Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation Center

Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation Center

November 5, 2009

Following the news of a treatment center in the UK expanding its offerings to include treating game addiction, an Australian academic has called for a similar program to be launched down under.

Sydney University Psychiatric Professor Vladan Starcevic, also billed as a game addition expert, made the call for action to the Herald Sun citing his own recent research in which he polled 2,000 gamers. The results of the survey led him to believe that up to one in ten subjects showed signs of addictive behavior. Starcevic said that his study was undertaken due to more patients exhibiting signs of being addicted to games.

Of the UK’s Broadway Lodge treatment center, Starcevic noted, “I think it's good that someone has taken this seriously. I think it should be recognised that this is a problem for some people.”

Starcevic’s full study will be released in this month’s Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.

Comments

Re: Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation ...

Why do they think they need this?  Seriously? The video game ratings board is doing a great job as it is in limiting video game content that is coming into the country.

Leave it to the experts.

"God, is that you?"

"No! It's a me, Mario!"

Re: Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation ...

I'd need rehab if I was stuck playing kiddie games forever too.

Re: Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation ...

Someone wants funding.

Re: Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation ...

I bet that if you had observed me in the last 7 days, someone with an agenda would define me as "addicted" to Borderlands.  Of course, someone who actually understands games would know the difference between "addicted" and "enjoying a compelling game".

Re: Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation ...
To fully understand the motivation behind this, you just have to read the very first part of the first sentence of this article:

"Following the news of [...] in the UK"

If the UK comes up with a stupid idea, Australia's politics must follow suit!

ZAR.
Re: Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation ...

Quick!  To the bandwagon.

Re: Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation ...

I'd say, Don't need a rehabilitation centre, 

instead, talk to addicted gamers though their games and help on their social skills WITHOUT taking away their gaming time.

 

 

Re: Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation ...

/facepalm

F#ck I really hate the moral minority in this country making the rest of us look like fools...

Re: Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation ...

MEh, it'll happen for sue in Atkinson's region.

Re: Addiction Expert: Australia Needs Game Rehabilitation ...

Anyone trying to mass diagnose addictions with surveys shouldn't pose as an expert for the media. Handing in his degree and quitting would be far more appropriate.

GamePolitics ShoutBox

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