The BBC website is featuring a selection of letters written by people who are suffering from videogame addiction. They detail how their lives are utterly consumed by online gaming: skipping school and work, building friendships with people they never physically see, never leaving the house, avoiding physical exercise, etc. These stories aren’t new, of course, but I still find it strange to see videogaming now lumped together with life-destroying addictions like alcoholism and other drug use. I’ve done my share of gaming in the past, and have wasted entire weekends trying to finish some game I just had to keep playing, but I haven’t yet ventured into the online gaming world where you assume a new identity and interact with strangers all day. There’s just something disturbing about letting something like that consume your entire life…
I think I am addicted. I’ve got to the stage where I feel that without gaming, I have nothing interesting to do.
On weekdays, I game for about five to seven hours a day and in the weekends I will spend 15 hours a day gaming online. I once spent 48 hours in one go at a game. It’s crazy, I know. I was at university then and full of energy.
Sometimes I get no sleep. Ever since I started playing, my physical condition has deteriorated. I get a lot of colds as I don’t really exercise.
But playing games online means that other people are playing live with you. You work as a team and it gives you a unique sense of responsibility. It’s a little society.
To me, the concept of video game addictions is quite interesting. I think most people only think of substances when they think of addiction. To me, it seems obvious that people also get addicted to various types of relationships and scenarios in efforts to fill something they feel is missing.