Video Game Addiction Support Group

http://videogames.yahoo.com/featur...

http://www.aspeneducationgroup.com...

http://news.filefront.com/virginia...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zt...



This problem with video game addiction will only heighten as our technoloy strengthens, leading to more and more cases of people who have, in a nut shell, handed in their real lives for a part - a life if you will - inside
a rapidly expanding, intricate social alternate reality we have created for ourselves that, at times, provides more fun and thrill than the 'real' world we
live in. There have been countless cases of people who have quit their jobs, lossed their marriages, or dropped out of school to play games like World of Warcraft, and I strongly believe that we are reaching the point where these alernate realities are so 'real,' so visually stunning, that people who have encountered a wall of stagnance in their lives are being sucked into these graphic simulations; exchanging in their time on Earth for a part, an existece, in a complex virtual reality.

In a few decades, we have progressed from Pacman to the amazing worlds of World of Warcraft for the P.C. or Halo for the Xbox. It's frightening how close we are getting to being able to recreate a digital reality that closely resembles the reality we live in. We have already gotten to the point where, in newer movies or games, there are digital graphics (especially in the background) which the majority of viewers believe are real...or at least, they can't tell the difference.

As a young kid my parents took me to the theme park Busch Gardens, and I will never forget what I participated in there; "The Alternate Reality" they called it. I paid the five dollars and strapped the visor over my eyes, then placed my arms and legs into two sets of mechanical limbs. The instructions given to me were simple: move my arms left, right,
up, down, and the arms I saw in front of me in the simulation would move accordingly; same thing with my legs. The virtual reality I saw in front of me was not extraordinarily graphic;
a simple maze with a variety of walls at various angles. However, the physics of the game were amazing; I could literally 'move' through corridors and around walls. The sensation sent a shiver up my spine, leaving me awe-struck.

Now, imagine fifty years, a hundred years; there is no doubt in my mind that the video game technology at that point will incorporate and expand on the same 'virtual reaity' technology. We will put a device
over our eyes to simulate a full 360 degree
environment, we will strap our limbs into various mechanical systems so we can move and walk around (we are already seeing the very beginnings of that in the new game system: Nintendo Wii)...Now, imagine a game like World of Warcraft except instead of a seventeen inch screen you are placed within a full 360 degree environment in which you can walk, run, strike pick up items, etc...how bad will the problem be then? How many people would be 'living' inside these virtual realities? It is an interesting thing to imagine...

So what is the answer? Do we begin to ration and limit the time being spent in these virtual realities in order to maintain balance? After all, moderation is wisdom...Or, does it mean we should be looking somewhere else in our real lives if we are losing so many people to these fictional realities. Where do our priorities lie? What do we truly desire? What do we really need to be truly happy? Those are the questions we need to be asking ourselves. Human beings aren't meant to sit at a desk all day, come home to their big houses and fancy cars which they work all day to pay off (and end up barely using at all since they work so much), only to have time for a couple hours with the kids and ball-and-chain before they go to sleep at night with their yellow lab at the foot of their bed, waking up to repeat the same day all over again. We are not meant for that kind of dreary, monotonous life style. The American Dream of competitive consumerism and self-emprovement blinds us all to the things that really matter. Love, laughter, music; experiencing the present moment instead of working to improve the future moment; it's not about end-result, ends over means...I believe a lot of people are beginning to catch on to the fact that the system does not bring us happinesss (although who's to say what defines true happiness), and the people that refuse to play the game find themselves reaching out to drugs or to alternate realities in a last desperate search for freedom...Do we really need all these...'things?'
Posted on 02/26/08, 07:02 pm