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World Of Warcraft, Could It Be Killing Our Teens |
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The parents of a teenage son who committed suicide just over
a year ago claim that their son become addicted to the massively
multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. They
believe that as a result of this addiction he took his own
life. Now these parents are suing World of WarCraft developers
Blizzard Entertainment, blaming the game developers for the
tragic loss of their son.
The details of just how many hours this teen had been playing
World of Warcraft prior to his death has not yet been published.
Just what would constitute an addiction is hard to quantify.
The generally accepted medical definition of an addiction
is; a habitual psychological and physiological dependence
on a substance or practice beyond one's voluntary control.
So using this definition as a guide we could assume he had
no control over how often he sat down to play the online role
playing game.
Looking at a common addiction many people can relate to,
smoking. Nobody would claim that the actual act of smoking
could lead to anybody’s death. Rather it is the chemicals
being inhaled while smoking that have been linked to various
diseases leading to a potential premature death. Following
this same logic we could then say that spending large amounts
of your day playing World of Warcraft could not kill you.
So the real problem in this case most be something else.
Examining suicide we should look at what really causes someone
to take their own life. While a lot more research on the subject
is still needed, it is believed that some type of psychiatric
disorder, depression being the most common is the leading
cause of suicide. If properly diagnosed most mental health
problems can be treated and controlled. The difficulty is
for people to realize that they have a problem and to go and
seek treatment. The unfortunate stigma still attached to mental
health problems leads many to go without getting treatment
for what could be a highly treatable disease.
Looking back at the case at hand, we can see that a teen
playing World of Warcraft too much could definitely be a potential
sign that something is wrong. People who have difficulty dealing
with reality or interacting with people are two possible signs
of a mental health disease. So every parent should be aware
of this, and if their children are using computer games as
a way to withdraw from friends and family they should definitely
seek profession medical advice, it just might save their child’s
life.
About the Author:
Mark MacKay is an avid online gamer, including World of Warcraft
and also the creator of the World of Warcraft Gold Price List
Guide, a web site setup to help WoW players find the cheapest
place to buy their gold. You can visit Mark's site at www.world-of-warcraft-gold.com
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