Playing Videogames is Like Snorting Coke, Says Therapist

[MegaManOfNumbers]

WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF SOVIET UNION BULLCRAP LOGIC IS THAT?!

how is playing a video game compare to health damaging drugs?!

seriously! this is FUCKING common sense!!!

 

[JediMB]

After reading "three out of five kids under the age of 16 play games to the point that it's cause for concern" I just couldn't take the article seriously anymore, and it only got worse from that point on.

Also, to the people responding to the article in anger: you're not helping, so chill.

 

[afaceforradio]

Fuck no.
I know gamers, and sadly, I know people on crack.

Like HELL it is the same thing. If it were, I would hate video games with all my capacity for hate. This kind of sentiment makes people not take real drug problems seriously.

I couldn't agree more.

There's no risk of potential instant death from playing one game one time, nor are the psychological effects of gaming even remotely similar. Gaming isn't addictive in a destructive sense, but those who do get a bit warped are often warped to begin with.

These people have no idea what they're talking about.

As for kids playing games; well that's just bad parenting if kids shirk homework and bathing to play games.

 

[sougo13]

Great, here goes another one. Seriously where are all these guys come from?

I laughed at how he called games 'the poison chalice.' I would say my views but everyone here already beat me to them.

Especially this:

I feel this TV quote is entirely appropriate, and it sums up my feelings quite well:

"Your Honor, I know I'm supposed to be a dispassionate advocate for my client's position, but I have to tell you that this case, it, it just makes me mad. You see, I know someone who is addicted to crystal meth. This is a lethal drug! It would have killed her if she hadn't stopped using it. So when I hear people talk about being addicted to their blackberry, soap operas, video games. Believe me, if anyone who's addicted to crystal meth could suddenly wave a magic wand and be addicted to video games instead, they would do it in a heartbeat. Now you heard testimony that playing this game raises your dopamine level. We don't deny that, but the fact is, anything you enjoy doing raises your dopamine level, sports, chocolate, exercise, sex, on and on and on. When Einstein was developing his theory of relativity I'm sure that his dopamine level was through the roof! But where do we draw the line between addition and passion? The fact is this case is an insult to anyone who has a real addiction to a harmful substance. Now are all said that Wesley Beller is dead, but Alcove Games did not cause his death. "

I honestly can not say anything better than that.

 

[Niracas]

The 14 year old kid is a horrible example.

Instead of being addicted to games maybe he is just a little brat.


And i loved the phrases he used.
"The poisoned chalice is being handed down through the generations,"
....really?

i really doubt the chalice is being handed down through the generation. because that's mean that the video game addicted 74 years old grand-mother made her daughter addited to ebay, to hooked up her duagther to facebook.

it make more sense if it's pass upward through generation. the kid goes on the net showed it to her mother that showed it to her mother...

He's so right!.I totally attacked three cops, tore out my fingernails, got a nosebleed, and tackled a horse after my last Contra session

remember back when Dungeons & Dragons was the most controversial game ever made? People have and always will be stupid and uninformed.

time to read a chick comic strip to remember what D&D really is, since it got as much credibility as this study...
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

What in the nine circles of hell was that? Do people REALLY think thats how D&D groups go? Our characters die and we hang ourselves? I dont know about you but all that happens at mine is lots of dickery and eating cheetos. Never any occult rituals.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

Fuck no.
I know gamers, and sadly, I know people on crack.

Like HELL it is the same thing. If it were, I would hate video games with all my capacity for hate. This kind of sentiment makes people not take real drug problems seriously.

I agree.

These so called 'experts' always seems to be wrong right?

 

[Julianking93]

That's gotta be the worst therapist ever.

Someone please take his license away from him

 

[Thoric485]

Who the hell pays these people to make the same retarded parody of a research over and over again? And which journalist in their right mind would report on it for the umpteenth time? And why would they publish it?

Oh right.

 

[Wicky_42]

I feel this TV quote is entirely appropriate, and it sums up my feelings quite well:

"Your Honor, I know I'm supposed to be a dispassionate advocate for my client's position, but I have to tell you that this case, it, it just makes me mad. You see, I know someone who is addicted to crystal meth. This is a lethal drug! It would have killed her if she hadn't stopped using it. So when I hear people talk about being addicted to their blackberry, soap operas, video games. Believe me, if anyone who's addicted to crystal meth could suddenly wave a magic wand and be addicted to video games instead, they would do it in a heartbeat. Now you heard testimony that playing this game raises your dopamine level. We don't deny that, but the fact is, anything you enjoy doing raises your dopamine level, sports, chocolate, exercise, sex, on and on and on. When Einstein was developing his theory of relativity I'm sure that his dopamine level was through the roof! But where do we draw the line between addition and passion? The fact is this case is an insult to anyone who has a real addiction to a harmful substance. Now are all said that Wesley Beller is dead, but Alcove Games did not cause his death. "

Damn skippy. It is fundamentally insulting to all those with real, life-threatening addictions to claim that gaming problems are in the same league. I also wish that these people would wake up an realise that, what with gaming being 20-odd years old, if gaming WAS lethally addictive and obese-ifying then there would be significant mortality and obesity rates in gamers over 20. But of course, that sort of real research, with its 'facts' and 'balance' wouldn't give them killer headlines (or net them as much publicity and cash).

A doctor was banned from practising in the UK by fraudulently linking autism to the MMR vaccine. I can only hope that the conductors of this 'research' suffer a similar fate for their similar crime.

 

[veloper]

nobody should worry about the content of the anti-game articles

It's just the quantity that is slightly worrying.

This anti-game lobby, it's like trolling.

Maybe we should ignore this shit and certainly not get worked up about it. Sure, if the media take a shit on the brain of your parent or friend, then it's good to know how to respond decisively, but otherwise don't bother.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

...

What a dick.

(Sorry, to be clear, the analogy is such a bloody joke that I don't have anything better to say. Cocaine often kills on it's first imbibing, Video game's only deaths have been due to DVT from sitting in the same place for over 24 hours)

 

[FetaFrosch]

Words can not express the pain this caused in my head while reading this...

 

[gl1koz3]

Addiction to eBay. That's interesting.

But I still think comparing games to coke is a little off. In my opinion, if the parents forcibly take out natural selection out of the equation (i.e. make kids grow up into pussies that don't know how to handle s**t), this imbalance is the real cause. They miss it, and never grow up properly.

Educate the parents.
Otherwise, this is like explaining Oxygen.

 

[Harrowdown]

Scare tactics. Like how 'Tom and Jerry' was once believed to encourage violence. The older generations will always regard the new with mistrust, partly because they don't understand it or see the appeal, and partly because human being are just generally backward.

 

[Fox242]

Aye. Double aye; and for only the second time ever: triple aye. Yeap. This is bad enough for me to warrant a triple aye from my trademark "aye" system.

Who in the flying fuck is this person who is making these claims? Does he have any actual evidence other than his given word? What qualifys him to make such claims? Has he forced any of his patients snort a line one day and then play 2 hours of games the next? What the hell is going on here? Sure there's a risk of video game addiction, but saying that it's comparable to cocaine? Did this guy get his degree from a Trix box?

I'm more than a little tired of these experts claiming that we all have an addiction...seriously we don't...you calling me a liar?! Oh, shit...I need to play more Pokemon Pinball now!! Ahhhhhh!!!

 

[Soluncreed]

I'm addicted because I have fun doing something I like to do?

 

[Iron Lightning]

Oh? So that's why I feel high after playing games for 2 hours. This totally makes since now!

but seriously, does anyone here actually get high off games? if so I'd like to know how please.

Yes, I can say that I have done so multiple times.

In my childhood, I had two quite exceptional games for my first-owned console, the Nintendo 64, Super Mario 64 and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. Being caught up in the zeitgeist, I found it impossible to finish either one. Oh I certainly tried, several times I would begin one game with the intention of completing it.

My childish mind would always fail to complete this modest task, moving on to other, newer titles. At the conclusion of a decade of this, I became a man. It was then that I resolved to finish these excellent examples of the medium. On that attempt, I succeeded and the result was ecstasy. A pure elation, my heart rate seemed to double and then doubled again, until the sheer force of blood coursing through my veins caused wonderful vibrations throughout the whole of my tissue. A sensation even more pure and beautiful than one's first orgasm. Words do it little justice. I felt as Odysseus at the end of his journey, looking upon approaching Ithaca. I must have vibrated for a half-hour's time.

So yes, I have gotten high off of videogames, as would any man upon the completion of a truly epic quest.

 

[Wicky_42]

He's so right!.I totally attacked three cops, tore out my fingernails, got a nosebleed, and tackled a horse after my last Contra session

remember back when Dungeons & Dragons was the most controversial game ever made? People have and always will be stupid and uninformed.

time to read a chick comic strip to remember what D&D really is, since it got as much credibility as this study...
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp

To quote from their "Straight Talk on D and D":

Dungeons and Dragons is a tragic and tangled subject. It is essentially a feeding program for occultism and witchcraft. For Christians, the first scriptural problem is the fact that Dungeons and Dragons violates the commandment of I Ths. 5:22 "Abstain from all appearance of evil." Much of the trappings, art, figurines, and writing within D&D certainly appears evil-to say the least of it.

On top of that, the second issue is that the materials themselves, in many cases, contain authentic magical rituals. I can tell you this from my own experience. I was a witch high priest (Alexandrian tradition) during the period 1973-84. During some of that period (1976-80) I was also involved in hardcore Satanism. We studied and practiced and trained more than 175 people in the Craft. Our "covendom" was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; just a short drive away from the world headquarters of TSR, the company which makes Dungeons and Dragons in Lake Geneva, WI. In the late 1970's, a couple of the game writers actually came to my wife and I as prominent "sorcerers" in the community. They wanted to make certain the rituals were authentic. For the most part, they are.

So, DnD is "a feeding program for occultism and witchcraft" that teaches one in the art of witchcraft and wizardry? I'm not sure if rolling a d20 counts as casting a spell IRL guys...
(I'll be honest, I stopped reading any further than I quoted - I have never DnD'd but GOD was that article hateful)

I dread to think what these people would say about gaming :S