Smoking Crack

Gamers are apparently not just violent madmen, but addicts as well. At least that's the conclusion of Personal Tech Pipeline:

In November, we ran a poll on this site asking what kind of electronic crack you're addicted to. The results were shocking:

Video games - 9%
PC games - 14%
Online multiplayer games - 15%
Instant Messaging - 5%
Web surfing - 18%
Online pornography - 7%
E-mail - 14%
Cell phone text messaging - 3%
Mobile gaming - 2%
None -- I'm not addicted to any of the above - 13%

You'll note that somewhere between 15 and 40 percent of you are addicted to some kind of gaming, according to this poll. That's probably a little higher than the general population, but, then again, this is Personal Tech Pipeline. It's also a self-description -- we didn't list symptoms to look for.

Gaming of course isn't all bad, and many "addicts" don't really have a serious problem (the real problem starts when playing games stops being fun or when work or loved ones are neglected). Although concern about gaming addiction has been around for more than two decades, a raft of services and sites have sprung up recently around the idea.

-- Five Ways To Avoid Gaming Addiction

So, allow me to translate that nonsense in case you are still shaking your head. Remember that completely unscientific poll we ran? Well, the utterly inaccurate and equally unscientific responses are astounding. Especially if you take into account that what I'm about to ramble on about, we weren't even quanitifying. So for all you people out there that aren't actually addicted to anything ... listen up on how to avoid to your addiction.

What a joke. You're honestly going to get me to believe that nearly 20% of this guy's readership are addicted to just surfing the web, but only 7% go for porn? Please. What are they addicted to, guys like this? And of course almost 40% responded with some kind of video game ... half of your answers were some kind of gaming.

Gee, gaming isn't "all bad"? Thanks for the 411, Columbo. I'll try to keep clean on the streets. In the meantime, how about stopping the fearmongering and finding something real to write about?







tagged: addiction, gaming