I recently saw this article online about a computer game addict attempting suicide and I had to dig a little deeper. I mean, who in their right mind would swallow pieces of a saw blade in an attempted suicide over video games? Well folks, there is always more to the story.
A 23-year-old named Xiao Cai had recently been admitted to a hospital in an attempted suicide. He ingested pieces of a saw blade over a two day period. Later on, during the second day, he wasn’t feeling very well and called for help, but this wasn’t the beginning of his mental instability.
According to his uncle, Xiao Cai had been addicted to the Internet for at least a few years. He had attempted suicide in the past by ingesting sleeping pills and pesticides, but each time he had been saved. His uncle also had this to say,
“If it wasn’t because of his introverted personality, perhaps he wouldn’t be so addicted to the Internet.”
It just goes to show you that these events aren’t always as perceived. The man had social issues well before online gaming took control of his life. The media needs to properly report on such events so the facts don’t get skewed. This isn’t my defense of online gaming, just my opinion on being responsible in general. To end on a good note, Xiao Cai is currently in stable condition.
“Ninety per cent of the young people who seek treatment for compulsive computer gaming are not addicted.”
To say that people can become addicted to video games is absolutely ludicrous. This article brought to us by the BBC states that there are kids out there being treated for addiction to video games such as World of Warcraft.
“But Mr. Bakker believes that this kind of cross-addiction affects only 10% of gamers. For the other 90% who may spend four hours a day or more playing games such as World of Warcraft, he no longer thinks addiction counseling is the way to treat these people.
“These kids come in showing some kind of symptoms that are similar to other addictions and chemical dependencies,” he says.
“But the more we work with these kids the less I believe we can call this addiction. What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers – this is a social problem.”
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again— we have to blame the parents. Video games are a large part of our society today and to make excuses for children and adolescents’ stupidity in playing video games too much is ridiculous. It’s a parent’s obligation to teach their children responsibility; responsibility involves spending too much time playing video games. When parents are unable to regulate what their children do, how their children act, then they are failures. It’s completely unfortunate the amount of horrendous parents there are in the world.
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