The Challenge of Online Gaming Addiction: A Growing Concern.

In recent years, several studies have demonstrated that at least a small group of gamers has trouble controlling their online video game playing. Excessive amounts of time spent on playing online video games can be severely disruptive to school, work, and “real life” social contacts. It seems that online games, especially multiplayer online role playing games, are more often associated with video game addiction. Drawing parallels to other industries–such as gambling–which are heavily regulated, the issue of social responsibility of the video game industry is explored.

Presently, online video game publishers provide neither referral services nor customer care with regards to video game addiction. Computer game addiction is excessive or compulsive use of computer and video games that may interfere with daily life. Users may play compulsively, isolating themselves from other forms of social contact, and focus almost entirely on in-game achievements rather than broader life events. Gamer Addiction is an obsession with video game playing that usually begins in elementary and middle school.

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By college, the individual progresses from simple to elaborate games and the student is game-hooked. An activity becomes an addiction when it is used to change an individual's mood. It becomes abuse when it interferes with 'one's work or school, or disrupts personal or family relationships, and becomes increasingly necessary to feel good'. (Orzack, 2005) Addiction takes away from life and reduces motivation to do anything beyond the focus of the addiction. According to Niolosi (2002), he found that video games are part of the daily routine for 65% of American girls and 85% of American boys.

NBC News ( 5-19-05 ) reported that one in eight gamers develops patterns similar to other types of addiction and abuse. Tournemillie (2002) noted that a survey of 1500 teenagers indicated 25% were compulsive video gamers. Fifty percent of those surveyed used the word 'addiction' to describe a friend's gaming behaviors. Today's video games are available in a plethora of venues that draw individuals into the world of the game. Games are designed to keep the player riveted to action. Players experience a sense of control when they enter into the fantasy world of speed, realism, violence, new morals, and interoperability.

Many games offer on-line anonymous interaction with other people; a 'hook' is a sense of family or belonging in the form of a pseudo persona the player develops when repeatedly playing the game. The longer the game is played, the more the pseudo persona can replace reality. As Douglas Adams said, "Anything invented before your 15th birthday is the order of nature. That's how it should be. Anything invented between your 15th and 35th birthday is new and exciting, and you might get a career there.

Anything invented after that day, however, is against nature and therefore should be prohibited. " Games are addicting by nature, but we shouldn't be pulled into a fake world that only causes destruction over our lives. According to research firm DFC Intelligence, there are 114 million people in the world that plays online games and most of them come from Asia. In the Philippines, more and more teenagers, most of which are students in highschool, college, and some elementary students are hooked on video games.

They spend most of their time and money in internet cafe's to play the most popular Mass Media Online Role Playing Game or MMORPG, DOTA or Defense of the Ancients. Video game addiction is a particularly severe problem in Asian countries, says Michael Cai, the director of broadband and gaming for Parks Associate which is a media/technology research and analysis program. In the Asian edition of the Reader's Digest, a Cebuano journalist, Mars W. Mosqueda Jr. , explored the story of an 18 year old Computer Science student that failed most of his subjects that lead to him failing to graduate on schedule.

The case of this particular 18 year old was that for almost three years, he compulsively played Ragnarok, an online-role playing game that is based on Norse mythology. He spent about 100,000 pesos in playing this game that could have been sufficient in paying for his tuition for a whole year. He not only failed to graduate early but he also lost contact with friends due to his severe addiction in games. (Readers Digest, Killing Time Online, October 2006) Many people feel powerless in society, but in online games, they're in control of armies, cities, and other people.

This power is exhilarating and provides the mental challenge their brain seeks, said Goh Chee Leong, the dean of the Department of Psychology at Kuala Lumpurs HELP University, to Mosqueda. The definition of "gamers" had changed as time passed. Before it is used to describe a person who plays games, but recently, it is used to describe a person who plays role playing games, war, computer and video games. Video games has traditionally been a social experience, and most video games are playable by more than one person.

Multiplayer games can be played either competitively or cooperatively online by using multiple input devices or by "hotseating. " There is a difference between "excessive gaming" and "addictive gaming". Two gamers may play for an identical number of hours each day, but their psychological motivation and the meaning that gaming has within their lives is very different. Gaming addiction should be defined by how much the game negatively impacts other areas of life, not by how much time it is spent on playing. (Griffiths, M et al. 2010) Statement of the Problem General Problem Statement

What does game addiction do to a person's lifestyle? Specific Problem Statement What can one do to avoid getting addicted in games? Why do we get addicted to games? How does it affect the way we react to everything? How does it affect the way we think? What does the authorities do to help prevent the expansion of this kind of addiction? CHAPTER 2 Review of Related Literatures Before the 1980's, video game addiction didn't exist. As there were no home video game systems back then, kids and teenagers could only play games in the arcade by paying them in quarters or in pesos.

When they run out of money, they could no longer play, and in this way, there is no high chance of them getting addicted to games. But it is no longer the 80's and many companies had developed a lot of video game systems, from the big stereo-like ones to portable game systems like the PSP and gameboy. The companies that created the video game systems that most teenagers today are awfully addicted to, have amassed a large number of money due to the teens persuading their parents to buy more video game systems even when they already have one. According to most statistics,