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Doctor clarifies MMO addiction study
We've all heard the warnings before: If you keep playing those MMOs, you'll become addicted, or WoW players live in their parents' basement, never to see the light of day, or you'll shoot your eye out, or you'll grow hair on your palms. Many people proclaim to know what's best for everyone else, but recently a study by Dr. John Carlton of England's University of Bolton declared a similarity between MMO players (playing Asheron's Call) and traits common among people with Asperger's syndrome. In many media interpretations of this research, Dr Carlton's true findings were misconstrued.So in a recent article at GameSpot, Dr. Carlton set the record straight. He explained that there are different levels of gaming "interest". There's a fine line though between the highly engaged and the addicted gamer. He goes on to clarify certain issues that were overlooked in previous news stories on this topic, including the fact that of the 391 people tested for this study, none were actually classified as having Asperger's syndrome. It seems the bottom line in his clarification is that more research would be needed to specifically say one way or another if MMOs actually cause addiction.
University: Gaming addiction is real but over-diagnosed
Research at the U.K's University of Bolton says that gaming addiction may be over-diagnosed up to 10 percent of the time because indicators that were previously thought to relate to a gaming addiction had been borrowed from gambling addictions; what are the odds? Those markers may not translate between the two behavior patterns as well as previously thought. 10 percent doesn't sound like a major mistake -- unless you're in that group -- but the study balances some recent reports that hype and overstate the problem. (Oh Tyra, we thought you were better than the local news.) Still, the research stresses that gaming addictions are real.See also:Game addiction battled with silent soundDutch game addiction clinic is "swamped"Gamer addiction patient says he "peed in a bottle"Faux News investigates WoW addiction
