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WoW.com interview: Dr. Hilarie Cash of reSTART Internet Addiction Recovery Program
We've talked about Internet addiction before a few times here on the site, but it's always been through the lens of the media. Certainly there are players of WoW and other games out there who play the game so much it's affecting their lives, but most of the cases we've heard about have been a little over the top -- parents crying that their children are lost, kids playing nonstop and picking up bad health and social habits from this horrible game.And so, when we heard that there was a new center opening for Internet and gaming addiction in Washington State, we decided, instead of just listening to the media reports, to sit down with the co-founder herself and have a more thoughtful conversation about gaming addiction: how and why it happens, how they're trying to fight it, and how it's portrayed, from both a media and a gamers' perspective. Dr. Hilarie Cash has been working with Internet addicts for 15 years -- she's the cofounder of two different addiction clinics, including the new reSTART Center, and the co-author of "Videogames & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control." You can read our exclusive interview with her by hitting the "Read more" link below.
WoW.com Interview: Dr. Hilarie Cash continued
One of the thing we continually see whenever the media talks about Internet addiction and how this all works is this tendency to say it's the game's fault. Well because the government is so worried about this whole thing, the government has -- obviously a completely different kind of government, and a different kind of culture and society than we have, but because the government's worried, and because, the way I understand it, the game developers in China don't want to get in trouble with the government, they've created things like if you keep playing beyond a certain point you start losing points, and things like that.
