Online Game Playing can be Addictive

Messerly, John G. “Online Game Playing can be Addictive.” Communications of
the Association for Computing Machinery 47 (2004): 29-31 Opposing
Viewpoints Research Center (Gale). Web. 11 Mar. 2010.

John G. Messerly is the author of several publications as well as an instructor of computer ethics and philosophy at Austin Community College. This article is based on an informal study conducted by Messerly in which he interviewed and discussed video game playing with hundreds of students. His hypothesis that video games have a negative effect on students’ academic performance and social relationships was confirmed by this study. The author begins by explaining the nature of the study and the statistical results that came out of it. He then explains the main appeal to video game players, which is escapism. The next section of the article explains that video games can harm even others who interact with those who play because the players are often antisocial or violent to those they interact with.