Yet more bad news for online gamers

[Melekal]

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

[lemekim]

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

Well, there are always plenty of stories about people neglecting children, even without help of video games. They are just #$%&ty parents - if you noticed, the parents themselves were not starved or disease-ridden, which is usually the side effect of addiction. Unfortunately, there is no cure for terrible parenting, but we do have whole departments and laws devoted to dealing with those situations.

[Brista]

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

Many many parents neglect their children just as atrociously without blaming video games. I don't accept this is a fault of the product. They could have been watching TV while their babies cried

People like when caught to find some reason why they were not responsible. I suspect their justification is something along the lines of "I'm a good parent but I was suffering from addiction. It's not my fault"

It's a product of the court system that people will always look for mitigating causes however spurious when they are in the dock

If it was real addiction the parents would have been suffering from malnutrition as well as the children. They seem however to have managed to feed themselves well enough though.

[Melekal]

I just find it ironic that if video games are involved it becomes this huge story all of a sudden. You can addicted by just about anything and have this kind of thing happen. I don't doubt people can get addicted to the internet and games just like they can get addicted to anything they enjoy. However, it just bugs me that they have to make those things into such a big deal if it involves gaming. Next thing you know some stupid lawmaker is going to want to make laws limiting online time.

Another example locally was that after a mall shooting the Police were searching the shooter's house. The news anchor covering the story just had to ask "Did they find any video games in the house?"

[Dynatos]

Video game cause me to neglect my parents.

[Zarathustra]

There was recently a woman in Chicago whose child died after drinking her Methodone, found in the kitchen. Video games were not involved.

Anyone hear that story?

[Jester]

Lack of perspective + Confirmation bias = Moral panic.

-Jester

[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.