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<blockquote data-quote="Cabled" data-source="post: 3643767" data-attributes="member: 23297">I'm going to pipe up here for a moment.&nbsp; As someone who lived and breathed behavior and addiction for ten years and still volunteers at schools and clinics around the area, I want to touch on a couple points people have brought up.&nbsp; The first is about jail, whether it's appropriate or not.&nbsp; Whether the game IS the addiction or simply a factor within an addiction here is irrelevant to this.&nbsp; By its very nature, a true addiction cannot be fought by the addict.&nbsp; It requires outside intervention.&nbsp; So if this is NOT an addiction, they were willfully negligent and deserve jail.&nbsp; If it IS an addiction, experience has taught me (unfortunately) that the best and nearly only way to force those people to get the therapy they need, and remain in therapy and treatment for a meaningful length of time, is to incarcerate them to enforce it.&nbsp; MOST (and that is capital most) people that need help in this manner will not seek it of thier own cognizance.The second is about whether (video) games are addictive in thier own right.&nbsp; The simple and true professional answer right now is that we do not know.&nbsp; Real research, the kind that is peer reviewed ad infinitum, replicated, cross referenced, and backup up to the Nth degree is still too sparse to have a definite conclusion.&nbsp; We simply haven't had the tools to study and begin to understand an addiction like this for long enough.&nbsp; Addictions based on introduced chemicals like alcohol are easier to study, it's closer to chemistry.&nbsp; Addictions based purely on stimulus are much more difficult (and expensive) to study, and most of the data to this point is anecdotal, which makes for an all right starting point, if viewed from a long ways away, and at a sideways angle, but nothing more than that.&nbsp; Anecdotal evidence cannot seperate a symptom from a cause.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Cabled, post: 3643767, member: 23297"] I'm going to pipe up here for a moment. As someone who lived and breathed behavior and addiction for ten years and still volunteers at schools and clinics around the area, I want to touch on a couple points people have brought up. The first is about jail, whether it's appropriate or not. Whether the game IS the addiction or simply a factor within an addiction here is irrelevant to this. By its very nature, a true addiction cannot be fought by the addict. It requires outside intervention. So if this is NOT an addiction, they were willfully negligent and deserve jail. If it IS an addiction, experience has taught me (unfortunately) that the best and nearly only way to force those people to get the therapy they need, and remain in therapy and treatment for a meaningful length of time, is to incarcerate them to enforce it. MOST (and that is capital most) people that need help in this manner will not seek it of thier own cognizance. The second is about whether (video) games are addictive in thier own right. The simple and true professional answer right now is that we do not know. Real research, the kind that is peer reviewed ad infinitum, replicated, cross referenced, and backup up to the Nth degree is still too sparse to have a definite conclusion. We simply haven't had the tools to study and begin to understand an addiction like this for long enough. Addictions based on introduced chemicals like alcohol are easier to study, it's closer to chemistry. Addictions based purely on stimulus are much more difficult (and expensive) to study, and most of the data to this point is anecdotal, which makes for an all right starting point, if viewed from a long ways away, and at a sideways angle, but nothing more than that. Anecdotal evidence cannot seperate a symptom from a cause. [/QUOTE]

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