Video Game addiction

CNN had an interesting article called, "Experts: Video games not an addiction". The article highlights the debate involving doctors and experts regarding the excessive use of video games. The article states that about 10% of players are considered excessive gamers.

It was interesting to see how some wanted to put video game play in the same category as alcholism. While I agree that the conclusion to do more research on the issue is the right call, the issue itself of how much time to spend playing video games is a worthy question. One expert went so far as to claim,

"The more time kids spend on video games, the less time they will have socializing (Hamilton Note: this is debatable as many of today's games encourage socialization within the game and discussions outside of the game), the less time they will have with their families (Hamilton Note: again...debatable. See previous post), the less time they will have exercising (Hamilton Note: debatable once more...see Nintendo's Wii and the countless people that have worked up a sweat playing that)."

Video games can help people socialize across the virtual landscape, which is something Boomers 1) may not understand, or 2) may not think is a valuable skillset. However, in implementing games, we should also be cognizant of the potential pitfalls and seek to mitigate them. One potential pitfall is too push games so hard that people lose sight of the skill of face-to-face collaboration and interactions.