Media Coverage of Video Game Addiction

               The media has covered video game addiction for a while now. In fact, in 1993, there was an article in “Wired” magazine called, “The Dragon Ate My Homework” in which Howard Rheingold wrote, “David spends twelve hours a day as Lotsu, a swashbuckling explorer in a subterranean world of dungeons and elves. He should be in class, but he has succumbed to the latest fad sweeping college campuses: total immersion in multi-user fantasy games” (“The Dragon Ate My Homework”, March, 1993). This article is interesting in that it is possibly one of the first documented, yet non-explicit, articles alluding to a possible addiction to video games.

In 2008, CBC’s national news magazine program “The Fifth Estate”, aired an hour long special on video game addiction called “Top Gun”. The synopsis is as follows: “Brandon’s disappearance and death revealed to parents a darker aspect to their children’s gaming: addiction. And as gamers are drawn into an alternate world their need to play is fuelled by dreams of international glory and the chance to win thousands of dollars on the professional gaming circuit” (“Top Gun”, March, 2009). This was one of the first times a major news outlet reported about video games and addiction.

               This year, Samantha Bresnahan and William Worley, from CNN news wrote an article about video game addiction. The eye opening quote from that article that caught everyone’s attention was, “the problem goes beyond the games themselves: "I want other kids to realize that the problems they are facing aren't because of what's going on around them, but also due to the fact that they stay inside and won't speak to anyone about them. Sitting inside and staring at a screen won't make it disappear." (“When Video Games Become and Addiction”, January 2016). This is an intriguing quote because it really hits the nail on the head. When people become addicted their instinct is to think it is the environment they live in that has given them this problem, when in actuality the problem is internal.

It is good news that there is a substantial amount of media coverage on video game addiction. With new technology and games being developed daily, this issue is only going to keep on growing if something isn’t done to prevent addiction.

Citations

Rheingold, H. (1993, March 1). The Dragon Ate My Homework. Wired Magazine.

Top Gun | CBC News: The fifth estate. (2009, March 6). Retrieved February 20, 2016, from    

      http://web.archive.org/web/20130702203354/http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2008-2009/top_gun/

 

Bresnahan, S., & Worley, W. (2016, January 6). When video games become an addiction. Retrieved February 20, 2016,      

       from http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/06/health/video-games-addiction-gentile-feat/