Keith Bakker of the Smith & Jones Center in Amsterdam has been studying videogame addiction for a while now — rather useful, considering the Center’s purpose is to treat it. After professionally dealing with gaming addicts, Bakker has come to a conclusion I think most of us arrived at a long time ago — most gaming addiction is bollocks.
“These kids come in showing some kind of symptoms that are similar to other addictions and chemical dependencies,” explains Bakker. “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.”
Although a rather obvious statement to many of Destructoid’s readers, we see all too often these days that doctors are willing to label anything as a medical problem. Seeing an expert in the field highlight the importance of social issues in the situation is refreshing, to say the least. It’s all very well treating the “addiction,” but you won’t solve anything without tackling the real root.
Most of these addicts don’t need treatment. They need a life.
