Video Game Addiction
If you don't think kids get hooked on video games, think again. If you Google "video game addiction," you will find more than a dozen pages of Web sites dealing with this issue. There are also many pages of formal research papers found via search on Google Scholar. The point at which gaming becomes an actual addiction is hard to define, but some 7-21 criteria can measure the addiction. These criteria include modification of mood, conflict, behavioral problems, and, more tellingly, the same phenomena seen in drug addiction (tolerance and withdrawal symptoms). So many kids spend nearly every possible moment glued to a game screen that an addiction recovery program known as ReSTART was developed eight years ago in which addicts receive individual and group therapy in a resident campus. The ReSTART therapy program requires patients to take a 45-90 abstention from computer screens. Part of the reason that addiction develops in the first place is the strong positive reinforceme...