What Does It Mean?

Since the Call of Duty: Black Ops was released only 12 days ago on November 9th, 2010 the game's makers have sold more than 650 million dollars worth of games. Within the game there is a counter bar which scrolls along the bottom of the screen, listing random collective stats and in less than two weeks it has calculated some amazing stats:

• 6560 years spent playing
• 96 billion shots fired
• 45,263,258 head-shots
• 1,551,912 flags captured
• 2,810,451 flag returned
• 1,123,452,673 practice dummies destroyed
• 120,948,334 offensive and defensive medals gained
• 10,871,896 matches played
• 190,624,247 medals earned
• 80 percent of the world's population has been killed

More than 6000 years spent playing? That's in less than two weeks! So, this raises the question of addiction and what does this mean for America?

The Video Game Addiction Questionnaire (Gentile 2006)

1. Over time, have you been spending much more time thinking about playing video games, learning about video-game playing, or planning the next opportunity to play?

2. Do you need to spend more and more time and/or money on video games in order to feel the same amount of excitement?

3. Have you tried to play video games less often or for shorter periods of time, but are unsuccessful?

4. Do you become restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop playing video games?

5. Have you played video games as a way of escaping from problems or bad feelings?

6. Have you ever lied to family or friends about how much time you play video games?

7. Have you ever stolen a video game from a store or a friend, or have you ever stolen money to buy a video game?

8. Do you sometimes skip household chores in order to spend more time playing video games?

9. Do you sometimes skip doing homework in order to spend more time playing video games?

10. Have you ever done poorly on a school assignment or test because you spent too much time playing video games?

11. Have you ever needed friends or family to give you extra money because you spent too much money on video game equipment, software, or game/Internet fees?

 

What does this mean? It means that anyone can become an addict and we've seen the tragic results in recent news accounts involving mothers shaking or harming their children when interrupted while playing farmville, as an example. For these people, it means that they are having issues dealing with reality and are escaping elsewhere through this technology. While you might laugh at the image above, I think it captures a sadder truth.