parkx.info/_ld/0/82451.jpg)
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“Tell me, where might a chap purchase one of these “game stations” that Mr Pope mentions several times”
Indeed, I am curious too. It makes me think of some futuristic walk-in cubicle type affair that you hook your brain up to.
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Ah, yes. More hyperbole and sensationalist nonsense. It’ll be interesting to see where they go from here, really. Maybe playing video games causes sinister replacement of your beloved children with pod- people.
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Hear, hear. .
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Or, rather: here, here.
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I was actually so angry I wrote to the Lancaster Evening Post asking them to justify the article given the issues with it. That doesn’t happen often.
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Oh this makes sense now, apparently the owners of the paper say they employ no journalists.
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Ok confession time.
I have in my life done a line of coccaine on quite a few occaisions. Many years ago now, mostly when I was in college. But there it is.
I have on many occaisions played games for 2 hours.
Anyone who thinks there is anything remotely similar in the two things is a moron. The 2 experiences and the way they impact feelings and behaviour are about as far apart as its possible to get. And thats from first hand real experience.
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Wow. As someone who is about a year away from completing a PhD in Neuroscience, this kind of stuff really drives me crazy.
Honestly, the most outlandish statement here is this one: “he believes statistics are ‘lies, lies and more lies’.” Here’s the thing: if you think statistics are lies, then you can’t possibly cite scientific evidence to back up your claims. Statistical validation is essential to science–throw out statistics and you throw out science entirely.
In other words, statistics are the one and only form of evidence in science. As any scientist will tell you, without statistical validation, you simply don’t have any evidence. That Mr. Pope can claim to have “a weight of evidence to support this” and dismiss statistics at the same time is unbelievable. At the very least, it clearly shows that we (and RPS as a whole) shouldn’t be wasting our time with him. Although apparently the media doesn’t feel the same.
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It’s simple: if you have a personality that has elements of addiction, you’re probably going to become addicting to something, gaming is just something to be addicted to.
I know someone who IS addicted to gaming, and I’ve known him for long enough and well enough, to know that he could just have easily become addicted to heroin, or coke, or whatever narcotic you could name.
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First off, I love how Cocaine is an actual tag on the website.
But What, again I say, WHAT!?!?
Cocaine can cause a LOT more bad than videogames. I wanna kick that guy in the pants so bad right now… He gives so many people good reasons for me to not play video games. They’re not bad to me.. They make me think…
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In the past, morons of that caliber claimed that masturbation made you deaf. Just disregard such nonsense. They are just trying to make themself more relevent than they ever will be from now on.
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This. Is. Ridiculous.
Thank you, John, for reporting on this nonsense. I feel that it’s important that gamers know these things and defend themselves from bullshit. You can’t leave things alone, certainly not big press media.
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Skurmedel level up!
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Well said Mr. Walker, thanks for keeping the flag of reason flying and making the point that arguments should be based on fact rather than scaremongering!
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@ John Walker:
“…The UK Interactive Entertainment Association (formerly ELSPA) – the body responsible for alerting parents and adult gamers to the dangers of gaming…”
It isn’t really a public health body, it is (according to it’s website) a membership-based trade association which “works to comprehensively protect, promote and provide for its members”.
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My, what a strong case for decriminalizing cocaine.
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Ah yes, “gaming addition.”
We have dismissed these claims.
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And a spectacular spelling error.
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Is this the same psychology that was cutting clits off of women, and puttin them in insane asylums for being to horny? The same one that murdered an untold number of woman and people, either electrocuting their head or doing a hysterectomy to keep the sweat horny demons out? The same one who proscribed masturbation as a form of cure, or better yet womb massage.
I’m sorry but even in this age psychology is to young to be a REAL science, because there is no form of method of applying it. Every since psychologist approaches a problem differently, and the problem with psychology is that the psychologist’s psychology plays a heavy role in their determination in your psychology Freud is a great example. Some of the things psychologist do should be illegal. There is not enough regulation to prevent insurance abuse, at the expense of promoting mental “wellbeing”, using known NONE working methods.
Ultimately, the only real skill a psychologist has is the ability to listen, and most of the time the guy your talking to isn’t even a registered psychologist. So the question is do they even do anything at all except proscribe various drugs until something works.
It comes down to some guy shooting into the dark, and listening to you call out in the mist, until he hits you. Psychology is not a science, because science can be readily proven with steps and conclusion, psychology is uncontrolled mess, that boils down to the individual psychologist skill.
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Again another person who doesn’t know what Psychology is & rants about Psychiatry/Psychotherapy.
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This thread has been a real riot. Good article too.
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what an absolute cast iron cock-end this pope guy is. any chance we can get the press complaints commission onto these dribbling barely sentient hacks?
volomon are you possibly a scientologist? your babbling sounds very much like the kind of drivel they spout. there may well be quack psychs about but the good ones really do help people who desperately need it. also you seem to be mixing up psychologist and psychiatrist, psychologists cannot prescribe drugs without at least some pharmacology training and the consent of the patients doctor and that’s only in a few specific places.
as for it being a ‘too young’ to be of any use you’d do well to remember that vast majority of medical progress was only made in the mid to late 20th century. all that stuff you mention about ridiculous treatments for non-existent conditions of women would have been supported by the medical doctors of the time as they didn’t know any better.
finally what you mention about insurance suggests you’re from the USA where they allow pharmacorps to advertise anti-depressants and all sorts other medications on tv and radio using slick marketing to convince the bamboozled public they need the stuff. they’d do at least as much good by banning that as by getting rid of dodgy psychs. oh and if you think a few big insurance companies whose very business it is to rip people off on a daily basis losing a little money isn’t worth sick people getting the help they need it is you sir who is fucked in the head.
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John you are fantastic. Once again you have confronted extremist sensatialism with a calm and dignified responce.
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I really wish I my PC games were “equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces”. At the moment I am trying to get through Tomb Raider Underworld but keep quiting in favour of browsing the net and making/reading silly forum posts.
If I am currently “addicted” to anything it is a constant cycle of of “posting comments >> checking for replies >> checking news sites >> posting comments >> etc”, with occasional diversions into the depths of Wikipedia and Google Maps as I either research an obscure argument or fantasise about wild adventures to far flung parts of the world.
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WTF?
@ bleeters:
You wish.
A lot of opinions here, (and some great comedic relief I must say)…but perhaps an opinion was something the author is also entitled to?
Be it right or wrong or of no consequence is irrelevant, because we all have our own indabas.
END
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a.) Eating French Toast is pleasurable to human beings.
b.) Anything pleasurable to human beings can become addictive.
c.) Addiction leads to crime, violence, suicidal tendencies, and dehydration.
Therefore, eating French Toast leads to crime, violence, suicidal tendencies, and dehydration.
QED, motherfuckers.
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“Please be balanced in your reporting as your views may kill people.” This is just amazing. I’m also fairly jealous of RPS now, I’m pretty sure I’ve never been told any of MY opinions or statements may kill people.
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I’ve been outside in Primavera Sound the whole weekend just waiting to post this when I could: please tell me what game it is that has the same effects as cocaine. Please. Tell. Me. I need it, now.
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Anything that gives you the same high as cocaine without melting your nose has got to be a good thing. Maybe games can save the world, providing a cheap, legal and safe alternative to crack and heroin.
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So I just played for 16 hours straight, yet somehow I don’t feel like I’ve done 8 lines of cocaine…
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While I agree with your stance, sitting on your computer Googling and reading Wikipedia isn’t “lots of research”. This gee-whiz information superhighway is not, in fact, a portal to ALL knowledge.
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What a fantastic article.
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*SNORT*
What? Sorry…. I was busy doing a line of GTA IV
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