Therapist Repeats "Gaming is Like Snorting Cocaine" Claim

[HK_01]

To make his point, he suggested that parents listening to the program "go upstairs to your kid's bedroom and try and take the game station controller out of their hands." They will react "in the same way as an alcoholic would if you tried to take their booze. It's scary," he said.

You could do the same thing to someone reading a book, the response will be the same. Or take the tennis racket away from someone who's currently playing tennis. Just because that will piss these people off does not mean they're addicted.

Edit: Okay, why are there French accents in the captchas? That's no problem for me since my keyboard has those, but what about people who have other keyboards?

 

[k-ossuburb]

That bit about "taking the controller out of their hands" is lame. Obviously you're going to react negatively if someone came barging in on something you're enjoying and tried to take it by force.

Replace the word "controller" with "ice cream" or "Rubix Cube" or whatever else you like, the result will be the same. It's not nice when someone comes up to you and takes away something you're enjoying for no reason other than to see if you get annoyed by it or not. That's bullying, and it's obvious that you're going to be pissed off about it, I wouldn't like someone to take my controller out of my hands while I'm right in the middle of a game about the same as I'd be annoyed if someone stole my ice cream half way through eating it.

It's just rude, and honestly, you could apply the same logic to ice cream, so ice cream is like frozen crack?


Give me a break.

EDIT: I used the ice cream example a lot. Well, I do love ice cream; it's my happy snack.

 

[Feylynn]

Taking a controller mid game is a simple reaction that is not provoked by mental imbalances.
You want to know what two things it is?

Step one it's similar to taking a great book or standing in front of the TV.
Step two, it's worse in the way that it is also like smashing a puzzle someone had spent a great deal of time on.

Given the assumed two hours of work on a hobby ruined AND that person saying they won't give your book back, I question who wouldn't want to punch them and scream.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Ya I know I think these therapists and shrinks are the addicts, they like their name in the paper.

When you boil things down media in all its forms can give us positive(wanting to go out and paly pretend to be a TMNT or Jedi or splinter whos basically a mutant rat Jedi) and negative(sadness,shock,creeps ) energy. Its up to the parents to teach kids how to deal with their emotions that they get from everything really. And adult should already know how to wank off to get rid of excess energy/annoyance.

 

[hailfire]

it disrupts your learning ability? I play Cod, fallout halo and bioshock like three our four times a week before i go to bed and ive had a 4.0 for three years now... and as for the addiction thing, just because it causes an endorphin rush doesn't mean it has the same effects as cocain. cocain is a chemical that damages you. endorphin rushes are natural, so unless this little prick is going to say we shouldn't run lest we get a runners high he can go screw himself.

 

[Durananrananrananran]

I like the fact that there's all this bullshit talked about games by ignorant people. It means games are cool and slightly threatening to old people who don't understand them. This must mean games are the new rock and roll.

In the future, our kids will be getting us [insert your favourite game] collector's editions every fathers day, and doing something else themselves that we don't understand. Call it "Moogly" for sake of argument. Some idiot will say Moogly is worse for them than crack cocaine, and our kids will rebut that idiot just like the last 12 pages of comments have rebutted our present-day shrink.

 

[debramster123]

because we all know this isnt true

 

[FlitterFilms]

I recently finished a project I was working on and decided to reward myself with some gaming after I had a look through the next project I was supposed to be working on. However, I got distracted by the new project and ended up working on that for the rest of the day and never got round to my gaming. In this regard I believe my work is a dangerous addiction that is distracting me from having any fun, and since stress is proved to be bad for your health all work and no play will only cause me to try and murder my family with an axe before freezing to death in a hedge maze.

 

[Dice Warwick]

so enjoying yourself, and really getting into a game, is as bad as forcing chemicals into your body, and flipping the fuck out.

As for taking the controller out of a kids hand, has he tried to take anything out of a kids hand that they really enjoy, they tend to not let go, their kids.

 

[Kuroneko97]

I'm playing a good video game with a friend or two and you take my controller and turn off my console, yes. I will be pissed and think angry thoughts of you for the rest of the night. Often my teacher takes away my sketchbook for drawing in class, and yes, I get angry, and think angry thoughts of her until I get it back. You take my candy or soda away while I'm eating it, yes I will rip your head off and pry the candy out of your hands and go to a cave to nibble on it viciously.

My point is that when I'm enjoying something and it's taken away from me, I become angry. Videogames are not addicting for me, and I have gone LOOOOOOONG times without playing them. I bet if any of these "psychiatrists" and "experts" would pick up a controller and play a good classic game (Banjo-Kazooie, anyone?), they would see that yes, it is very addicting, but because you want to explore the levels and collect all the items and beat the bosses and finally learn the conclusion to all your hard work.

But they probably will never even look at an N64, and always think that videogames are corrupting children. And then, when they are eventually outlawed, I will have to deal out Super Mario copies behind a building in a dark alley, saying "you wanna go places with the push of a button?"

 

[bluepilot]

Okay so.. playing games may have the same effect on your brain as cocaine and alcohol but that does not make them as dangerous as cocaine and alcohol.

Nobody ever got behind the wheel of a car after a three hour gaming session and killed someone due to impaired judgement.

The brain is complex, and something that science is just beginning to unravel. It is silly to jump to conclusions like this over a few positive tests results.

They also found that the creative process in the brain is very similar to schizophrenia. Does that mean that artist=paranoid schizophrenic?

Sometimes yes but generally no

 

[ZombieGenesis]

People shouldn't be taking this so lightly, the man has clearly been doing his research, and there are plenty of cases that reflect the truth in his words. I myself have been affected by this kind of thing- the fact I'm still here on a gaming website tells that it's something in my life I just can't control.

I had to come to terms with my problem. Light DSing in the morning, hitting the Xbox in the afternoon, even flash based web games out in public, where people could see... I was so ashamed, but I didn't care at the time. My friends made me face it eventually, and bless them for their efforts, but they never did manage to sniff out the secret stash of GBA games stuffed under the floorboards.

I didn't go into rehab until after the incident... I tried selling a game to a kid. I hate myself for it to this day, but Dragon Age was like five bucks more than I had, and I wasn't going to be playing Golden Sun anymore. The kids mom found out and I was sent off to the rehab center. It was cold turkey- only the most hardcore cases actually got brought down off the stuff, given small doses of Pacman and Space Invaders on those old arcade boxes, it must have been humiliating for them. Poor sods probably never played anything so watered down before- you could see the scars on their hands from all that controller abuse.

I had to give up First Person Shooters, and turn based RPGS... I never tried Warcraft, god help me if I had, I doubt I would have survived until therapy. I'm just not that resiliant to the stuff. To think around fifty-million people are abusing that kind of hard substance every day, god bless the work this man is doing, that's all I can say.

Six months later and I was released, and I saw the world through a whole new HUD menu.
God bless you, Steve Pope.

 

[LightningBanks]

Im pretty sure the 'Take the controller from them; theory works with everything. Id be pretty annoyed if someone stole my sammich, or my medication, or my clothes.....or my house.

Dam those house snatchers

Also, I use keyboard and mouse. TRY TO TAKE THAT FROM ME.

 

[That_Guitarist_Guy]

Wonderful. A therapist saying that taking away a controller that holds a teenager's attention about as well as a sandwich, homework, a good book, a T.V. show, a movie, or basically anything else that holds our attention for more than a second is about the same as a line of cocaine.

...And the sad thing is that there are people who believe this guy. What in the name of everything good with humanity would make anyone think that this guy knows what he's talking about.

 

[Partezan]

when was the last time any of you guys spent a day without the computer? try it and see what happens to your mind

 

[Scizophrenic Llama]

The brain may show signs of activity, but that definitely doesn't equate anything else.

You don't become fixated on needing to buy more video games to function regularly, you don't suffer withdrawal from video games after long periods of not playing, and you definitely can't get any form of STD or such things from playing video games with others.

The example given is complete moot. In any situation you can take something from somebody who is actively using the item and they will have an adverse reaction.

 

[Speakercone]

you know what else causes an 'endorphin rush'? sports. Score a goal in football and your body rewards you with a hit of dopamine. This can indeed be addictive, but when sportsmen do it, they call it "love of the game". Well I love a lot of games.