Yea, that's what I thought. "Dr. Hartman, you have an appointment."Gunner_Guardian said:
"GET OFF MY BACK I'M ON A QUEST DAMMIT"
Therapist Wants In-Game Treatment for WoW Addicts
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
"GET OFF MY BACK I'M ON A QUEST DAMMIT"
To actually discuss the ideas raised, ignoring the funny side parts of the article;
The problem with having shrinks in-game is exactly the same problem raised by bar staff or casino workers approaching people on their poker machines. Stated in your RCG (Responsible Conduct of Gambling), you can not approach a person on a poker machine and offer them help with what you might see as an addiction. Even if you know this person only gets $200 a week in government support, and they come down every Thursday and put it all into the poker machines, and are known for stealing and lying to support their addiction, you are not allowed to interfere. The decision is theirs alone to take the steps necessary, and you are not allowed to force your opinion of a good or bad lifestyle on them. You are only allowed to make them aware of the available services. The arguement is "who am I to judge what is addictive? If a person puts $10k a day through the pokies, who am I to judge that their lifestyle can't support it?".
The same technically applies here. Who is any one person to judge that someone else is 'addicted'? What is 'addicted'? Is 'addicted' someone who plays for 10 hours a day, yet even if they didn't, has nothing else interesting in their lives or anything else they wanted to do anyway? Truely, it may indeed be all that the person wants to do, not that they are missing out on anything else they want to be doing. And if the person can support themselves doing that (money and situation wise), why would it be a bad thing? What about for 15 hours a day? When does that magic situation appear? It is up to the person to seek help for the situation.
This leads to the setup that basically as far as this will go is for the advertisement of free counseling services that are available if the person so chooses to go to them.
There are obvious differences here between a child and an adult in this situation. For children who are addicted, well there IS someone to judge here, and it's called the parent. And there are plenty of situations here to control this. a) Parental control on accounts on the wow website. b) Password and payment control over the account, c) Internet access at the house, d) Understanding why your child finds the game so addictive.
A note on the last one of those: The game is not addictive in the sense like nicotine. There is no magical drug released that causes kids to crave it like some depraved meth addict. It's merely the endorphines released by the enjoyment the child feels from achievement and improvement that the game is based around. Maybe if you showed your children that there are other things in life (because surely they haven't had the chance to experience everything in life yet), that you can achieve this in. On the other hand, is your child using the game as an escape from life or because they find life too hard compared to in-game?
The problem with having shrinks in-game is exactly the same problem raised by bar staff or casino workers approaching people on their poker machines. Stated in your RCG (Responsible Conduct of Gambling), you can not approach a person on a poker machine and offer them help with what you might see as an addiction. Even if you know this person only gets $200 a week in government support, and they come down every Thursday and put it all into the poker machines, and are known for stealing and lying to support their addiction, you are not allowed to interfere. The decision is theirs alone to take the steps necessary, and you are not allowed to force your opinion of a good or bad lifestyle on them. You are only allowed to make them aware of the available services. The arguement is "who am I to judge what is addictive? If a person puts $10k a day through the pokies, who am I to judge that their lifestyle can't support it?".
The same technically applies here. Who is any one person to judge that someone else is 'addicted'? What is 'addicted'? Is 'addicted' someone who plays for 10 hours a day, yet even if they didn't, has nothing else interesting in their lives or anything else they wanted to do anyway? Truely, it may indeed be all that the person wants to do, not that they are missing out on anything else they want to be doing. And if the person can support themselves doing that (money and situation wise), why would it be a bad thing? What about for 15 hours a day? When does that magic situation appear? It is up to the person to seek help for the situation.
This leads to the setup that basically as far as this will go is for the advertisement of free counseling services that are available if the person so chooses to go to them.
There are obvious differences here between a child and an adult in this situation. For children who are addicted, well there IS someone to judge here, and it's called the parent. And there are plenty of situations here to control this. a) Parental control on accounts on the wow website. b) Password and payment control over the account, c) Internet access at the house, d) Understanding why your child finds the game so addictive.
A note on the last one of those: The game is not addictive in the sense like nicotine. There is no magical drug released that causes kids to crave it like some depraved meth addict. It's merely the endorphines released by the enjoyment the child feels from achievement and improvement that the game is based around. Maybe if you showed your children that there are other things in life (because surely they haven't had the chance to experience everything in life yet), that you can achieve this in. On the other hand, is your child using the game as an escape from life or because they find life too hard compared to in-game?
Yes, therapists can't reach the kids in their bedrooms. Their parents can though. Parents will notice a drop in grades, parents will notice no social interaction, parents will notice lack of physical activity. If they don't, or don't act on it, it is their call. If there isn't anything to notice, maybe it isn't as big of a problem.
The concept seems a little mixed up to me. Play the game to talk with a therapist to tell you to stop playing the game so much... so if you get the urge to play again... you must play again for the therapist to tell you to stop playing...
As for Blizzard helping, why would they essentially pay (via discount or free access) for therapists to play with the intent of convincing people to play less? Not good business. As for they should be held responsible for being addicted and need to do something about it (not in the article, but brought up), no, no they shouldn't. Blizzard is not responsible for the gaming addiction any more than casinos are for gambling addiction, bars are for alcoholism, tobacco companies are for tobacco addiction, or the porn industry is for porn addiction. Just because they produce it doesn't mean that you must consume it. Know your own limitations and take personal responsibility. If you are a dependant, your provider needs to take that responsibility.
Also, in practice, /ignore will destroy the whole concept.
Noted in the article it says:
"A recent report by Sweden's Youth Care Foundation described World of Warcraft as "more addictive than crack cocaine". The game, which attracts almost 12 million players every month..."
There's just the tiniest difference between chemical addiction/dependancy and "good feeling" reinforcement. The way they wrote the second line almost seems to indicate that 12 million new players come every month, rather than that 12 million people play every month. Continuing players are not attracted every month.
The concept seems a little mixed up to me. Play the game to talk with a therapist to tell you to stop playing the game so much... so if you get the urge to play again... you must play again for the therapist to tell you to stop playing...
As for Blizzard helping, why would they essentially pay (via discount or free access) for therapists to play with the intent of convincing people to play less? Not good business. As for they should be held responsible for being addicted and need to do something about it (not in the article, but brought up), no, no they shouldn't. Blizzard is not responsible for the gaming addiction any more than casinos are for gambling addiction, bars are for alcoholism, tobacco companies are for tobacco addiction, or the porn industry is for porn addiction. Just because they produce it doesn't mean that you must consume it. Know your own limitations and take personal responsibility. If you are a dependant, your provider needs to take that responsibility.
Also, in practice, /ignore will destroy the whole concept.
Noted in the article it says:
"A recent report by Sweden's Youth Care Foundation described World of Warcraft as "more addictive than crack cocaine". The game, which attracts almost 12 million players every month..."
There's just the tiniest difference between chemical addiction/dependancy and "good feeling" reinforcement. The way they wrote the second line almost seems to indicate that 12 million new players come every month, rather than that 12 million people play every month. Continuing players are not attracted every month.
Next thing you know, they will want to cure cocaine addiction by holding meetings in a crack house.
I think the therapists want to see what all the fuss is about but can't be fucked to pay the subscription fee.
It wasn't like "Oh yeah, my wife wants to have sex and we're on our honeymoon."Asehujiko said:
It took us the rest of the instance to get a confession from him, and we weren't that far when he had to tell his wife to GTFO. Believe what you want, but you can't disprove what I say, all you can do is speculate. Since I WAS THERE, my opinion STILL outweighs yours, even if it is based on what I heard on the internet.
Besides, the kid who was most likely to come to school with a gun was using WoW to stalk me at the time. That played a part in getting my account cancelled
That's what /ignore is for and when he creates a new character, report him. Failing that, name chance, server transfer or just roll an alt. Blizzard can just trace his IP and send over the authorities like they did with the wannabe plane bomber. Also, why were you spending the entire instance bugging someone for the exact reason for going afk? That's fairly stalkerish behaviour too and if somebody spent an hour questioning me about what kind of bear was outside i'd make something up as well.Cama Zots said:
I don't think that will work... Aren't there already warnings on games advising breaks and fresh air?
If I had gotten him reported, I seriously think he would have killed me. Me and maybe a ton of other people. We go to the same school you see. He's one of the most addicted and creepiest people I know of. You don't want to fuck with him.Asehujiko said:
I usually jump to blame the parents for not monitoring this sort of thing and laying down ground rules for gaming and computer use at that early of an age.
But this is a combination of the parents and the kids in my opinion.
Kids at that age should have at least set some ground rules for themselves and the parents should enforce this idea to let the kids place limits on themselves.
But this is a combination of the parents and the kids in my opinion.
Kids at that age should have at least set some ground rules for themselves and the parents should enforce this idea to let the kids place limits on themselves.