Confessions of a cyber junkie.

• Author: Roberts, Kevin
• Position: Psychology

WELCOME TO the Cyber Universe. The phone rang, and I initially did not answer. The caller was persistent, however. I finally decided to pick up because the tinging was breaking my gaming concentration. I had told all my friends that I was out of town, so I could not imagine who it might be. "Hello," I barked into the phone. It was Doug, a friend of mine since childhood. He and I had grown up on the same street, and recently had started renting a room in my next-door neighbor's home. Doug declared, "I am fully aware of what's going on over there."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I righteously asserted as my right hand continued to work the computer mouse. (I had turned down the volume to avoid detection.) "Well, you might have had me fooled into believing that you actually were up north like you said, except for one miscalculation on your part," Doug told me in the tone of a clever detective. "I don't know what you mean," I continued my deception.

Seeming almost disappointed at my lack of foresight, Doug responded, "You should have turned down the speakers. I can hear the catapults destroy the city walls because the sound's traveling through your walls and through mine." He was mad not only about the noise, but also because I had lied to him.

"How long have you been playing?" he asked. "I don't know," I replied--truthfully, because I really did not know. "It's noon right now." He went on, "Have you been to bed yet?" I confessed, "Actually, I haven't." I had been up for 22 hours straight, and most of that time has been spent on the computer."

What is it about video games and the Internet that would lead a grown man to become consumed to this point? These are not new inventions. The first game was introduced in 1958 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory: Tennis for Two prefigured a game that became widespread in the early 1970s, Pong. In the late 1970s, Tandy came out with the first mass-produced home computers, a development quickly followed by more complex game consoles such as Atari. Still, times obviously have changed and the role of technology in our lives has expanded greatly. In addition to incredible growth in the number of technological devices we encounter daily, the type of technology and games also has evolved. While it was easy to walk away from the simplistic video games of my youth, the new ones offer much more to captivate players and hold their interest.

Likewise, the Internet in general and other various digital technologies are constant companions and an integral part of our modem world. The benefits of this technology are many; yet such progress comes at a price. The number of people with a problem related to gaming and use of other devices is growing exponentially in the U.S. and around the world. A study reported in Psychological Science found that 8.5% of young video players exhibited signs of addiction to gaming. Maressa Hecht Orzack, director of the Computer Addiction Study Center at Harvard University, says her research shows that between five percent and 10% of website users suffer from dependency. Clearly, the problem is getting out of control.

What are we talking about here, a bad habit or an addiction? Experts disagree on whether such a thing as cyber or gaming addiction exists. The American Psychiatric Association has been debating whether compulsive Internet use and video gaming meet the accepted criteria of addiction and whether they should be listed as "disorders" in the next edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. I am not a scientist and I do not claim to be an authority when it comes to alcohol or other drug problems. What I do know are the ins and outs of cyber and gaming problems and how they can destroy a person's life.

I am not alone in recognizing this situation. In the U.S., newsgroups, community activists, government officials, teachers, and throngs...