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Virtual pals 'soar in importance'BBC 30 Nov 2006
Virtual communities are as important as their real-world counterparts, many members of online communities believe. A survey found 43% of online networkers from the US felt "as strongly" about their web community as they did about their real-world friends. It also revealed net-users had made an average of 4.6 virtual pals this year. The survey, from the US-based Center for the Digital Future, of 2,000 individuals forms part of a six-year study into attitudes to the web. Each year, the University of Southern California researchers publish data tracking the changing opinions of the same American households to the internet. On the results of their sixth report, Jeffrey Cole, director of the centre, said: "More than a decade after the portals of the worldwide web opened to the public, we are now witnessing the true emergence of the internet as the powerful personal and social phenomenon we knew it would become." Social interaction on the web has become a phenomenon in recent years, with the rise of sites like MySpace and Bebo, and the development of virtual worlds such as Second Life. However, the report also discovered virtual friendship is not confined to the PC - those surveyed had met an average of 1.6 of the friends they had made online in person. Keeping in touch It also found 40% of net-users were using the web to stay in contact with people, and 37.7% believed the internet was enabling them to communicate more with friends and family. The survey also revealed 7.4% of those surveyed kept a blog, double the figure in 2003; and in that period, the number of people posting pictures online grew from 11% to 23.6%. Mr Cole added: "The internet has become an essential source of entertainment, information and communication... However, in 2006, we are beginning to measure real growth and discover new directions for the internet as a comprehensive tool that Americans are using to touch the world." More than three-quarters of Americans are net users, spending an average of 8.9 hours online a week, according to the team. And, for the first time in 2006, the number of women logging on equalled the number of men. ADAM FIFIELD 30 Nov 2006
The Philadelphia Inquirer
There are other worlds out there — violent, virtual domains where residents hurl lightning bolts at giant, dog-headed beasts and wield glittering swords during heroic quests that make the real world pale. Online interactive role-playing games such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft draw millions into their byzantine realms and complex social orders. Some become so enthralled that mental-health professionals are seeing patients who play as much as 70 hours a week, neglecting school, work, even marriage. What is an innocuous passion for many players is coming under increased scrutiny by therapists, and even gamers, as a potentially dangerous addiction. Maressa Hecht Orzack, director of the Computer Addiction Studies Center at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., hears from five or six people a day looking for treatment or information related to obsessive online game-playing. They are "so used to living in a virtual world, they don't know how to connect" in real life, said Orzack, who is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. "I've seen more and more people who are so involved in this that they can't put it down." "It was really ruining my life," Bryan, 25, said of his self-described addiction to World of Warcraft, the industry's top-selling "massively multiplayer online role-playing game." MMORPGs, as they are known in the industry, are the parallel universe of gaming. Individually or in teams, participants adopt characters and interact via the Internet, often in battle. Players in guilds, which allow people worldwide to take part simultaneously in real time, keep rigorous game schedules. Bryan quit playing Warcraft in September and fears a relapse. He worries what his coworkers at a bank might think of his compulsion and requested that his full name not be revealed. For more than a year, Bryan devoted nearly 60 hours a week to the game. He gave up a job, lost touch with friends, dropped out of a rofessional choral group, and developed carpal tunnel syndrome — all to pursue his missions in Warcraft's land of Azeroth. It wasn't fun anymore, said Bryan, who got off at 11 p.m. and played until dawn to keep from disapppointing his guild. "It definitely became a job." Not everyone into Warcraft, EverQuest and other MMORPGs neglects his or her life. Those most susceptible have preexisting problems, such as depression or anxiety disorders, therapists say. Temple University psychology professor Donald A. Hantula said he believed the medium was not to blame for dysfunctional behavior by its users. "I know people who spend 40 or 50 hours a week playing golf," said Hantula, who is executive editor of the Journal of Social Psychology. But Warcraft has an "addictive dynamic" that probably isn't accidental, said Kate Bennett, 32, a mental-health counselor who is an avid player. "In the very beginning, the rewards come very fast and easy," she said. Eventually, they get "fewer and farther apart... but by then you're hooked on that feeling of accomplishment." Players can be seduced by a feeling of belonging and status within the group that they do not have in life. Perhaps the most powerful pull is that the games have no end. "The missions and quests go on forever," said psychiatrist Samuel L. Sharmat, a New York addiction specialist who treats patients with online gaming problems. "It's like having an unlimited amount of cocaine." Many dedicated players think talk of addiction is overblown. "I play a video game and interact with people instead of watching TV," said Robert Schneider, 29, a software developer and Warcraft player. Schneider and his wife, Jamie, usually play when their 16-month-old daughter is asleep. They each put in about 20 hours a week — 12 hours less than the average American spends watching TV, according to Nielsen Media Research. Schneider knows many players, and they all "can manage their time, their family, fine." Online game addiction isn't recognized as a disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, though an official with the group said it could be considered a behavioral addiction. Sharmat believes that obsessive game playing is a physical addiction. People aren't hooked on the games, he said. They are hooked on chemicals the games trigger in their brains. Teens are especially at risk of retreating into games, said Susan Rosenbaum, a psychiatrist. For them, "the brain is evolving. It's not a stable configuration," she said. "Some of the characters from these games inhabit an adolescent's mind, they colonize it. For that kid, (the game) becomes his real life," she said. Psychologist Mike Bradley says he has teenage clients who survive on three or four hours of sleep at night. Some, he said, misuse medication prescribed for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder to stay in the game. Relatively obscure in the late 1990s, MMORPGs are now a fast-growing segment of the game industry. Players purchase software, then pay a monthly fee. Warcraft, the biggest seller, was launched in 2004 and has more than seven million accounts worldwide. In a study this year, Nielsen Interactive Entertainment found that more than half of the estimated 117 million U.S. gamers play online. Of those, 15 million are involved in MMORPGs. Other statistics about online role-playing games are scant. According to a survey of MMORPG players conducted since 1999 by Nick Yee, a Stanford University graduate student, the average age of players is 26, 85 percent are men and 36 percent are married. In 2004, Yee asked MMORPG players if they were "addicted." Of 2,218 respondents, about 14 percent answered "definitely" and 27 percent said "probably." But, Yee cautioned, many use the term loosely. Despite "potential pitfalls," the games do foster relationships between players of racial, class, religious and age groups who may not interact in real life, said Dmitri Williams, a professor of speech communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has studied MMORPGs. Paul Sams, chief operating officer for Blizzard Entertainment, which manufactures Warcraft, said in a written statement that the game is benign. "Our games are designed to be fun and compelling" like a TV show or book, Sams said. It's up to the individual, "or his or her parent or guardian," he said, "to determine how long he or she should spend playing." Warcraft — which carries an industry rating of "teen" (appropriate for users 13 and older) for blood, alcohol use, suggestive themes and violence — has a feature that allows parents to limit usage, Sams added. It wasn't her kids' playing that troubled Pam Gomes, of Ware, Mass. In 2000, the mother of three was despondent over financial difficulties. She got hooked on Dark Age of Camelot, sinking 12 hours a day into the MMORPG. "I couldn't pull myself away," said Gomes, 36. In 2005, her husband asked for a divorce. That's when Gomes stumbled on the Web site for Online Gamers Anonymous. She followed its Alcoholics Anonymous-style program and, after 30 days, was finally free. Liz Woolley founded the site in 2002 after her son Shawn committed suicide as EverQuest played on his computer screen. After the 21-year-old's obsessive videogaming caused him to lose his job and apartment, Woolley placed him in a group home for those with traditional addictions. He was put on medication for depression and schizoid tendencies. Eventually Shawn got a new place, bought a computer, and "cut off all contact," said Woolley, who has since moved from Wisconsin to Harrisburg, Pa. On Thanksgiving 2001, she found him slumped at his computer, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Woolley believes her son's absorption in the game led to his death. The Sony Corp., which makes EverQuest, did not return calls for comment but has previously disputed Woolley's contention. Gamers can find it progressively harder to extract themselves from worlds where the rewards come more easily than they do in life, said Bennett, the counselor and Warcraft player. Vanquishing a dragon will always be more fun than "fixing a relationship or going back to school and working really hard to get all A's." See also Best friends A dying species Gaming gets serious Happiness On hunting and killing from the armchair |
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