British Politician Suggests State-Funded Games Addiction Rehab

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Keith Vaz MP has recommended that the British government use state funds to treat people addicted to gaming.

We're so sorry. We try and keep him locked in DMU, but he keeps escaping.

Vaz has called for people who spend unhealthy amounts of time gaming to be treated for their addiction on the UK's state-funded National Health Service (NHS).

Really Keith? How are you going to treat an "addiction" that hasn't even been defined yet, never mind anything else.

Describing his position on the issue, Vaz said that he is "concerned" about the above-mentioned "your brain on the internet looks kinda like your brain on coke" research.

Which was total BS that even the News of the World would have chucked out.

"In the most extreme cases, people have neglected to feed their children and suffered fatal deep vein thrombosis as a result of the extended time spent at their computer or games console," added Vaz.

Citation needed.


Here's the thing, guys; Vaz is what is known as an "issues chaser". He's a crooked troll of a man who shamelessly self-promotes over being "concerned" - while Leicester East is being torn apart by corporations looking for cheap land.

Keith Vaz brings the same level of dignity, decency and discourse to the Houses of Parliament as Lord Archer did.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

And experience has shown me that a large proportion of people are idiots.

Fixed. Politicians doubly so.

Thing is - Gaming "addiction" is simply an Impulse Control Disorder - which there has been treatment for decades. Until Care in the Community was brought in, where all the Mental Health wards were shut down and replaced with Social Services.

...Who you can regularly see in the news leaving people to get beaten, abused or die - because they haven't got the resources to cope.

So, having a well-off criminal tell us that the NHS (which is being "reformed") to look after the people that it used to look after before the last reform, might just bring out the worst side in all of us.

Especially when used primarily for one man's column-inches.

 

[Chakanus]

For starters, I shall echo the notion that gaming isn't an addiction in the biochemical sense of the word. If you measured my activity when, after the nth attempt, I finally managed to kill FLamelurker, you'd think I had just tried every substance under the sun.

Those measures, nonetheless, do not mean addition of any sort. It's the way the brain balances itself after the "highs" that determines addition. If it cannot return swiftly and on it's own to a normal level and simmers in the "lows" until it gets another fix, then you have an chemical addition (I know it's overly simplified). But gaming, to my knowledge, simply doesn't have that sort of impact in the brain (and I have a lot of doubts regarding the Chinese study).

I have a fairly close friend who had a low point in her life and she just found solace in WoW. She slept too little (4-5h on average) and played too long. But when the opportunity came, she was able to just compose herself and go for a great Master's Degree on which she's very happy. I'm a gamer since I was 4 and I also got to a point where I just ran home after school to play videogames... After a while I started dreaming with the blasted things and I knew I had to change a bit my lifestyle. Which I did. I believe I have reached a nice balance nowadays (or so I like to delude myself).

Now I have seen people struggling against drugs and trust me, it is never that easy to just let them go and lead a normal life from then on out. My heart always goes for anyone in that situation, and for those around them because it is necessary a strength beyond belief to say No to your brain in withdrawal.

Of course, on the other hand, gambling shouldn't fall into the chemical addiction bag either; but since it has the same phenotype and such huge deleterious consequences to the life of the gambler, it's considered by the society as an addiction, and there are groups to help overly obsessive people warding off their gambling.

So, in theory, I cannot say I am against groups to help those who feel they are playing too much, and who themselves feel it is having a negative impact on their lives. But I am not so innocent as to believe we are not treading of very thin ice in these matters. The amount of false information and the outright lies that would start pouring out from some groups if governments started treating gaming as anathema would be a stake through the heart of what is, in it's essence, just a hobby and one that I chose to do from very early on.

 

[FamoFunk]

Will this Man just not go away?

Funny, I was thinking the same thing except about people who keep making idiotic claims that gaming can never ever bring anything even remotely harmful into anyones lives and that anyone who suggests this isn't the case is obviously just another Jack Thomson.

Are you bloody kidding me people?

He is trying to help people who suffer from gaming addiction, how the hell does this make him anti-gaming and an attention whore? (note that this is directed at the replies so far in general and just just the above quoted person)

Gaming has its downsides, and one of those downsides is gaming addiction. People should just bloody accept that instead of just bashing everyone who points that out because its the cool or trendy thing to do.

I do know some people are addicted, people get addicted to everything. But this guy will more than likely go the wrong way about it.
Not to mention stretching the tax-payers money even more and the servilely over-stretched NHS which is getting fucked over by the Tories.

If someone who actually gets it; and how to go about it and isn't just some dick with a bit of power, I'm all for it.

 

[Charli]

*sigh* State funded bullshit? Again? For the love of Christ we do not have it in the budget, kindly stop or just see a regular therapist, this is not some atypical problem, it's escapism, plain and simple. Brb off to facepalm to my governments leadership again.

 

[Evil Smurf]

wait, so the Internet can get you high?

 

[The White Hunter]

Anything that causes pleasure or enjoyment can develop into addiction. Also: This man does not speak for us, he is a lone crazy person. Rather than waste funds on this kind of bullshit the government could maybe stop hacking away at pensions and child benefit and actually make sure that huge corporations pay their taxes properly (FUCK YOU VODAFONE!) then maybe, just maybe, they can find an excuse to waste my god damn tax money on this crap.

 

[The White Hunter]

Man, I've known some pretty sad, sad people due to video game addiction. Or something at least close to addiction. People with bright futures who became recluses due to some MMO, or people turning down sex to play Halo. I'd say it is a real thing. But, of course, when someone even mentions that something you like may be harmful, it is time to call the guy a "useless fatty" and whatever other derogatory terms.

Turning down sex for Halo?? Are these people crazy?
That said I slack of coursework for watching dragonball movies sometimes but oh well.

 

[Steampunk Viking]

This is just too funny. After bankrupting the country and dragging us into US warcrimes a Labour politician wants to setup a clinc for a made up illness whilst real people with real disabilities and real problems are having all their benefits cut. Get with the program Mr Vaz, start trying to protect the services that are in threat of closure, protect the care homes and try to get carers a fair deal rather than make some lame point about gaming. Mr Vaz, ANYTHING can be addictive, its not just games, its TV, its food, its pop, its comics, its sticking your own head up a ducks bottom (though I'm afraid your the only known sufferer Mr Vaz).

You know, I was going to post a rant about this, but Orcboyphil seems to have summed up all my points in one already. They don't do this with music or TV (TV, which many people are glued to), so why video games?

Hell, if it got too out of hand, teenagers everywhere will be in therapy. Yay short sighted dumb views!

 

[Hookman]

I'm not even going to comment on the ridiculous idea of putting this much state-funded money into something that isn't a real problem, especially with the current economic climate. Instead, I'm gonna say one simple thing. Who even listens to Vaz? The guy hasn't played a game since games were made of about 3 pixels per level! If he really wants to help out 'addicts' he can pay for their rehabilitation with all the money he fucking stole when Labour was in power!

 

[IamLEAM1983]

While I agree that some people are susceptible to excessive use of the Webz, I also agree with several others in how I think that's the symptom of an underlying problem. Depression, for instance. I don't believe you can get addicted to gaming or the Internet the same way you can get addicted to nicotine. I don't have any trouble leaving my computer behind for extended periods of time and to spend most of my days with my nose buried in books, instead. I assume almost everyone else here is in the same situation. Swap books for anything needed.

Vaz seems to be running for second-place after Jack Thompson, and that's not the kind of distinction I'd want to pursue, if I were him. My guess is he's seen or heard of a few vaguely "dramatic" cases of MMO addicts who couldn't put their raiding group or their clan down for a couple hours, and inflated that as the symptom of something he perceives as larger.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Keith Vaz: the british Jack Thompson.

 

[Otaku World Order]

I think Keith Vaz and Leland Yee would get along really well given how they both stubbornly continue to waste taxpayer money on pathetic failed crusades against games.

 

[ASnogarD]

If you think about it carefully, its a rather diabolical plan...

Step 1 - By getting the NHS to foot the bill for treating the 'illness' AKA gaming addiction, one can then safely assume that as a illness it is a undesirable.

Step 2 - Run a campaign to remove the undesireable, aka gaming addiction by eliminating or severly curbing gaming.

Now quiet as stupid as it sounds now, is it ?

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Actually this isn't a terrible idea. There are actually those who play games to the detriment of everything else in their lives, mostly players of MMOs and the like.

 

[Erttheking]

You know I recall reading somewhere that South Korea has game addiction hotlines, I guess other countries are starting to adopt that policy.

 

[JediMB]

There's no such thing as game addiction. There's game compulsion.

When that gets out of hand, it's because the individual no longer cares enough about its life outside of the gaming. The apathy is the problem; not the gaming itself.

 

[The White Hunter]

Man, I've known some pretty sad, sad people due to video game addiction. Or something at least close to addiction. People with bright futures who became recluses due to some MMO, or people turning down sex to play Halo. I'd say it is a real thing. But, of course, when someone even mentions that something you like may be harmful, it is time to call the guy a "useless fatty" and whatever other derogatory terms.

Turning down sex for Halo?? Are these people crazy?
That said I slack of coursework for watching dragonball movies sometimes but oh well.

These people are crazy... now. Not before. I was hooking up with some broad after a night out and invited my friend over to "take care" of her friend, and he couldn't because he was raiding in WoW. Then a different guy I knew flat out just ignored some chick at his place that was pretty eager to put his dick in her mouth because he was playing an "intense game" of Halo: Reach. It disgusts me.

I hear ya on the slacking. I went back to school to get my MBA recently and sometimes UMvC3 makes me slack off of my coursework.

Lately for me it's been pokemon, as sad as that sounds, and it's distracting me from a Ba Hons in Education xD pretty easy to be distracted from such a boring thing.
I started a playthrough using only one type lately to fill time so recording the footage has been a time sink =p