More Evidence

This morning as i was combing over some of my regular sites I happened across a link to the TechNewsWorld site. The article that I was referred to talks in depth about the effects of video game addiction and refers to a real story about a 11 year old boy named William. It talks about his transition to becoming addicted and doing anything he possibly could to continue playing the games. It talks of the violent out bursts he would have when he was denied access to games, such as hitting his mother during tantrums. He also at one point pushed his elderly grandmother down a flight of stairs.

I think Children are the most susceptible to video gaming addiction because they lack willpower. They often see nothing wrong with playing games all day and skipping school. The article states that the main reason for the addiction to occur is the reward based nature of the games. This mirrors what I hav said in previous posts, in these game worlds it becomes easy to accomplish monumental goals, ones that cannot be achieved by going to school or playing a game of basketball. In many of these games you have something to show for playing hours on end. Xbox 360 is a perfect example of this, every game they have for that console has something called achievements. They special goals that are often difficult to complete, but make the games that much more rewarding. So instead of just having the drive to beat the game, they have now introduced something that keep players coming back for more once they have beat it. These goals can be as simple as completing the game on a harder difficulty or as complex as figuring out a pattern of jumping through hoops to unlock a item.