Generation CoD

An article in The Sunday Times Magazine the other week highlighted that increasing numbers of gamers are becoming addicted. But when does a game cease being fun and turn into a life-ruining obsession? And what will this new addiction do to a generation of young people in this recession having to cope with increasing uncertainty over the security of their futures?

Computer games can be perilous things. Designed to compel and attract people to repeated exposure, it's easy to see how the experience can become so addictive. Games that focus on long, drawn-out quests, such as World of Warcraft, are especially so – I'll never forget seeing the South Park episode where the boys slowly disintegrate into anti-social slobs sat at their computer screens playing WoW. In their determination to complete their quest in the virtual world, all sense of social skills and personal health and hygiene go out the window. Well it's easy to think that’s exaggerated – this is South Park, after all – but with the opening of special clinics for those addicted gamers who are ruining their lives, this scenario doesn't seem so funny.

A 2007 study, conducted by Mark Griffiths, professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University, has shown that out of the gamers included in the study, one out of nine of them expressed at least three signs of gaming addiction. With the government wanting to provide broadband in every home, this trend can only be set to increase.

Here at university, gaming is an ordinary part of student life. Even if, like me, you don't play the games yourself, you are constantly aware of who's playing what. More times than I can count I've tried to speak to someone on facebook chat, only to have them text me a couple of hours later to apologise, but they had been too busy gaming to reply. A friend at Keele University has told me that in his flat, they have 6 good-quality TVs – and yet none of them have a TV license: they're not interested in watching anything but the backdrops to their games. Another friend has software to run both Windows and Mac software on his Mac, because certain games can only work on Windows.

But perhaps the most worrying instance so far has been of one of my flatmates, who forgot about food she'd left in the oven because she'd gone back to play games in her room while it cooked. Luckily I was in the kitchen at the time and nothing exploded/caught fire/set the alarms off, but still: if this can happen once, it can happen again, and next time, someone might not be around to remind her.

But gaming at university can also have a detrimental affect on peoples' social lives. Whenever a new game is released, I tend to lose my friends for however long it takes them to complete the game. I can see their progress via facebook status updates, where they declare their current obsession in acronyms and gaming-talk that only fellow gamers can understand, but it's just not the same as talking to them. Relationships between gamers and non-gamers is risky – one first-year friend was getting annoyed the other day when her partner wasn't texting her back. To take her mind off it, she rang another friend, who informed her that according to her boyfriend's facebook status, he was busy playing CoD:MW2. Let's just say, she wasn't best pleased that she was coming second to the game.

A BBC study, conducted in 2006, revealed that an estimated 82% of 16-24 year-olds including students, consider themselves to be gamers, with 81% of these falling into the “heavy” gamer category. 78% of these played their computer games in their rooms, alone.

But why is gaming, and subsequent addiction, on the rise?

Ask the majority of student gamers why they play, and I can guarantee their answer will be along the lines of “because it's fun”. And they're right: I remember, it is fun. But what makes it any different then from a night out on the town? Or a snowball fight by the lake? Or a BBQ in the sun? Gaming is fun because you can have the exhilaration of taking risks without putting yourself out there. You can have the thrill of risking everything, without actually having to. It's safe, in a sense. Games have rules that life doesn't have.

With the probability of at least temporary unemployment after university and the uncertainty that brings, it's clear why so many students can be seen as retreating more and more into their virtual worlds. Increasing stress over getting a good degree to compete in the jobs market can make “gaming to relax” more and more attractive - although probably not the best solution.

For now, while over half the population can be termed “gamers”, gaming addiction is relatively rare; but in a generation brought up on expanding technological advances, it's only going to grow.

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