ONLINE GAMES

Online Games are addicting?

In today’s generation Technology became an essential part of our lives; it makes our daily activity easier and doing our job more efficient. Since year after year there are new technology has been created to substitute something and one of this is the ONLINE GAME.


ONLINE GAMES are created for leisure purposes and it is more accessible than the actual game itself. Online Game is a role playing game in which is like you’re the one who is playing, like for an instance playing a Golf, we all knew that Golf is an expensive game, you need to rent or buy a Golf club, you need to pay the venue in where you are playing and you need to pay the people who are assisting you during the entire game, so Online games creator created a 3 dimensional game called PANGYA to substitute the real Golf. They made the game easier and more exciting than the real game, and there is no age limit in playing this.

Does an Online game can cause addiction? Or is it because we are fond for playing this?



There are lots of online games that has been created since the market of online games became monstrous success, such Defense Of The Ancient or commonly called DOTA, Ragnarok, Ran Online. Rose Online, FlyFF, Counter Strike, Perfect World, Pinoy MU, Lineage and ETC. These games has an effect to the players of it, Even I, myself got hooked up with these games, once you played it, it seems like you never going to stop from playing it, until such time that it will became a habit and it will turn into addiction. What are the causes why the people who are playing online games became addicted to it, can we stop it? Or addiction is in only in the mind that we thought we can’t stop but the reality is we can, we just need proper motivation how to stop it, or alter our attention to other activities.


ADDICTION


The meaning of the word addiction in the English lexicon varies according to context. A positive addiction is a beneficial habit--where the benefits outweigh the costs. A negative addiction is a detrimental habit—where the benefits are not worth the negative financial, physical, spiritual and mental costs. A neutral addiction is a habit in which it is not clear if the organism (or species) benefits from the activity. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction)


Are we really addicted to online games? or is it just all in the mind?Which addiction that playing online games fall? It's up to your judgment which do you think online games fall is it in the Positive addiction or negative addiction?

As of today statically speaking 7 out 10 college students are playing online games, 8 out 10 in high school and 4 out of 10 in elementary. These numbers are very alarming because there is a possibility that these students are not attending classes anymore and spending more money than expected. Why students got hooked up in online games? Why is it so hard for them to stop it? Why they can’t seem to be focus in studying their lessons at school instead of playing online games?


As per Studies


Public concern and formal study

A report by the Council On Science And Public Health to the AMA cited a 2005 Entertainment Software Association survey[10] of computer gaming players, and noted that players of MMORPGs were more likely to play for more than 2 hours per day than other gamers. In its report, the Council used this 2-hour-per-day limit to define "gaming overuse", citing the American Academy of Pediatrics guideline of no more than 1 to 2 hours per day of "screen time".[11] However, the ESA document cited in the Council report does not contain the 2-hour-per-day data.[12]

In a 2005 Tom's Games interview, Dr. Maressa Orzack estimated that 40% of the players of World of Warcraft (an MMORPG) were addicted, but she did not indicate a source for the estimate.[13] She may have derived the estimate from the informal survey managed by Nick Yee at the The Daedalus Project,[14] who notes that caution should be exercised when interpreting this data.[15]

A 2006 lecture reported by the BBC indicated that 12% of polled gamers reported at least some addictive behaviours.[16] [17] The lecturer, Professor Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University, stated in another BBC interview that addicts are "few and far between."[18]

Michael Cai, director of broadband and gaming for Parks Associates (a media/technology research and analysis company), said in 2007 that "Video game addiction is a particularly severe problem in Asian countries such as China and Korea".[19] Results of a 2006 survey suggested that 2.4% of South Koreans aged 9 to 39 suffer from game addiction, with another 10.2 percent at risk of addiction.[20]

A 2007 Harris Interactive online poll of 1,187 US youths aged 8–18 gathered detailed data on youth opinions about video game play. About 81% of youths stated that they played video games at least once per month. Further, the average play time varied by age and sex, from 8 hours per week (responses from teen girls) to 14 hours per week (responses by teen boys). "Tweens" (8-12 year olds) fell in the middle, with boys averaging 13 hours per week of reported game-play, and girls averaging 10. Harris concludes that 8.5% "can be classified as pathological or clinically 'addicted' to playing video games", but did not explain how this conclusion was reached. [21]

Since the American Psychological Association decision in 2007, studies have been conducted at Stanford University School of Medicine related to video game play. Researchers found evidence that video games do have addictive characteristics.[22][23] An MRI study found that the part of the brain that generates rewarding feelings is more activated in men than women during video-game play. (source: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_addiction)


With regard to these reports we need to be aware to the possible effects of too much playing of online games.


We can play online games however if too much is not good for us anymore. Remember anything that is too much is not good anymore except for MONEY of course.....