Man Dies After Days of Non-Stop Gaming
If you don't think Internet addiction is serious, consider the man in China who just died after a three-day, non-stop gaming session at a Beijing Internet café. The unnamed 30-year-old man was rushed to the hospital -- most likely after passing out -- and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter. Suicide has been ruled out as a cause of death.
The man's death reflects a disturbing trend amongst gamers in Asia who are playing online until it literally kills them. In 2005, a 28-year-old South Korean man died of exhaustion after a 50-hour marathon gaming session in an Internet café. In 2002, a 24-year-old South Korean man died after 86 straight hours of online gaming, while that same year, a 27-year-old Taiwanese man died after 32 hours of non-stop Internet gaming.
Internet addiction has become such an epidemic in China that the government no longer allows the opening of new cyber cafés and has started a state-sponsored Internet addiction camp to help treat the 13 percent of Chinese Internet users under the age of 18 who are believed to be addicted.
China has gone so far as to force game developers to institute mandatory limits in online games. For example, games will reward the player with fewer points or treasures after three hours of play and even inundate the player with messages that his character will soon be killed if he doesn't get offline immediately.
Though there's never been a case of a U.S. citizen dying from over-gaming, there have been reports of children suffering from seizures or developing blood clots after sitting in front of the game console for too long. Hopefully, we can rely on parents to do the policing instead of having time limitations actually programmed into the games themselves.
From Reuters
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