I haven’t played WoW in about 15 days now, account canceled due to impending vacation – Why pay for 2 months when you’re not going to be able to play most days – and while I still enjoy the game just as much as I did in my hardcore vanilla raiding days, I haven’t had any “OMG MUST PLAY WOW!” moments. I have thought that I would like to be playing my main or tinkering with my interface though. Not like a “Oh my I must do that. Immediately” thing but more of a “That would be fun. I’ll have to do that when I get back.” – I wouldn’t class that as addiction but I’m sure some people would.

The local news here ran a story about video game addiction and concluded that if you think about gaming when doing other things, prefer to play games rather than do other things, or play for more than 12 hours a week, you’re a video game addict. I highly disagree with one and three. Two needs clarification. If they prefer to game in place of everything else, even the important things, well then that’s probably bad. If you would rather play video games than do chores, well, who wouldn’t? The important question is, like it or not, do you do the chores anyway or do you put them off? If you do them anyway, but would rather not, no harm no foul?

I prefer to look at it in a more common frame of reference- I play much less WoW than most people watch TV. I also don’t watch TV. Most people watch 2-3 hours of TV every day- does this qualify them as TV addicts? Every kid I know under 20 will happily ignore almost all outside factors to watch TV.

When I think of a WoW addict, I think of a reeking, scurvy-ridden poopsocker. Not somebody who plays 4-5 hours a day. Rather like the difference between an alcoholic and your average 1st year undergrad.

Oh, I’m not going into it lightly or frivolously. I’ve always been a book nerd, and I can’t see myself doing anything else. Reading and then writing about it is one of the most marketable skills I have. I’m in a good place professionally right now as I am getting my foot in the door administratively. They want me to get a Ph.D. eventually, but it’s not required for my employment, so I can take my time and weigh my options and get into the program I really want to.

I would love to include WoW somehow in my dissertation or at least in some of my papers, but I still prefer to work on books and TV academically than games. Most of my attention will likely be on Stephen King since there’s a wealth of research that isn’t even being tapped into. I went to this year’s PCA conference and found that I have never been happier academically than I was when in a group of other professors discussing how to properly implement SK’s stuff into the classroom. If I can just find the time and energy to get the Ph.D. I am looking at that lets me focus on him and other contemporary fiction (or television and film), I’ll be dandy.

I’ll shoot you an email over the form.
.-= Beej´s last blog ..Online Gaming Addiction – Series of Guest Posts at World of Matticus =-.

I did focus in on it affecting other hobbies because I later comment on it affecting things like productivity and grades. I admit that I probably should have made that clearer. I just feel that if one hobby is detrimentally affecting one’s preferred hobbies, that “important issues” and real life concerns are a given. I did outline those in my first post, too, as well as the personality change section of this one.

And as for it not affecting people the way that drugs and alcohol do, I completely disagree. I saw friends in college who were alcoholics and drug abusers (and even one guy who had to have liver surgery before he was 22 because of his alcohol abuse) who had less trouble with their families and significant others than I did with this. Just because they were putting a foreign substance in their body does not mean that their behavioral problems and relationship strain was any more valid than mine. I was losing my relationship with everyone around me because I would have rather have been in a game and it adversely affected my behavior, making me act like someone else, someone who was the exact opposite of who I was prior to my MMO binges. That’s exactly what substance abuse does, except with situations like this there are no tests able to be given to determine whether someone is abusing, and fewer resources available to help cope.

@Lisanna: Then your playtime never got to the levels mine did. Your self-control might have been better. I don’t know. Either way, I do know that one of the reasons I realized I have this problem is because I was unable to balance academics, my personal life, and WoW. It did entirely disrupt the way I lived. When push came to shove, I would chose the game. My grades plummeted. My friends would no longer want to be around me because I would ignore them when they tried. I couldn’t go on a vacation or even a road trip because I would take my laptop and game while I was away, even raiding on my parents’ coffee table while I would go visit from college. I could not leave it behind at will. I couldn’t take the breaks you talk about. That’s how I know I was addicted. It was causing major problems with the structure of my life, and had it not been for my family’s perseverance in letting me know what was happening (I was too close to see that it was anything but having fun in a game), I might have gone even farther in before I realized I had a problem.
.-= Beej´s last blog ..Online Gaming Addiction – Series of Guest Posts at World of Matticus =-.

My advice on the PhD: don’t do a literature PhD for the wrong reasons. I am a Spanish Lit PhD with a CompLit background so I know the English market a bit…it’s not something to do lightly or frivolously. Feel free to email me (use the comment form on the blog) and we can talk shop. Your area in particular (hint: call yourself a New Media specialist, include WoW in your dissertation and you’ll be more marketable) can be difficult to place. Heck, I’m a medieval/Renaissance scholar, so I know all about not getting jobs because my work isn’t “relevant.”

Anyway, luck to you, and get in touch with me if you want some horrible stories about your chosen profession

So there are a lot of sports addicts in the world, then…

One of the signs that I look at in my field is giving up and/or reducing important activities. I thought you were headed towards that direction, but then you focused it on ignoring other hobbies, which isn’t quite the same thing.

I’d have to say I’m more in agreement with Nomasun. While I appreciate the fact that there are people that struggle with their obsession and need help with getting it under control, I still do not see it affecting anyone the way drugs and alcohol affect my clients on a daily basis.

While you are on the right track with needing to first recognize the problem before something can be done… if you truly want to “be free” of an addiction or obsession, then you need to let go of the idea that you can control it.

Addiction controls you, not the other way around.
.-= Syrana´s last blog ..Sims Saturday: Syrana Glows…in the dark? =-.

For example, I spend a lot of time playing WoW, but I’ve still managed to make all my academic deadlines and I’m not having problems in any of my relationships with my family, friends, or otherwise. Also, when I went on vacation for a week, while I checked the forums, blogs, and WoW.com periodically, I didn’t log into the actual game much at all.

I think there is a connection in how we become dependent on MMOs, and that’s what I am trying to figure out about myself right now. Why is it that I want to keep playing? If it’s PvP, then maybe a good FPS on XBL will do for me, or if it’s narrative (then WoW is definitely the wrong game for me), I might need to invest in some lengthy SPRPGs on a console. If it’s socialization, maybe I just need to visit friends more often. I don’t know.
.-= Beej´s last blog ..Online Gaming Addiction – Series of Guest Posts at World of Matticus =-.