UK newspaper, and I stress that term greatly, The Sun has fired shots against the video game industry as a whole. A boisterous, click-baiting headline 'Video Games Are As Addictive As Heroin' has gone viral and is inciting passion in folks on both sides of the debate.
Hyrule Warriors Introduces Fi From Skyward Sword
The article, which is behind a paywall, can be found in part here. The article is all fire and brimstone and 'end is nigh' proselytizing, which cares more for selling papers and clicks than it does for journalism. Firstly, the headline itself is a horrible case of false equivalence. By feeding into the human response of 'if this, then that' the headline implies that video games kill approximately 3,094 people each year, which is the number of fatal heroin overdoses in the United States in 2010. 1,757 heroin related deaths were reported in the United Kingdom in 2011, according to the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths (np-SAD) 2012 report.
I am not saying that people have not died playing video games for whatever reason, but let's call bullshit where we find it. Video games have always been under attack, like rock music or the ChaCha from year's past, it is seen as a sign of moral decay, eroding the values in today's youth.
Call of Duty Advanced Warfare BTS Sound Design Trailer
Dr. Mark Griffiths, director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, who is quoted in The Sun's article did a follow-up interview with Eurogamer, where he went into more depth about what he actually said as to what was reported.
"It depends how you define addiction in the first place," he said in response to the salacious title.
"I've spent my whole career trying to say if you're going to call something an addiction it has to be similar right across the board." he continues, "The criteria I use for video game addiction would be exactly the same as in heroin addiction in the sense that this is an activity that becomes the most important thing in your life, it compromises everything else in your life including your relationship, work and hobbies."
"The good news from my perspective is on those particular criteria, the number of genuine video game addicts is few and far between. If we're talking about genuine video game addiction, it doesn't matter what the activity is if we're using the same criteria." he added, concluding his interview with: "I got asked to provide a little diagnostic test some readers could do without seeing what The Sun had done. There is no evidence the country is in 'the grip of addiction'. Yes, we have various studies showing a small minority have problematic gaming. But problematic gaming doesn't necessarily mean gaming addiction. They're two very separate things. Yet the media seem to put them as the same."
Nobody is saying that there's no such thing as people who play video games too much or, even though there's no official diagnosis, "video game addiction". People can get addicted to all sorts of things: exercise, money, sugar. Human beings are addictive by nature. What we all disagree on is the equivalency The Sun is propping up, saying that video games=heroin. The image immediately calls to mind scenes from The Wire and filth and junk and general human misery, and all because little Timmy is playing Mario.
I am unsure the positive effects of heroin, outside of the high. But numerous studies, bundled here in this HuffPo article, have shown that gaming can better people in a number of ways, including hand/eye coordination, staving off dementia in older folks, as a surgery simulator and even getting dyslexic kids to read better.
To combat the scare-mongering of The Sun article, the good people at sticktwiddlers.com have launched a new Twitter campaign #helpsnotharms where it asks gamers from around the world to submit their own, 140 character tales of video games helping and improving their lives. You can find the full list of entries at the official site. Below is just a small snippet of the stories coming in.
I have Dyspraxia and computer games were invaluable in helping me develop my motor skills. #HelpsNotHarms
— Gabriel Neil (@GabrielNeil) July 9, 2014
Even us over 50's get a lot from gaming. Stress relief,social interaction and comaradery to name a few. #HelpsNotHarms — Colin Leach (@DarthDigi) July 9, 2014
I spend most of my day writing, playing or thinking about games, does that make me addicted? Or is it different because I pull in a paycheck? Work and money can be just as addictive as anything, perhaps even more destructive, yet we never talk about that, do we?
Tell us your thoughts and be sure to join in the cause #helpsnotharms
