Even so, it would never have occurred to me that somebody might declare lawn maintenance to be an addiction. I mean, if the American Medical Association had come out with a warning to beware of lawns, I would have said that they d all lost their marbles. Today, the AMA isn t targeting lawns, it s focusing its aim on video games.
A leading AMA council wants to categorize video-game addiction as a new psychiatric disorder to include it in the American Psychiatric Association s mental illness manual. There is no doubt some video gamers take it to an extreme, sometimes tempting disastrous results, but at least one self-described avid gamer says the problem isn t the industry but the individual. I think people already have addictive tendencies, and they latch onto something, says Jason Williams, who for six years was employed at the video game store Game Stop in the Mankato River Hills Mall.
Today Williams, 24, dons a dark suit and tie for his job at a River Hills jewelry store. Thoughtful, articulate and obviously well-rounded, Williams recalled the hours he spent gaming when his interest was at its peak. It s very easy to get lost, he said as he revealed he typically logged 30 to 40 hours a week gaming.
A fan of Final Fantasy 12, he kept a save file of 135 hours easily within the first couple of weeks the game was out. Sometime during that day I probably just passed out, he said. Role-playing games have been Williams main game focus, including World of Warcraft, a monster-killing title that was one of those cited in the AMA report.
There were times when I was hard-core, every day. But I was never late for work, never missed work. Because if you do that, you re never going to get the money to buy and play games, he said.
Most avid gamers are probably similar to Williams. They realize they ve got to have a life outside gaming, and they know how to control themselves. Williams is living proof that, in his own words, you can do it and still be functional.
He recently canceled his account to World of Warcraft, in large part because he feels he no longer has the time. He also has a girlfriend who wouldn t like it if he spent more time playing games than being with her. Williams, who still receives a gaming magazine to keep abreast of what s going on in the video world, like most of us sympathizes with the obsessed the worst-case uncontrollable gamers who become antisocial recluses.
Some of them flunk school, some of them turn violent, some of them feel suicidal. But Williams suspects the games are too easily condemned. Video games just gets to be the new target.
If it is classified as an addiction, what kind of treatment are you going to give it? he says. They re not going to come out with a new drug.
What are you going to do, sit me on a chair and let me tell you why I play video games? If you don t want your kids to play video games all the time, take them outside, take them on a trip. Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.
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