网络游戏成瘾

Yangyang Mao (Miki) Dr. Bev Hogue WRIT 101- 03 26 April 2011

How the Problem of Online Gaming Addiction in Adolescence Can Be Solved in China Recent investigations in China have indicated that the popular prevalence of internet addiction appears to be an increasing number of adolescents that are addicted to online games. According to a preliminary study in China, the proportion of online game players has boosted from 18.1% (11 million) in 2003 to 59.3% (120 million) in 2008 (Fallows). As it stands, by learning the reasons and recognizing the effects of online gaming addiction, we find that it can lead to an unhealthy situation and an unbalanced personal life for the addict. It is imperative for us to examine several constructive solutions related to parents‟ correct guidance and supervision, and the government‟s strict administrative policy to curb the escalation of online gaming addiction to some extent.

The leading factors of online gaming addiction are the characteristics of games themselves. With no doubt, the technical processing of online game corporations enable games to become increasingly vivid and lively in terms of visual and auditory effects, as well as having a diversified manipulative system. Furthermore, multiplayer online role-playing games “often include interactive features and options such as chat rooms and places to virtually hangout with other gamers” (Young, \"Understanding\" 359). Gamers use online games as a platform to develop social relationships; for instance, they make friends with high-level gamers to “learn the „ropes‟ of playing the game” and lead battles in a virtual

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fantasy world (Kolo 5).

On the other hand, gamers are under enormous pressure is another factor of online gaming addiction, that is to say, adolescents‟ experiences of stressful events will affect their personality development. On the basis of an empirical study, the probability that people with more stress are likely to be addicted to online games is approximately 2.8 times higher than the probability that people with less stress are likely to be addicted to online games (Lam 553). These pressures primarily stem from high expectations of family and excessive assignments from school. Therefore, gamers regard the online games as a “coping

mechanism” and “psychological crutch” because online games provide an export for them to vent dissatisfaction and manage their strained nerves (Lam 4; Griffiths, “Videogame” 250). Similar to a drug addict or alcoholic, they hypnotize themselves by means of relying on drugs or alcohol to run away from problems that they aren‟t able to defeat –thereby, relieving a poor mood. Identically, “gaming addicts use the game to avoid stressful situations and unpleasant feelings” (Young, \"Understanding\" 362). At this moment, game addicts with poor self-control would be more likely to become thoroughly hooked on online games (Kim 214).

Online gaming addiction also leaves an unmanageable influence for adolescents, such as triggering physical pains, emotional problems, and social alienation. Initially, a research study performed on “World of Warcraft” has acknowledged that “a group of 10% who played an average of 63 hours per week […] showed considerable negative symptoms” (Longman 565). Hence, the long period of time in the online world is apt to elicit some physical troubles like “back strain, eye strain, carpel tunnel syndrome, and repetitive stress injury” (Young, \"Understanding\" 358). Likewise, it is highly possible to generate a vicious circle if the addict

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keeps on to skipping meals and staying up all nights for many days. As the following example illustrates, BBC reported that a man from South Korea “collapsed after playing the game „Starcraft‟ at an internet cafe in the city of Taegu” in the year of 2005 (“South”). Second, gamers who are enamored with captivating virtual worlds may possibly generate psychological problems, such as defensiveness and rebelliousness when they are forced to be distant from online games. Addicts are feeling out of their elements so that they begin to engender social anxiety, aggression, depressive mood, and negative self-esteem (Mheen 205-06).

In addition, online gaming addiction can result in an unbalanced personal life as well. A narration of a mother explained that her son loved joining any kind of school‟s activities like the Varsity baseball team. “He won a baseball scholarship for college and dreamed about playing professionally,” the mother said (Young, \"Understanding” 361). However, all good things ended with the online game X-Box Live. Her son‟s grades plummeted at one blow and “nothing else [mattered] to him except the game” (Young, \"Understanding\" 361). It can be evidently seen that the addict is alienated from social circles in reality. Besides, sometimes the negative impact of online gaming addiction will even drag innocent people into a kind of distorted life as well. A compelling evidence is that a Korean couple “had left the infant alone in their apartment for several hours while they played „World of Warcraft‟ at a nearby Internet café,” and their “four-month-old daughter died of suffocation” (“Couple‟s”).

As mentioned before, the significance of online gaming addiction is noticeable and profound for adolescents in particular, for the reason that adolescents are “a major target audience for gaming advertisers and appear to be the most at risk for developing an addiction

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to online games” (Young, \"Understanding\" 363). As a result, future research will emphasize several possible solutions for this problem.

To begin with, people are convinced that addicts certainly should be sent to specialist addiction treatment clinics (e.g. in USA, China, Korea, Holland) since they regard online game addicts as patients who need an entire therapy. Admittedly, this is a partially achievable solution and its result should not be disappointing. After all, people who are working in clinics are surely specialists in the psychological field. Nonetheless, this is not an utterly workable solution for every single person if we take the expense for the therapy into account. According to the research report “The Cost of Alleviating Psychological Distress with Monetary Compensation versus Psychological Therapy,” “the alleviation of severe

psychological distress could be worth at least £179,000 of extra income each year” (Boyce 6). Thus, does every family have the ability to afford such astonishing amount? Note that the scarcity of psychological therapists is another realistic problem. Based on the demographics from China‟s Central Government in 2005, the Chinese population occupied 20 percent of the world‟s inhabitants, roughly 1.3 billion people in total. However, China has a shortage of psychologists requiring at least 32,000 more people in this profession (Ding 530). On top of that, objectively, therapy is not a panacea for the problem because “[details] of the therapeutic programmes have not been published in the academic literature” (Griffiths, “Videogame” 250). Hence, we cannot guarantee that he/she is able to heal even if the addict accepts the treatment.

Although a specific instruction on the problem of online gaming addiction has not been issued yet, we have some possible solutions to assist addicts overcoming the gaming

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obsession. The family members‟ and the government‟s behaviors are able to help addicts survive to a great extent. First, parents can encourage the gamer to develop offline activities to divert his/her attention from online games. Real world hobbies like painting and dancing, family activities like going hiking and having a picnic, or social gatherings like cooking club, theater workshop, sports teams, aiming to replace online games as the first place in his/her heart. The director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery, Dr. Kimberly Young, points out that “[s]imilar to food addiction, recovery can be objectively measured through caloric intake and weight loss, as online addicts can objectively measure success through maintaining abstinence from problematic online applications and increasing meaningful offline activities” (Young, “Internet” 244). Furthermore, it is feasible to integrate

management skills such as goal setting and time limits to cool down “a drug-like high” of the gamer (Young, “Understanding\" 362). In order to clarify the goal and validate the time the addict is spending on the computer, parents can make a contract with the addict to limit the amount of time he/she can play online. To be more precise, assuming that the person who plays online games five hours a day and the parents therefore make a contract with him/her. It is written that he/she can ask for a reward (not related to the game) once a week, provided that he/she can play the online game for one minute less by each day. Then, in less than one year, because of the motivation of rewards and daily playing log, the addict‟s enthusiasm in gaming will gradually decrease day by day. Nevertheless, if the parents force the addict offline immediately, the result will run counter to our expectations because it will stimulate the gamer‟s desire of playing online games so that he/she can tend to be more defensive and aggressive.

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Additionally, in order to avoid the negative physical impact like eye strain and back strain, it is advisable for parents to supervise their children as to whether they are following the recommendations by service providers, such as sitting at least two feet from the screen and never having the screen at maximum brightness (Griffiths, “Online” 38). More importantly, parents should remind the child to rest his/her eyes and muscles from time to time whenever he/she get tired in front of the screen.

Aside from parents‟ appropriate supervision, the Chinese government has made some contributions to address online gaming addiction at its root. The Central Authorities have used the power to regulate businesses‟ behaviors directly. For example, the authorities regularly shut down Internet cafes if the operator illegally allows people who are under eighteen years old to enter (Young, \"Understanding\" 356). Meanwhile, the authorities also instituted laws to online gaming industry to limit the number of hours which adolescents can play online games (Young, \"Understanding\" 356). Taking my personal experience as an example, I used to play the online game “Menghuan Zhuxian” in my sophomore year of high school. Every time I was forced to log out of the game after three hours. The screen showed that “you have already played for three hours, see you tomorrow” so that I have to stop playing for the day. Moreover, Chinese schools have developed a psychology course in middle schools and high schools. Every school has a special office and psychology course, which is designed for the student who feels depressed and needs a heart-to-heart talk. For example, there is “a corner of relaxation” in my high school. The office‟s hour is from nine in the morning to nine at night. The wall is light yellow and there is a soft bed, a sofa, a small table, a carpet, as well as a curtain. The whole room setting builds a cozy atmosphere and

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makes people feel very comfortable. This practice provides students a means of releasing pressure so that the student is less likely to use online games as the first choice to relieve his/her tension. Consequently, the government‟s behavior can help to curb the escalation of online gaming addiction by issuing a specific policy of Internet Café operation, regulating time limits of online games, and developing a psychology course in an educational institution.

In conclusion, online gaming addiction grows out of the intriguing characteristics and individuals‟ pressures from schooling. Accordingly, these give rise to a profound influence on people in terms of physical, psychological and social problems. As the director of Amsterdam-based Smith & Jones Addiction Consultants Bakker explains that “video games may look innocent, but they can be as addictive as gambling or drugs and just as hard to kick” (Young, \"Understanding\" 356). Fortunately, with the endeavors from parents and the government, we still have a variety of practical proposals which are able to aid online gaming addicts to survive the virtual world. Even though the addicts cannot recover overnight due to the length of the psychologically therapeutic process, we believe that nothing is impossible as long as we have a willing heart and the value of persistence. As the proverb goes, “Rome was not built in a day.”

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