[Ian] Not because they are bad (see above) but because some of them are too easy to participate for too many hours a day. ie they are "addictive" and addiction is bad, that's the psychological "problem"...
[Arlo] I'd agree, but I'd add that addiction is a problem when the individual recognizes that s/he is not able to engage in other meaningful activities, that is addiction is when one self-recognizes that one has become a slave to something and has lost agency. For example, I have a friend who plays in a bluegrass band. He spends maybe 25 hours a week between practicing and shows. If we talk "raw time" as being a factor of "addiction", then he is far more addicted to playing guitar than I am to Warcraft. Society steps in and makes a proclamation about addiction when your expected social roles (tenant, father, laborer) suffers due to your inability to focus attention away from addictive activity. But we have to be very careful and clear when we make a judgment that someone is "addicted" to something. Another example, I know people who consume gallons of soda of week. Literally. If we would call someone who consumes that raw amount of beer "addicted", do we not have to call the soda drinker "addicted" as well? This is why I think "loss of agency" is a critical factor in addiction and not other things like "time" or "manner" or "place". [Ian] ... when people lose the balance between fantasy role-play as a learning experience and as a substitute for real life in general. [Arlo] What is "real life in general"? Is this a privileging of corporeal/material contexts over virtual ones? Why is my disappearing for days on my Harley doing something "in real life", but my spending the same time in WoW "not real life"? This is a key question for me. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
