Esotera said:
i7omahawki said:
Esotera said:
No, simply because there was a gigantic decline in the quality of the episodes in the first month. And I remember getting really annoyed about how they based about three episodes on the idea that games aren't addictive.
Which is totally wrong according to the evidence. Which is when I lost respect for their opinions & stopped watching.
Did you even watch that show?
They differentiated between ADDICTION (as in physical addiction, like nicotine, alcohol, heroine chemical dependancies) to COMPULSION. Which is a very important distiction to make. Games are addictive in the sense that people continue to play them in ways which are destructive to their everyday lives, but they don't do so because games contain certain chemicals. They are psychologically addictive, absolutely not physically addictive. Hence the word 'Compulsion' which dispels the easy-to-make confusion.
Any behaviour at all can be compulsive, you can be compelled to wash your hands over and over, watch TV all day, masturbate, eat toilet paper, anything. But these behaviours are different from smoking a cigarette, which directly interferes with the synapses between nerve endings, causing a biological, physical addiction to a substance. Obviously these two are different, and that is what the entire episode was about.
TL;DR? Well then, watch the goddamn episode next time before whining.
With alcohol & nicotine & all other drugs, they effect the nervous system in some way that is pleasurable. Usually boosting dopamine or inhibiting serotonin. Games operate on the same mechanism, but you don't consume/ingest them. (I've already made a post in this thread citing a study that has shown evidence for this, you can find the abstract on pubmed. There's more evidence out there, but I can't be bothered to cite it just for people who assume that because I didn't like an episode, I didn't watch it.
Is that what I said? That you didn't like it, therefore you didn't watch it? Or did I respond to the brief response you had to the episode, that it said games weren't addictive, which isn't quite what they said. Basically you've chosen to make a big deal out of the fact that they decided to differentiate between physical and psychological addictions by using ADDICTION and COMPULSION respectively.
"they effect the nervous system in some way that is pleasurable." Yes, so does eating food, mowing the lawn, looking at the sky, twiddling your thumbs. If you're going to irrationally oversimplify the process then of course there will be similarities between cigarettes and video games. However, the 'in some way' part, is pretty damned important. Nicotine directly interfers with your neural chemistry (by essentially replacing the natural chemicals in your brain) and stimulates receptors, thereby creating tolerance levels which are unnatural, cultivating a PHYSICAL ADDICTION.
The drug itself can usually not be replaced with anything else, steady withdrawal is usually how these addictions are overcome, because the chemicals need to be there or you'll feel like shit / (in drastic cases) die.
A psychological addiction isn't like this. It stimulates the brain's neural receptors with its own natural chemicals as part of a bodily response to a stimulus. These naturally occurring chemicals don't need replacing, they themselves aren't the problem, merely their high/low levels, and the stimulus itself can be replaced by another stimulus, since it is in no way chemically relevant whether you're playing games or jerking off.
So behavioural therapy, involving getting the same 'kick' out of less psychologically damaging activities is a treatment for psychological addictions. Not for physical ones though, because the 'kick' can't be provided by anything but the substance itself.
Games effect neurochemistry, just as drugs can. If you can provide an argument with evidence to back it up, then I'll accept your point of view, but until then I'll call you out on it, just like I have with Extra Credits.
You haven't called out shit, you've misinterpreted and oversimplified what they took pains to explain. Now I've done it again.
As for evidence, this should be a good starting point: http://science.howstuffworks.com/nicotine4.htm. Given your reluctance to cite anything I can quote
against however, I'm not going to delve into any medical journals myself, suffice to say you are technically correct that both games and drugs affect the nervous system, but in such different ways that you ignore the very specific (and important) point they were making, which relates to how we treat, and think about, game addiction.
