Quote From: erudite21I'm hopelessly addicted to video games. It all started when my brother introduced me to WoW. Although I no longer play that, I went on a huge gaming spree all last week with Age of Conan. I have also been involved in Guild Wars, the Sims (both 1 and 2), Neverwinter Nights, Morrowwind, Oblivion, Fable, you name it. Usually, when I get these games, I will play them none-stop for a period of about a month. I turn on the TV and sit at my desk, open the video game, and away i go the entire day. Then I'll stop for a few months, then something bad will happen and I will go out and buy one the whole thing starts over again. I used to be atheletic, in really good shape, run 1/2 marathons. But now I'm 20 lbs overweight and I can't even run for 10 minutes before I am out of breath. My boyfriend knows nothing about this horrible habit that I seem hopelessly unable to change. I get headaches all the time and I have carpal tunnel syndrome.
I feel like Dr. Phil doesn't take this seriously as an addiction. A friend of mine who is a neuroscientist mentioned to me once that he knows of a scientist who analyzed the frequency of certain areas of the brain while gamers were playing WoW. What he found was that the area of the brain that controls pleasure is incredibly excited during gaming, and that high amounts of dopamine are released. Why doesn't Dr. Phil have Frank Lawliss analyze gamers the same way he does people who have ADHD?
Dr. Phil I believe gaming is an addiction, just like alcohol, drugs, gambling, and compulsive shopping. Someday I hope that there is help for addicted gamers.
I agree, gaming is/can be an adicction like alcohol, drugs and so on. If you think about it anything you do you feel you can't stop doing is an addiction. It doesn't have to be drugs/alcohol only, it can be, like you said shopping, eating, hoarding.
That's really interesting what you said about the high amount of dopamine that are released in the brain. I didn't know that.
