kids spend almost as much time on a computer, watching television, using their cell phones, playing video games or listening to music as an adult spends during a full day at work.
The only type of media usage that has not increased is reading
the children who spend their time consuming so much media seem to have a harder time in school
Cheong is down to playing two or three hours on "Starcraft" and "World of Warcraft" three times a week,
The South Korean government estimates that the country has 2 million citizens addicted to the Internet
Earlier this month a three-month-old baby girl succumbed to malnutrition while her parents spent 12-hour stretches in an Internet café playing the role-playing game Prius Online
22-year-old man returned to an Internet cafe to continue playing immediately after he murdered his mother, who had complained about his gaming habits. Physical exhaustion after long computer sessions has also caused deaths.
Internet addicts will also be offered free software with a timer that shuts down their computers or a "fatigue system" that bores players by making games slower and more difficult
Some of the suggested new measures to curb Internet addiction could collide with a gaming market that is expected to be worth $5.5 billion this year with a 17 percent growth rate
The companies make their money selling add-ons such as weapons, outfits and special abilities for the online characters.
Another novel idea to curb addiction is to punish excessive playing by confiscating gamers' virtual wealth.
We are examining various technological directions to prevent excessively continuous game play even for adults, and we are also discussing a special system that will allow children and teenagers to learn a healthy gaming habit,
This is an interesting article that speaks to the result of over-engagement. I wonder if this problem is specific to Korea and less so in other countries (if so, what is it about that environment that makes video games so addictive) or if it's only been studied in Korea but could be a similar problem in other parts of the world.
"The new study runs counter to the conventional idea that success in an unfamiliar, changing environment comes from a mixture of innovation and copying others."
Last year, Iowa State University researcher Douglas Gentile published a survey of American 8-to-18 year-olds which found 12% of boys were video-game addicted, having at least six symptoms out of 11, similar to a scale for gambling addiction. Yet only 3% of girls were video game addicts.
Robert Weis and Brittany C Cerankosky of Denison University measured a group of boys' academic baseline achievement and surveyed their parents and teachers as well. They then gave half the boys video-game units. Boys receiving the video-game stations experienced an academic nosedive. The control group of boys without video games continued with solid schoolwork.
Very disturbing findings. Here's a quick excerpt:
"There is still debate over whether scientific collaboration leads to better results. Jonathon Cummings, an associate professor of management at Duke University, and his colleagues got a grant from the National Science Foundation to look at 491 research collaborations funded by the foundation. They discovered something unsettling: Collaborations of more universities fared worse than projects primarily executed at a single university. More collaborators meant fewer patent applications, fewer published papers, and less chance of the group seeking additional funding to keep projects going."
"Dr. Cummings says it appears that the amount of coordination required to make progress on research-everything from setting up meetings to integrating knowledge among group members-outweighed the potential benefits of collaboration. In the wake of the study, he says, the science foundation now requires grant applicants for some programs to detail how they expect to manage the collaboration."
In order to progress in the game of The Lost Army of Fu Shi players must answer multiple choice questions regarding business studies, geography, science, etc. to get more time to "play" .
a new study identifies risk factors for "pathological," or obsessive, gamers and says that such children become more depressed and anxious the more they play.