Can online games be as addictive as..

[Deleted]

Poor dogs

[Zerakou]

The woman who let her dogs die was just lazy and neglectful.

It only takes two minutes to feed the dogs. She could still have played 23 hours and 58 minutes of computer games.

/golfclap....I totally agree with you, I personally havn't tried heroin but I bet it's a lot harder tryin' to feed those dogs when your worried about them eating your face compared to sittin' in Dal for an hour and then feeding them.

[rantus]

The Daily Mail...

Look what else they have to say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4abk9fd_lR4

Nah but thats a sad story, but I don't think its the games that did it, she had an addictive personality and was under stress and such.

[Squeakyclean]

She was probably attempting to play WoW while strung out on heroin.

[Koyana]

When you see stuff like this, you really can't blame it on the game. It's like blaming McDonald's for your obesity. Nobody ever made you eat all the Big Macs. Same rule applies here.

Basically, if she let a game stand in the way of her daily duties, she has a problem herself. Drugs aside, something can only be as addicting as you make it.

[Potboza]

as a VEGETARIAN myself i kinda think vegans are stupid ... taking it a bit too far
see am not a vegetarian because i /care about animals ... cz i dnt
i am a vegetarian because its a healthier diet
but being a vegan is like putting a little drop of gas in your stomach every day and lighting it on fire just a bit

I laughed so hard when I read this. My guess is that "putting a little drop of gas in your stomach every day and lighting it on fire just a bit" is a saying in Lebanese that just does not make sense in English.

It's like the standard Lebanese greeting translates to "Are you normal?". lol

[Prognxt]

There is a point in the game where it no longer becomes fun to play. That point is where i stop, i don't force myself to play a game because it feels like a job.

Such as farming that gear to perform better for a guild, for farming mats for a guild or arena points, ect

There is a stopping point, such as a call from your parents or a girlfriend. Take that call.
(Unless its within the the release week of a really sick game.)

[mnyeh]

Sounds like the person who got bored and quit wasn't addicted. Bad example.

Games can be addictive like anything else, but it won't have a biological component. It'll "simply" be psychological. You could argue this makes them less addictive since there is no 'reward pathway' thing going on that most of the addictive drugs have, but regardless they can be addictive. Anything can, really, because it's a function of the person's psychology.

I probably should have included a concrete example. During my sophomore year of college (back in vanilla), I would consider myself addicted. I was in the best raiding guild on the server, and I was addicted to the point that I scheduled classes around raid times. If the raid ran late, I sometimes wouldn't go to morning classes. I left my ventrilo on, and if a green dragon popped, someone would play loud music, I'd wake up at 4 AM, kill a dragon, go back to sleep. I never let it get to the point where it affected my grades, but I took a lighter load that semester so I could play more.

During the summer, everything was on farm, there were no new instances coming out. I got burnt out and quit. My point was that in a true addiction, you don't just get burnt out and quit. You can't stop yourself from giving in to your addiction. This is the difference between the perceived addictions in video games and real addictions.

[Flaubertlives]

It the daily mail, or in otherwords, its complete bullshit.

Does anyone with and IQ higher than a turnip actually read that rag?

I'm supprised they can find column inches to spare from bashing immigrants for everything wrong with the world.

Basically this, The Daily Mail is a long standing joke amongst the educated and anyone that's not Right Wing.

[Nahte]

But you have heard of whores selling themselves on craigslist for 5K gold for epic flying.

sigging

OT: I just went and fed my dog because of this story.

[Ssith]

it's not the game itself that's addicting, unlike most drugs. it's the dopamine and endorphins that playing it releases in your brain. it's identical to gambling or sex addiction, only slightly more nerdy.

[Paulosio]

I read this. Typical Daily Mail scare mongering. As addictive as heroin? I think not. I think most people could easily stop playing wow if they found something that interested them and filled their free time as well. People play because they like it... it doesn't mean they would struggle to stop playing if they had something else to fill their time.