Giles of the Online Gamer

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Many teens are subscribed to mass multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPG). Some examples of MMORPGs include: World of Warcraft (WoW), Starcraft, League of Legends and countless others that can be found on online gaming sites like Kongregate. In my opinion, these games have played a crucial role in the evolution of technology addiction in the way that many of these games became a world wide phenomenon. In numerous cases teens and young adults are diagnosed with a technology addiction, because of their online game playing.

What the experts say...
Psychiatrists associate gambling as a closely related addiction to video games. The commonality between the two are the effects on the brain. Web MD,  the only source for I go to for medical advice,  claims that both gambling and gaming produce a significant amount dopamine in the brain. That is not the whole story though. Psychiatrists also say that another element of this addiction is the draw to being a dominant figure in a virtual world as opposed to the way they are in reality.

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The alter ego...
The notion of an addiction to virtuality can be traced to the early years of online games like WoW. I can remember back in grade school that many of my friends had access to this game and spent hours after school playing it and often skipping homework to keep on playing. This was a time before social networking, smartphones or broadband, which in retrospect must have made gaming tough. What I am getting at is that these games were but mere stepping stones into a virtual world where people across the globe get sucked into. This Frontline video talks about a man's fight to manage his excessive gaming habits as a teenager.

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Now more recently, I have found that subscriptions to MMORPGs has been on a steady decline. In this BBC article I learned that as of last June WoW has lost 1.1 million subscribers. Now unfortunately, this is not because people are quitting their gaming habits. It is on the contrary where the gamers are paying more attention to console-based games, so essentially the problem persists.

Sweet so where do we go from here...
Video game addiction is an avenue where technology that can benefit us by providing some sort outlet for stress or other emotions. However it has the potential to be misused or be used a escape rope from reality. As many can probably agree, video games were one of the first areas of technology to be considered addictive and from the looks of it, I feel that this is only a growing problem.