Tag: VIDEOGAMEADDICTION

It was a world I could fully understand and control, in marked contrast to the chaos of being a teenager, with a home life ripe with conflicts I could neither escape nor resolve. In the case of my teenage self, and, I suspect, in the cases of many addicts, the world of the game was a private and unassailable refuge from a seemingly hostile world. The Guardian's own Tom Meltzer reflects on his ...

Police in Uniontown, Pennsylvania were shocked to find a home stinking of feces and six children sleeping on bare mattresses. The childrens' mother, who had left the pantry bare and food rotting in the refrigerator, was neither absent nor an alcoholic; she was a gaming addict. After the children, three of whom are toddlers, were removed from the residence Monday, their stepfather told WPXI that ...

Video games may detract from your child's physical activity and social life, but can they also drive your kid mental? According to a controversial new study, they can. Recently published in Pediatrics Journal, said study examined 3,000 children in Singapore over the course of two years. Researchers found that about one out of every ten children ultimately became addicted to video games, and ...

Share Darren Suchon, like many middle-aged unemployed people, used to spend his days playing video games. One day, though, his girlfriend, Colleen Frable, decided she'd had enough of Suchon's idle gaming, and took his beloved PlayStation to work with her. The 42-year-old gamer then did what most video game addicts would do. He drove her off the road. According to the Morning Call, Suchon ...

A Hawaiian man wants NCsoft, a South Korean video game developer, to pay up for neglecting to warn against the addictive nature of its popular MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), 'Lineage II.' According to Wired, Craig Smallwood claims he is "unable to function independently in usual daily activities" because of his addiction to the online role-playing game. Smallwood claims to ...

In a radical new study, South Korean psychiatrists at Chung Ang University, College of Medicine, claim to have reduced participants' desire to spend hours online playing 'Starcraft' by dosing them with antidepressants. According to Wired UK, 11 participants in the study took doses of Bupropion, which also reduces the desire to smoke, over a six-week period. These participants were chosen because ...

A young professional athlete isn't the first image that pops into our heads when we think of video game addicts. But, according to the Seattle Seahawks official website, defensive tackle Quinn Pitcock left his former team, the Indianapolis Colts, because he was depressed and addicted to video games. Pitcock was so depressed that he felt like he couldn't face another year in the NFL, so he quit in ...

Finally, The Boy Scouts of America has stepped into the 21st century. According to Engadget, Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts and Webelos can now earn a belt loop or pin for playing video games. Of course, with this being a service organization, you don't earn it by racking up a high score. Instead, it's about learning to be responsible and teaching the community about video games. You can check out all ...

Rickets, a disease that practically disappeared from the developed world in the 19th century, is rising again, reports British scientists. The condition, a softening of bones that leads to painful deformities and fractures, is most commonly caused by severe vitamin D deficiency, which is essential for absorbing calcium. The primary natural source of vitamin D is sunlight (i.e., going outside), so ...

We've seen the cops called over video game-related incidents before. It's just that the fuzz usually gets involved only when someone's committed an actual crime -- too often murder. But no killing was required (at least not in real life) for Boston mom, Angela Mejia, to call 911 on her 14-year-old son. It seems that Mejia just couldn't deal with her boy's constant gaming. According to the ...

Analysts have been torn when investigating the addictive properties of video games, but at least one lonely girlfriend believes the debatable affliction is indeed very real. Apparently, she also decided that the only remedy for her Xbox-distracted boyfriend was staging an abusive, hysterical, and repugnant intervention. The jilted woman actually filmed her violent ultimate solution, and, if the ...

If domestic bliss is your goal, here is a bit of advice; do not put your big plasma TV and your PlayStation 3 in the bedroom. Oh, and certainly don't make your partner sleep on the couch so you can stay up all night playing 'Grand Theft Auto.' Carol Cannom, 46, of Lincolnshire, England, purchased 'GTA' for her 10-year-old son (we're questioning the intelligence of that decision, too), but soon ...

Let us start off by saying that we're taking this report with a grain of salt, seeing as www.PS3pricecompare.co.uk isn't exactly renowned as a beacon of outstanding research. Going off a recent survey, the console price comparison site is claiming that 72-percent of British men would choose a night of playing video games over a night with their girlfriends. Even more disturbing, 32-percent of the ...

As if video games didn't garner enough negative publicity about effects on young gamers, researchers now believe that the prolonged use of console controllers causes physical deformities in children's fingers. Author Mike Tomich, with an endorsement from neurologist and rheumatologist Dr. Amar Sawar, says that early gaming, especially among those under eight-years-old, damages the cartilage of ...

While the name's not as catchy as "Wiiitis," go ahead and add "PlayStation palmar hidradenitis" to the growing list of video game-related maladies. The term was coined soon after a 12-year-old girl's recent visit to a Swiss hospital, where she complained of intensely painful sores on the palms of her hands. Doctors at the Geneva University Hospital deduced that the girl, who had begun ...