Yet more bad news for online gamers

[Maitre]

I just came across this interesting article on yahoo news. And they still say internet addiction isn't serious?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070716/ap_on_...ernet_addiction

I didn't see anything in the article justifying the use of the term addiction for cause of the neglect. I'm not saying that addiction was not present, but tht the article did not provide any evidence that addiction was present in this case. It's been a while since relevant coursework, but from what I can remember, addiction is characterized by psychological or physical dependence, decreasing interest in other activities, difficulty in maintaining a train of thought that is not interupted by thoughts of the object of addiction, and is often accompanied by compulsive behavior associated with maintaining access to the object of addiction.

I can see a person exhibiting this group of signs with a focus on gaming or the internet, but again I don't see them in the facts presented in the article. Until I hear more about the condition of the parents, I'm with Brista, it sounds like an excuse for poor parenting.

Edit: I have a suggestion for a corolary to Jester's equation:

Lack of perspective + Confirmation bias = Moral panic.

Additionally, as a function of certain variables:
(ii) Need for ratingsi * (Lack of perspectivei + mid level digital productioni) + E = Local news
Note, the terms in (ii) may vary when applied to certain data sets, and this presentation includes only the significant terms in the data set we analyzed.