On 6/12/2010, BBC aired a Paronama special on video game addiction. It highlighted the problem of Video Game addiction amongst young adults in the UK. They were able to interview a couple of people who were "suffering" from it, with one spending at least 20 hours on Call of Duty everyday. Although the content in the show caught my attention, the further it went on, the more i realised it was information which i already had previous knowledge of. The two main games which were highlighted in the show were World of Warcraft and Call of Duty and both were shown in a very negative light, with one of the interviewees even comparing WoW to a "disease" which he wouldnt want to inflict on others. The next part of the show, saw the presenter head to Korea, where there have been many cases of video game addiction leading to death, with one case being highlighted where a couple had left their child to starve while they were down at their local internet cafe. The presenter then quizzed a member of UKIE (The Association for UK Interactive Entertainment) on whether the industry was doing enough to help with addiction, whilst also highlighting that their site had no information on helping with any addiction problems. The programme not only did not do the Video Games industry any favours, but gave parents more of a reason to worry about the potential effects that games could have on their children. With recent controversies like Medal of Honor and the naming of the enemy forces and the ever lingering problem of the amount of violence and explicit content in games, it seems like the video games medium is made out to be an evil which needs to be stopped, instead of choosing to focus on the amount of good that video games have produced.
I am not trying to downplay the seriousness or existence of video games addiction, i believe that it is a problem and that it can be very damaging to someone's health, but is it really much worse than someone who sits by the television for the same amount of hours?
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