Surely computer games are just harmless fun right? So why are people completely willing to pay real money for nothing more than a series of ones and zeros? Is there a crossable line between healthy enjoyment and obsession? And if there is, can it be dangerous?  Jack Anderson looks at the weird and ever expanding world of online gaming and asks expert Keith Bakker whether it’s gone too far...

Young people have taken to technology faster than any other age group and the rise in computer gaming in particular has overshadowed a lot of our other social activities. Online gaming is growing in popularity; there are now more members of World of Warcraft, an online role playing game (RPG), than there are people in the whole of Switzerland. In July 2006, members of the internet game Second Life spent $660,000 (£337,156) on real estate that exists ONLY on the internet. Why are internet games so appealing? The world of internet gaming is as varied as it is vast. Through an internet portal we can explore the void of space, our own planet or an entire score of magical mystical worlds. Anyone can be transported to an alternative reality in a matter of minutes. We can escape not only from our surroundings but from ourselves. So the players get to have fun and escape, the game owners get rich keeping you online and everybody’s happy.  Apparently. Fun becomes addiction… Games like Warcraft and Secondlife are seen as harmless fun, and to a larger extent they are, but there is a sinister side to these games, which has only recently started to show its effects and become recognised as an addiction.

I asked Keith Bakker, Director of Smith and Jones Addiction Consultants - the first and only Addiction Specialist’s dealing with Gaming Addiction - what it is that can make gaming addictive.  He explained the two aspects that are what really make online gaming so serious. 
The first factor is the chemical rush from dopamine, the body’s accomplishment chemical.  You know, those little or sometimes huge buzzes we get when we do something well.  You can get lots of these gaming, particularly in combat games. Whenever we kill an enemy, or up a level, we get a bigger dopamine rush. Keith pointed out “What they get hooked on is the dopamine not the game”. 

The second is the social aspect. With Warcraft for example players form guilds, with up to 60 players.  To raid another guild every member has to be online. Keith explained “If you’re not there the pressure is enormous from the rest of the guild members.  We NEED YOU, you’re one of us”. Some of these kids have been playing for 3 to 4 years and they don’t have any interpersonal relationships anymore with human beings.  They think they are having all sorts of friends but the friends they have are online. For many of these kids it’s the first time in their life that they’re good at something.  Maybe they’re not good at sports, and they’re a little bit heavy. Then they go online and they're good at it. So what’s happening is you’re bringing a whole social aspect into a pure addiction.”

So it seems gaming creates a massive rush in self esteem on two levels. We can create a completely new person without any of our faults, who can conquer and destroy.  And we can communicate with someone who we can be certain to share at least one interest with.  The dangerous combination of these two factors, coupled with what Keith describes as a “predisposition for an addictive personality”, (that is, those of us who have the potential to become easily addicted to something), and there’s real problems.

What is addiction itself?
Keith, who has personal experience of addiction and has treated a wide range of addictions over the past 15 years, describes addiction as “Looking for something from outside of yourself that changes the way you feel.  Often a way to escape painful reality”.  He adds “Computer Game Addiction is no different from any other addiction,” and likens it to alcoholism saying game manufacturers are no more to blame than off-licenses.

The effects
Computer Game Addiction can massively affect young people’s development with symptoms that range from irritability and sleep deprivation to poor health and full blown violence.  Like other addictions it can even affect relationships and finances. I asked Keith what examples of this he’d seen. “We had one kid come in and he’d run up £15000 of debt on his father’s credit card buying World of Warcraft things. These kids are in terrible physical condition because they haven’t got off their chair for years and they’ve either totally failed at school, because they’ve been playing games when they should be doing their homework, or they are about to.  There family situations have exploded as parents try to control their gaming”.  Some people have even been known to make vague typing movements when away from their computer and in extreme cases it can even be fatal.

In 2004 a 13 year old Chinese boy jumped from a 24 story building after playing Warcraft for 36 consecutive hours. His suicide note stated that he jumped to ‘Join the heroes of the game he worshipped’. Later in 2005 a child died from neglect as her parents were across the street in an internet café; playing Warcraft for 5 hours. The last recorded case was of a perfectly healthy Korean man who died from dehydration. He had played Warcraft for 50 hours and forgot to eat or drink.

All this may sound hard to believe but in the case of addiction, normal circumstances don’t apply.  Substituting the real world for a virtual one, more than to have fun and escape for a few hours, is harmful on so many levels and as Keith told me, Gaming Addiction is growing.  “We get hundreds of emails from all over the world from kids.  In general there’s nothing wrong with gaming on its own. It can be a fun recreational activity for 80% of the population.  The problem is that there are a large number of people in the world who have this predisposition for addition and whether it’s gaming or alcohol they’re going to get hooked on something”. And those with this predisposition that Bakker talks about, are at risk earlier in life because of the accessibility of gaming. “What we’re seeing now is they get their first Gameboy at 5.”

Frightening. My advice, to anyone who spends too long playing games is - get the best of both worlds, instead of retreating to a virtual one.  I really enjoy playing computer games but have a life outside the virtual world too.  Because you never know when the plug might be pulled on any one of these games, and you could find yourself quite rudely awakened.

By Jack Anderson