Video/computer game rehab - Time article

[Jillian Aversa]

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1925468,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

Interestingks...

[Bahamut]

After they butchered Sam's quote...I don't think I want to click the link .

[Moseph]

He left the center to try a wilderness adventure program in the Utah desert (which didn't help either), until his parents discovered ReSTART, where, for $24,500 (including application, screening and treatment fees), "guests" could spend 45 days cut off from the computer, integrated into a real family's home with chores, daily counseling sessions and weekly therapy.

He should have come to me. I'd have helped him with his Internet addiction for only $12k.

[Ramaniscence]

People who can't stop playing WoW for SCHOOL and FOOD don't need rehab, they need more IRL friends.

There's not even that much to do in WoW.

[Moseph]

People who can't stop playing WoW for SCHOOL and FOOD don't need rehab, they need more IRL friends.

There's not even that much to do in WoW.

Or, barring that, they could hire someone (ahem, for $12k) to hit them with a shovel every time they try to log on.

[Skrypnyk]

for $24,500 (including application, screening and treatment fees), "guests" could spend 45 days cut off from the computer, integrated into a real family's home with chores, daily counseling sessions and weekly therapy.

what a deal!!!!

[Ramaniscence]

I know, right? He could stay here, do dishes, take out the trash, clean the bathrooms, and he'd only have to pay me $24,500!

[Emunator]

for $24,500 (including application, screening and treatment fees), "guests" could spend 45 days cut off from the computer, integrated into a real family's home with chores, daily counseling sessions and weekly therapy.

Good lord! I'll take three!

[The Coop]

ReSTART, where, for $24,500 (including application, screening and treatment fees), "guests" could spend 45 days cut off from the computer, integrated into a real family's home with chores, daily counseling sessions and weekly therapy.

That right there, is the new Nigerian e-mail money scam. Anyone who would enroll in that ReSTART program, would be just as stupid as those who fall for the e-mail scam.

[Toadofsky]

It never ceases to amaze me how far people are getting out of hand with games these days...

[Brushfire]

Integrated into a real family's home with chores, daily counseling sessions and weekly therapy, eh?

So basically for 24,000 bux, you ground yourself.

HHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAH

[The Pezman]

We discussed this in seminar last year. Many of us agreed that game and Internet addiction is more of a mask for some deeper issue. I certainly know I've spent more time in front of a screen when I'm bored and/or depressed.

A personal theory of mine is that OCR and organizations like it can help mitigate potential addictions. It helps people who might otherwise keep playing games all day talk about games in a healthy and community-oriented fashion, and work on other skills (writing, composing, acting, etc) as well.

[SoulinEther]

24,500 is a bit steep, and there's no way I can abandon my actual life for 45 days.

WOE IS ME THERE IS NO HOPE.

Nah, but I can relate. There is a big difference between being at "home" (whether that home is a physical home or a dorm) and... not being at home. I can't see myself getting over some of my issues while at home because it's a catalyst for my compulsive behaviors (which may indeed stem from other issues, ...or it might not).

IDK. On the surface, it's laughable, but there is validity to the idea. I think the first step should be counseling, though... or a form of AA for internet/video game addicts.

[metalsnakejuice]

I'll do it for half the price. Just tell me and my sledge hammer where your computer and game discs are located:<

[Ramaniscence]

We discussed this in seminar last year. Many of us agreed that game and Internet addiction is more of a mask for some deeper issue. I certainly know I've spent more time in front of a screen when I'm bored and/or depressed.

A personal theory of mine is that OCR and organizations like it can help mitigate potential addictions. It helps people who might otherwise keep playing games all day talk about games in a healthy and community-oriented fashion, and work on other skills (writing, composing, acting, etc) as well.

I really wonder what people think World of WarCraft (and MMO's in general) is, sometimes. An addiction to MMOs isn't comparable to substance abuse and things like that because it HARDLY alleviates depression or stress. General substance abuse people do because it literally eases their pain, makes them forget about things. All MMOs do is create a social connection. Sure it creates an "alternate reality" but within that alternate reality is still...a reality.

Sure you can play LOTS AND LOTS of WoW, and get THE BEST gear, and get World First kills, and all kinds of PvP kills, but all it is really doing is making up for an otherwise lack of real life social connection. And even then, there's still going to be trolls, there's still going to be people giving you a hard time, there's people who think they're better than you, there are people who are better than you, there are people who grief, there are people who stress you because they're stupid. There are ALL KINDS of REAL LIFE stress and depressing things in WoW that would only make a depressed / frustrated person MORE depressed and frustrated.

You don't get on WoW to run away from reality, or help you not have to face real-life responsibility. You get on WoW to spend time with people you like spending time with. Be it guild mates, PvP partners, IRL friends, whatever.

NO ONE would want to log on to an MMO, grind out X amount of levels / or time, to get gear or whatever if they didn't talk to ANYONE else playing. It would be more boring than WoW already is.

WoW isn't an "escape," WoW isn't an addiction, World of WarCraft is a social experience that makes of for a lack of interesting, real-life alternatives, and any "addiction" could be EASILY subverted with REAL LIFE friends doing REAL LIFE things. I can promise once this kid is "rehabilitated" if he has internet access and STILL has an absence of meaningful, real-life relationships, and the WoW friends on his buddylist (which I'm SURE is more than the IRL people on there) start IMing him about the new raid content that comes out, and he gets bored enough, he will be playing WoW again.

It's an AVATAR CHAT with SHIT TO DO. Nothing more.

[Wina A. Kamlongera]

I don't play MMOs but bear with me here.

Isn't the issue that people do all those social things with an AVATAR. That mask is one of the main reasons they can do such. Then without that mask (in RL), they aren't as forward. Also, there are people who let their real life stagnate due to WoW. When I confroted a guy I know with this, he claimed he paid some dude to pay for him whilst he enjoyed his real life. Emphasis on claimed.

[Jillian Aversa]

NO ONE would want to log on to an MMO, grind out X amount of levels / or time, to get gear or whatever if they didn't talk to ANYONE else playing. It would be more boring than WoW already is.

WoW isn't an "escape," WoW isn't an addiction, World of WarCraft is a social experience that makes of for a lack of interesting, real-life alternatives, and any "addiction" could be EASILY subverted with REAL LIFE friends doing REAL LIFE things.

It's a substitution for real life interactions, yes, but that doesn't mean it isn't also an escape and a distraction for some people with deeper troubles.

I think the price tag is ridiculous, but admittedly I *am* glad that the first VG rehab center has been founded. Hopefully with time, the concept will catch on and be improved.

[zircon]

When I was in my first year at Drexel, I was definitely having a bit of a hard time socially, and a little depressed (typical college student.) My roommates were all awful and I couldn't relate to people in my classes. So I began playing WoW more and more. It was very much an escape because in WoW, I was "Arendor", the guild's best healer and eventually, the guild leader. The people I played with online were not like the people around me IRL. I would definitely call my freshman self addicted - I logged thousands of hours on that game that I wish I had back.

[AJ-enova]

I agree that becoming to something like this is clearly due to something else (like severe boredom or depression of some sort).

I'm actually getting to a dangerous phase in both of these.

Rather than focusing all my attention on one thing and draw it out, i'm currently migrating between various kinds of electronic media (PS3, lots of movies, creating silly parodies for youtube, finding things to download). It keeps things from going stale.

I would strongly suggest this to anyone who reaches my stage in terminal boredom (although after several years, I think it's finally losing it's touch as well...)

[EdgeCrusher]

Is WoW addicting? Yes. I've seen it happen around me, and at first I felt sorry for the people, but now, no. When I first met my now wife, she was living with 5 of her friends in a house. Of course everyone in the house played WoW except her. 3 guys lived there, 1 guy just hung around, and 1 girl stayed with her bf there sometimes. Anyway, when I first came to her house, it was like a jail. Everyone stayed shut in inside their rooms, never leaving except to go to work, or to eat. If we went out to eat anywhere and they came, they sat around talking about what level their characters were and what they were gonna do that night. Not even exaggerating. There was no conversation besides that. Apparently they did that since they got in the guild together according to my wife. I had never seen anything like it at that point, but it only got worse.

Within 4 months of me coming to pick her up or going to stay with her, the kitchen slowly became worse and worse. If my wife didn't clean it, the plates stacked up, gnats starting swarming the kitchen, and it was just disgusting and unsanitary. I even helped her a few times take out over 10 garbage bags of trash and rotten food that was left there cause she would get fed up cleaning it for them.

2 or so months after that, thats when 2 of the guys lost their jobs. They would not leave the house. They would play for 20 or more hours in their guild, sleep a couple, get up and do it again. Jim lost his job and his car cause he couldn't leave the game alone, and billy lost his job too. At that point, Jim had no money to pay for the game, so he actually would forgo buying any kind of food and starve himself just to scrape up money to pay for WoW. Dave had a part time job that he paid for the game, and his food, thats about it. So that left the rent to be paid by Jo, Jim's girlfriend that stayed there sometimes, and my wife. After a month of that, I made my wife move in with me. I was tired of her having to do the work there and being used so they could sit around playing all day. After she moved out, I learned that Jim kicked out Billy and Dave over a fall out in the guild. Seriously, how do you kick someone out of a shared house cause of a game guild? Last I saw of Billy he was doing night stock at a shitty store for probably minimum wage, I know Jim doesn't work still cause his girlfriend is still paying his bills while he plays WoW. Dave I have no idea about.

So yeah. You can say that WoW is not addicting, but if it comes down to the point where you don't eat, lose your job and car, and kick people out of houses cause of a guild fight? Yeah, that's addiction.

[AJ-enova]

Is WoW addicting? Yes. I've seen it happen around me, and at first I felt sorry for the people, but now, no. When I first met my now wife, she was living with 5 of her friends in a house. Of course everyone in the house played WoW except her. 3 guys lived there, 1 guy just hung around, and 1 girl stayed with her bf there sometimes. Anyway, when I first came to her house, it was like a jail. Everyone stayed shut in inside their rooms, never leaving except to go to work, or to eat. If we went out to eat anywhere and they came, they sat around talking about what level their characters were and what they were gonna do that night. Not even exaggerating. There was no conversation besides that. Apparently they did that since they got in the guild together according to my wife. I had never seen anything like it at that point, but it only got worse.

Within 4 months of me coming to pick her up or going to stay with her, the kitchen slowly became worse and worse. If my wife didn't clean it, the plates stacked up, gnats starting swarming the kitchen, and it was just disgusting and unsanitary. I even helped her a few times take out over 10 garbage bags of trash and rotten food that was left there cause she would get fed up cleaning it for them.

2 or so months after that, thats when 2 of the guys lost their jobs. They would not leave the house. They would play for 20 or more hours in their guild, sleep a couple, get up and do it again. Jim lost his job and his car cause he couldn't leave the game alone, and billy lost his job too. At that point, Jim had no money to pay for the game, so he actually would forgo buying any kind of food and starve himself just to scrape up money to pay for WoW. Dave had a part time job that he paid for the game, and his food, thats about it. So that left the rent to be paid by Jo, Jim's girlfriend that stayed there sometimes, and my wife. After a month of that, I made my wife move in with me. I was tired of her having to do the work there and being used so they could sit around playing all day. After she moved out, I learned that Jim kicked out Billy and Dave over a fall out in the guild. Seriously, how do you kick someone out of a shared house cause of a game guild? Last I saw of Billy he was doing night stock at a shitty store for probably minimum wage, I know Jim doesn't work still cause his girlfriend is still paying his bills while he plays WoW. Dave I have no idea about.

So yeah. You can say that WoW is not addicting, but if it comes down to the point where you don't eat, lose your job and car, and kick people out of houses cause of a guild fight? Yeah, that's addiction.

Seems like I'm not the only one with problems lol