Gaming addiction camp

Time describes a treatment camp for gaming addicts. "ReSTART [is] a video-game and Internet addiction recovery program... about 30 miles east of Seattle."  It's an odd article, one half description of a medical program, one half glimpse into an unusual social arrangement.

For the former, Tiffany Sharples (the best name for a Time writer, ever) describes one man's suffering from too much gaming, and the recovery program.

On the other hand, Sharples then undercuts the whole thing by noting that, well, "internet addiction" isn't exactly a thing who basic existence anyone agrees on.

Although the term "video game addiction" appeared in the research as early as 1983 — in reference to kids getting hooked on arcade games — the scientific evidence hasn't progressed much since.

Ouch.  Since 1983?  It gets worse:

"The central issue is the absence of research literature on this," says Dr. Charles O'Brien, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Studies in Addiction and the current chair of the DSM-V committee to revise the manual...

"Absence."  Not "not enough," or "a nascent field of literture," but absence.  So we have camps in America and China, involving significant money and human behavior modification, dealing with something for which there, er, um, doesn't seem to be scholarly research.

Then O'Brien quietly goes for the kill:

"At this point I think it's appropriate that it's not considered an official disease," says O'Brien.

At this point when should note the article's description of what treatment costs, and what one gets from it:

[F]for $24,500 (including application, screening and treatment fees), "guests" could spend 45 days cut off from the computer, integrated into a real family's home with chores, daily counseling sessions and weekly therapy.

That's decent money, folks.  24.5K for a month and a half.

The fearsome internet addiction meme marches on.  Kudos to Time for not buying it wholesale.

PS: does the treatment plan include reading?  The article doesn't say.

(thanks to Randy McCall)

Comments

[Laura (geekymom)]

I saw that article and it bugged me. I've been thinking about game addiction, internet addiction, addiction in general lately. It seems to me that we label anything done to excess as addiction. I'm on the computer all the time; it's my work, but because that's seen as productive, it's not called addicting, even though there are such things as workaholics.

That said, and I'm not sure where I am on this yet, I do think that things can be done to excess in a way that isn't health. The problem is deciding what's excessive. My 2 hours/day of gaming? 2 hours/day of tv seems acceptable to most people? I spent about 4 hours today reading instead of doing housework, excessive? I know that 8 hours of gaming is too much for my son. And I'd like it to be less than 2 hours/day because I'd like him to explore other things, to be outside, to read, etc. Gaming, for both of us, is a social outlet. We connect with people, share our days, etc. I also wonder if gaming & Facebook, etc. are seen as obsessive activities because they're replacing face-to-face socializing, which kids used to spend hours doing--talking on the phone, hanging at the mall or the pizza parlor, but because the Internet mediates it, there's something wrong with it. I know dana boyd argues something like that.

I guess, though, if you flunk out of school and neglect your relationships whether it's because you're gaming or working out obsessively, that's a problem.

[Andy Havens]

Note: for $24,000 you can come live with me for TWO WHOLE MONTHS and not play games. You'll have to watch me, my wife and my kid play them, but that's only fair, as you're the dirty addict and we're just enjoying harmless recreation.

Food will be extra. Unless you go get it, in which case we'll probably pay. We're big like that.

We don't smoke, but we do have a somewhat smelly basset hound. Who also plays Xbox.

[Bryan Alexander]

Andy, that's hilarious. You need to set out some pages for this, with PayPal fired up and ready.

Spot *on*, Laura. It's not about addiction, but about (a perception of) excess, and the mediation of internet.

I'm convinced that applying the internet addiction methodology to my reading habits as a kid would have ended up with me at a reading-free camp.

[Ceredwyn]

By gods, we need to start one of these! Why we could get everyone over their whole technology addiction by putting them in our goat shed!

[Joe Murphy]

24 grand for a family home, chores, and no computer or TV? Don't tell my dad, he's going to say I owe him about 100 large!