Panorama: Addicted to Games?

[AD-15]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...cted_to_Games/

[AD-15]

Anyone else notice the Scan 3XS PC incidentally?

[XA04]

Saw this last night. Pretty interesting but nothing new imo.

I remember one guy saying he tried to stop playing but when he did he just got bored as he had nothing else to do. I suppose it's just a general bad habit to get into really. It's like when people stop smoking, some people have a fag after a meal or when they wake up.. it's breaking the habit rather than the addiction imo.

[razer121]

But gaming is not a habit? nor an addiction...i think i may have to sit through this and see what it's all about. Got every reason to believe it's full of total c""p as most TV is.

[Phage]

Speaking as someone who has played games since the 70's, and just spent >£1,300 on a gaming machine, I can categorically state that I don't have a problem......oh, wait.....

[Chris P]

I missed the programme... I was playing on my XBOX

[Chris P]

Anyone else notice the Scan 3XS PC incidentally?

Hi AD-15

We heard about this, do you know where about in the programme our systems were pictured.... ?

Best Regards

[razer121]

Speaking as someone who has played games since the 70's, and just spent >£1,300 on a gaming machine, I can categorically state that I don't have a problem......oh, wait.....

It's OK it is after all hobby not a "addiction"

[Lustral]

I was playing WoW when that program was on , i watched it on my 2nd screen

[Repressor]

Hi AD-15

We heard about this, do you know where about in the programme our systems were pictured.... ?

Best Regards

It's at roughly 4:30 in the programme, on top of the Antec 900. It's quite hard to make out the logo, and I'd guess you'd only see it if you knew what it was in the first place.

[Lucio]

Just about any form of entertainment can be "addictive", what makes gaming more so than some of the others is the fact it's cheap, and time consuming. I also note that the program fails to take into account that for many gamers, it replaces the television, so whilst they spend a lot of time on their hobby, it's often no more than other people spend watching TV and is often a damned site more social than sitting down a pub getting pissed and kicking off.

[Hicks12]

agreed lucio, seems as always the key points are missed out. Gaming is like anything, in moderation its good, obviously drugs and stuff arent really good for you so surely gaming is better!.

They say people gamed and got their child killed, that is tragic and am really sorry that somehow happened but its no where near as common as drug addicts or alcoholics tbh. I like how in part of it one of the guys says something about going out getting pissed, well imo its terrible now adays all the people getting pissed is rediculus (what happened to social drinking!). The amount of bad things that happen when people drink is bad, people go missing/start fights/kill each other/ ruin other peoples lives.

Funny how gaming is safer .

[AD-15]

Hi AD-15

We heard about this, do you know where about in the programme our systems were pictured.... ?

Best Regards

You can see it in the bit where one of the addicts insists on playing WoW while being interviewed, at around 4 minutes 30 seconds in.

[Saracen]

Just about any form of entertainment can be "addictive", what makes gaming more so than some of the others is the fact it's cheap, and time consuming. I also note that the program fails to take into account that for many gamers, it replaces the television, so whilst they spend a lot of time on their hobby, it's often no more than other people spend watching TV and is often a damned site more social than sitting down a pub getting pissed and kicking off.

But it was saying more than that, and talking about a very small proportion of gamers.

When it gets to the point of wrecking your university career, or as in one example, spending a quoted 150 hours a week on it, it's a bit more than the average TV viewer. Though, I have to say, I find that figure a bit implausible, it being nearly 22 hours a day, every day.

And, as was touched on, some of the tricks that are used to get people coming back, such as game programming designed to trigger a kind of Pavlovian response, are techniques that won't work, or at least, nowhere near as effectively, with TV because it requires a degree of interaction.

There's more to it than cheap and tine-consuming if you've got people more interested in gaming than either eating or sleeping, to the point of physiological damage, or when people are so addicted to caring for their VR child in a game that they let their actual flesh and blood baby starve to death, as reportedly happened in Korea.

The point of the program, as I understood it, was that there were a lot of anecdotal type issues to cause concern, but little to no hard, impartial analysis or research. It wasn't so much the program claiming there's a huge problem, as suggesting there's plenty enough evidence to suggest we ought to be really looking at whether there is a problem, even though it's clearly for a very small percentage, at least, to such ludicrous extremes as those examples I mentioned, or not?

[Saracen]

....

We heard about this, do you know where about in the programme our systems were pictured.... ?

I wouldn't get too excited about it, though, Chris. I knew it was in there somewhere, and still missed it. Twice. AD-15 must have razor-sharp vision to have detected it.

[AD-15]

It is indeed the case that gaming is fine when done in moderation, as a leisurely activity, which is what the program mentions. But (as is the case with many other pastimes) in can be taken to extremes resulting in damaging implications - it is these and the fact that the incidence is growing that the program highlights.