SIVACRACY.NET: Is It Really Harder Than Kicking Coffee?

I drink coffee. I drink a lot of coffee. As much as five cups a day, and often three cups before noon: a cup when I get up, a cup when I'm driving to work, and a cup when I'm first at my desk checking e-mail or reading blogs. When I'm working on an article or book chapter, I drink even more. Periodically I try to quit, but I chicken out as soon as I get the headaches. It's safe to say I'm addicted to coffee. But my grandmother drank a lot of coffee too, and she lived to be ninety-three.

Besides, nobody's talking about regulating coffee. Or even forbidding it to minors, which isn't an entirely unreasonable step, given its health consequences. Certainly no one is giving it great standing for purposes of the insurance industry or the medical profession.

And yet, there is a lot of talk right now about videogame addiction as a public health issue. Recently, in "Marathon video game sessions: Is this sick?," The Los Angeles Times reports about attempts to get the AMA to declare video game addiction a psychiatric disorder, which one would assume would also lead to being listed in the APA's professional bible, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual or DSM, with a distinctive multi-digit number to designate a specific condition.

Using similar rhetoric to that associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, those lobbying for disease status have identified several warning signs, which were reprinted in the LA Times article:

• When you're not playing a game, do you find it difficult not to think about it?
• Are you uninterested in anything else besides games?
• Do you feel unable to control how much you play?
• Are you often late for appointments because of your game play?
• Are you having difficulty managing daily life?
• Do you skip meals to play?
• When you feel alone, do you use games to communicate with others?
• Do you spend more than three hours at a stretch playing?
• Is game play preventing you from getting enough sleep?
• Do you have headaches, dizziness or seizures?

Update: I've been having some interesting discussion about the original post on Virtualpolitik with Amy Bruckman, who advises me to lay off the java and look at the GPA's of my game-playing students.

Comments

untill a vitual equal to coffee and it's wonderful place in our lives comes along, coffee and gaming are both needed to be grown-ups! At least that's what my kids say! Are they diseased?

Posted by: bobc | June 24, 2007 05:51 PM

Disclaimer, of sorts: Coffee is a huge part of my life. I'm a die-hard coffee lover and something of a coffee geek. I tend to drink a lot of flavourful coffee, every day of the year. I enjoy both the taste and the buzz. And I don't see coffee as a health issue.
There might be a lot of personal variation, with caffeine and addiction. What I've seen so far (through different online sources with different levels of trustability) about caffeine addiction seems inconclusive. Some say that caffeine does not in fact cause any kind of physical addiction. Others seem to say that caffeine may be somewhat addictive with some people.
My personal experience has been that it's extremely easy to lay off caffeine if I can control my schedule to any extent. I stopped drinking caffeinated products for months on end and apart from the fact that I adore coffee, I never felt an actual need for caffeine intake.
Maybe I'm just lucky. When I stop drinking coffee, I do get headaches but they're not really intense and go away fairly quickly. After a day or two, I stop getting any headache and never get a single headache through the months during which I don't intake any caffeine.
What's been more problematic for me was when caffeine stopped having much effect on me and I had to pull several all-nighters. Those times were really difficult.
Game addiction is a different issue, IMHO. It sounds a bit similar and may have the same psychological basis. But, through your description, game addiction sounds a lot more like an addiction while caffeine intake sounds more like a choice.

Posted by: Alexandre | June 25, 2007 05:15 PM

Speaking of game addiction, the label is disputed:
http://news.com.com/Experts+oppose+video+game+addiction+designation/2100-1043_3-6192969.html

Posted by: Alexandre | June 25, 2007 11:46 PM

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Is It Really Harder Than Kicking Coffee?

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