Overall I feel that most addictions are caused by a person trying to escape their real life problems, whether it be using alcohol, video games, or even golfing to do so. Some addicting activities society labels as tolerable, such as golfing or fishing, while others are condemned, such as alcohol use and video game playing. Instead of being critical of these people, society needs to look at these people’s underlying problems and try to help with those issues before sticking the label of addict on someone. The addiction seems not to be to any one item but instead could be classified as an addiction to escaping reality instead of facing up to your own problems. So to conclude, yes it is possible that MMORPG addiction is a real issue but there are a lot of other activities out there that people are addicted to that would never be acknowledged as such because of the way the media does or does not portrays these activities and because of the way society views what is and is not acceptable. Just like any other activity, there are people who do things responsibly and then there are those who do not; it is the ones who are irresponsible that give those activities a bad reputation and then indirectly cause a label of being addictive to be placed upon that activity. Over the last century it has been alcohol that was the big addiction craze; now in this century the trend seems to be video games. I believe it all depends on the time, place, and even cost of an activity for what people will substitute for real life; in today’s society the most convenient substitution is online video games.
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