Neal Gabler Research Paper

“Video games are bad for you, that’s what they said about rock-n-roll” (Shigeru Miyamoto). Video gaming is regarded as a ubiquitous part of children and adolescents’ life. Children who are daily involved in this activity in the US account for 97% of their total. Additionally, for those at an average of 8-13 years old, approximately, 8.5% of them are addicted to playing video games. Moreover, children at the age of 13-18 spend 16 hours per week playing. Video games are so prominent in this current world that we cannot prevent them from being involved entirely. While others believe that video games should not be made available to

The videogame addiction may seem funny or ridiculous, but in reality it is a dangerous obsession that truly exposes several needs that have yet to be addressed within the afflicted. Addiction is a damaging problem, and the impact of varying sorts of addictions, such as illegal and

Video game addiction is not yet recognized by the American Medical Association as a diagnosable disorder, but addiction has become a very real problem for many video game players. An addiction is when the person needs more and more of a substance or behavior to keep them going, and if the person does not get more, they can become irritable and miserable. Compulsive gaming meets these criteria, and there have been many studied instances where severe withdrawal symptoms in game addicts are seen when parents take away the child’s electronic gaming system. According to chapter three of the book, a study in Singapore of 3,000 middle schoolers found that the

Gambling is all around the United States, and it can be a dangerous game for families. Many casino’s find gambling as a profit for their Company, since many people from around the United States will come to their casino and try to win it big with their own money. Gambling has been around for many years and a statement made by Worldcasinodirectory.com, stated “To begin with, gambling did not originate in the US- it came to this country with immigrants from Europe, Asia- especially China, and other parts of the world.” The United States was just another victim of an ongoing addiction. By, understanding how gambling reached the borders of The United States, how a notorious gang leader started the empire of gambling, and how an addiction pushes people to their limits, can help understand how gambling has become such a demanding element in a society.

CNN, Samantha Bresnahan and Will Worley in their article, “When Video Games Become an Addiction”, argue about how and why video games become an addiction. They support their claim by first talking about video game addiction in the US, then about who mostly get addicted and in what age it is more popular, and finally why video games are addictive. Bresnahan’s purpose is to explain video game addiction in order to find a solution for it. They establish a hopeful tone for the readers.

Gambling can be entertainment or a professional pursuit. There is government sponsored gambling and unlicensed gambling. It can be a group event at a casino, betting on your favorite horse, playing your lucky numbers in a lottery, or a chance to win on a scratch off. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, [APA], 2013) defines gambling as “risking something of value in the hopes of obtaining something of greater value”. For most people gambling will not result in negative consequences. For others, gambling can risk livelihood, relationships and personal well-being.

It is hard to walk away from a winning streak, and even harder to leave the table when you are on a losing one. Gambling, the activity of playing a game of chance for money or other stakes, is one of mankind’s oldest activities. Built upon the false pre-tenses that taking risks will consistently be remunerated, gambling has evolved throughout the years and still remains, engrained within the daily lives of many. Over the years the gambling industry has steadily grown, and along with it, the issue of problem gambling. Similar to a drug or alcohol addiction, problem gambling eats away at an individual, and often leads to reprehensible harms. I take an interventionist stance on gambling as a

Many young children and teenagers have heard their mother’s incessant plead to get away from the screen and to go outside or pick up a book for once instead. The urge to play “just one more level” before starting that homework or doing those chores can be quite distracting. But are video games really as awful as Mom exclaims or as brutal as those TV ads depict? It turns out that video games can have a strong impact on participants’ lives in both positive as well as negative ways.

For centuries, people have allowed themselves to enjoy a particular pleasure in the form of gambling through activities including; poker, sporting events, lottery, bingo, and slot machine. Gambling has become more widespread in the modern times than it was in the 1920s’. However, modern technology has revolutionized gambling, which allowed it to prevail throughout time. Technology has been able to help gambling to evolve from a game that is played at a casino to a game that can be played from a computer in your own home. Gambling has created many great opportunities for certain states: it has created millions of jobs, people have benefited from the huge payouts, and has provided people a very luxurious life. While gambling has provided certain people with many opportunities, for a compulsive gambler it provided many personal problems.

The act of gambling is considered deviant by societal standards today. In order to attain the label and stigmatization as a gambling addict, many steps or so called “rights of passage” must be completed. The following thoughts, notions, and theories are solely based off two interviews I have conducted. These interviews each focus on a subject who has been identified to express a psychological dependence on gambling. Furthermore, I will develop a view into the moral career as well as the identity of an addicted gambler.

Video games began in the late 1960s. It is highly interactive but also a distinct simulation of the real world and the world of thinking. In recent years, Video games have been gaining its popularity at an amazing rate and have developed into a common form of entertainment in people's lives. According to a survey, the researcher found that in 1992, approximately ninety-two percent of U.S. kids between 2 and 17 years of age play video games, and their parents bought 225 million of them last year to the tune of 6.4 billion dollars (Sider, 2002). Some people also believe that playing video games has become a cultural phenomenon. However, there are many noticeable problems are coming out while video games bring us a lot of fun. The most

People are interested in the potential for video game addiction in children and young people. In the article “Addiction to Video Gaming Is a Problem,” reporter Jennifer Seter Wagner highlights the growing concerns among parents and mental health professionals about the potentially addictive qualities of computer and video games. She cites an Iowa State University study that indicates that 8.5 percent of teen gamers can be considered addicted. The viewpoint also cautions parents to be aware of a number of behaviors that may be warning signs of addiction. Wagner contends that although gaming addiction is not currently recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental disorder, it falls under a broader category of “behavioral addictions.” On August 3, 2005, a young South Korea man in his twenties named Lee Seung Seop played a video game, StarCraft, at an Internet coffee shop for almost fifty hours, with only minimal breaks to eat or sleep. His friends found him on the third day suffering from exhaustion and dehydration. He soon collapsed, was taken to the hospital, and died, presumably of heart failure. His friends said he was addicted to gaming and had recently been fired from his job because he had missed work in order to play games. Lee is an extreme example, illustrating the dangers of excessive video gaming. Playing violent video games is like a drug. Once the child reaches a certain level of violence and becomes bored, what is known physiologically as

Gambling is a recreational activity that dates back thousands of years. Unfortunately for some, gambling can go from something done out of entertainment to something done out of addiction. “The essential basis for all gambling seems to inhere in the chance factor of success for its participants, irrespective of the type of device or game which is employed” (Bloch 1951). Some gambling games like poker, for example, require a specific skill set while others solely depend on chance. The chance to win hundreds, sometimes even thousands of dollars from gambling is a very attractive factor for many. “Taking a chance” destroys routine and hence is pleasurable, particularly in a culture where the unchanging and predictable routines of employment are sharply separated from “leisure” – the time when the individual really “lives” (Block 1951). The chance to win a big prize by simply rolling a pair of dice or landing on a specific number entices many, and those who are superstitious to luck or karma are especially vulnerable to gambling’s enticements. Today, there are many organizations and movements to help gamblers recover from their addiction. The National Council on Problem Gambling, The Responsible Gambling Council, and The Gamblers Anonymous Recovery Program are just a few of the many organizations that aim bring gambling impulses under control and allow addicts to live happy, fulfilling, productive lives. There are also helplines available to assist gamblers through their

Video games have drastically altered since the 1980s, they are now more visual, alongside technological advancements, they have become more immersive, so immersive that video games have become an obsession—in fact a deadly obsession. On a Wednesday night in early February 2012, Chen Rong- Yu ”a binge gamer,” was found dead “in the chair from which he’d been engaged in a marathon gaming session.” What makes this case extreme is that he was slumped in his chair with both arms stiffened in a posture that indicated that Chen was still struggling to reach the keyboard and mouse while undergoing an alleged cardiac arrest (Parkin). Chris Staniforth, 20, died from a blood clot after spending more than 12 hours at a time playing on his Xbox (Twomey). A three-year-old South Korean girl died of neglect when her parents spent most of their time playing Prius Online, seventeen-year-old Daniel Petric murdered his mother and injured his father after they refused to let him play Halo 3 (BBC). Video game addiction exists and it’s a serious problem in various parts of the world. Most players are able to constrain their usage in means that do not interfere with their daily lives, however there are others who turn this passion into a deadly addiction. Video game addiction has resulted in pathological behaviors resulting in detrimental effects.

Video games have been known as a form of entertainment since its introduction in the 1980’s. With an ever growing market driven by millions of people, video games have become one of the largest industries in the world. However as the video game industry has evolved, so has the content of the video games. What started out with family games like Super Mario and Donkey Kong that involved maneuvering over obstacles, evolved into violent games such as Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto which required the player to kill people within the game. With the market for video games increasing, there has been growing concern for the effects video games may have on the individual with numerous studies looking into this. Since video games have the ability to affect or influence a person, it is important to understand how they may influence a person. Specifically how video games influence an individual in the emerging adulthood period, defined as a developmental period between adolesance and young adulthood spanning the early to mid-20’s.It is in this developmental period were individuals are not only prone to influence but also begin to develop a sense of what they want to become were they experiment a little with their identity. The question is not why, but how does video games influence an emerging adult positively and negatively. Since emerging adulthood is such an important developmental period, this paper will examine the effects of video games on the individual during the emerging