A group of psychiatrists is now lobbying to have video game addiction declared a disease. This might just be the dumbest article I have ever read.
A GR reader named Josh emailed me and brought this piece of msnbc ignorance to my attention, so I just had to share. Oh, and also make fun of them.
Lets just start at the with the first sentence:
The telltale signs are ominous: teens holing up in their rooms, ignoring friends, family, even food and a shower, while grades plummet and belligerence soars.
Yep, that sounds like a lot of teenagers to me. Theyâll do that.
The culprit isnât alcohol or drugs. Itâs video games, which for certain kids can be as powerfully addictive as heroin, some doctors contend.
Wait, you want to blame video games for teen angst? Even if we bought into this idiocy, look at what youâre saying here. You should be thankful theyâre just playing video games and the âculpritâ isnât alcohol or drugs. This is just normal teen behavior here folks. You really need to go see Rebel Without a Cause.
Joyce Protopapas of Frisco, Texas, said her 17-year-old son, Michael, was a video addict. Over nearly two years, video and Internet games transformed him from an outgoing, academically gifted teen into a reclusive manipulator who flunked two 10th grade classes and spent several hours day and night playing a popular online video game called World of Warcraft.
Joyce, your son is a teenager. Lots of them become surly assholes and flunk classes. I sure did, and frankly, I would have gotten into a lot less trouble if I had just been playing WoW. You should count yourself lucky that heâs found a bunch of online friends, is watching less TV, and didnât end up doing real drugs, joining a gang or getting arrested.
And thatâs really my point here, if it were any other harmless activity, it wouldnât be pathologized. Iâve seen teen girls who canât stop texting their friends for even one second. Is that a disease? The average American watches almost five hours of TV a day. Thatâs 35 hours a week â almost a full time job. Donât forget, thatâs average. So half of America watches even more than that. Is THAT an addiction? Probably. Is it a disease? No.
