Parents and Vietnamese government officials are concerned about addiction to online games, according to a story in the Thanhnien News.

Describing an Internet cafe in Ho Chi Minh City, the report features interviews with players who are hanging out and neglecting their schoolwork:

They play online games day and night, and many ignore their studies. The phenomenon is also growing among college students, who can access the Internet in the dorms... without the supervision of their families.

Sunday's Boston Globe offers a fascinating interview with Oregon psychiatrist - and GamePolitics reader - Dr. Jerald Block, who specializes in treating online game addiction.

Block believes that "Internet Addiction" should be recognized as an official diagnosis.

From the story:

[Block] believes that psychiatry needs to do a lot of catching up in order to understand why people get stuck in games like Warcraft. One problem: Most therapists have no idea what a "guild" is or what it means to hit Level 60. Because of this language barrier, many gamers wind up begging for help in online support groups rather than seeking out mental health professionals.

Interestingly, Block said that addicted gamers feel worse about their habit than those addicted to pornography:

BLOCK: ...the computer gamers tend to be harder to treat. People feel a lot of shame around computer games. Whereas, it's socially acceptable to have a porn problem.

IDEAS: You can't be serious. You mean your clients are more ashamed of ...

BLOCK: ...playing World of Warcraft than looking at porn. Yes.

IDEAS: Why?

BLOCK: As a society we understand that porn is something people do, and you can see a psychiatrist and get treated for it. But gaming is hard to describe to anyone else. So these people can't explain their situation to friends. In fact, it's hard to give you an example of what my clients talk about, because gaming is enormously complicated.

Block has also studied the relationship between violent games and school shootings, but believes the issue is complex and enmeshed in the shooters' "relationship" with their PCs:

With these shooters, their last act was to turn against their own computers. As a psychiatrist, I think that's relevant.

After catching a recent espisode of Tonight with Trevor McDonald, I'm determined to deal with my game addiction... just as soon as I level up.

On September 18th, the U.K.'s  ITV1 broadcast an episode of the McDonald show called 'Virtually Addicted'. The half-hour documentary examined game addiction, centering around three families in which the parents believe their children have developed video game dependencies.

According to a survey of 500 children conducted by the program, 64% of British kids in the 10-16 age range spend at least four hours per day gaming, while 14% spend 10 hours a day or more.

In the interest of fairness, we're going to let the show speak for itself. GP readers can catch the first of three 10-minute segments here.

Parts two and three are also available. For non-U.K. readers, I should point out that ITV is a general entertainment channel with a large viewing audience.  Veteran newscaster and host Sir Trevor McDonald has, in the past, presented BAFTA awards to videogames, as part of ITV's now-defunct gaming awards show, Game Stars.

-Reporting from the U.K., Correspondent Mark Kelly