{"id":319,"date":"2006-07-13T12:51:27","date_gmt":"2006-07-13T10:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.breigh.com\/wordpress\/archives\/319"},"modified":"2010-05-26T21:28:11","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T19:28:11","slug":"game-addiction-therapy-in-amsterdam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/archives\/319","title":{"rendered":"Game Addiction Therapy in Amsterdam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Looks like I got out just in time&#8230; Apparently addiction consultants Smith &#038; Jones are <a href=\"http:\/\/go.reuters.com\/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&#038;storyID=12824777&#038;src=rss\/healthNews\">coaxing gamers back to reality<\/a> in a clinic in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n<p>They say&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Research suggests online game playing may trigger the release of the chemical dopamine in the brain. A study done in London&#8217;s Hammersmith Hospital showed that increased levels of dopamine were roughly the equivalent of a dose of speed, an amphetamine that can be addictive.<\/p>\n<p>Countries like South Korea and China, which boast the largest online games communities, are working with game operators on systems to discourage compulsive behavior.<\/p>\n<p>A 28-year-old South Korean died of heart failure last year after playing a game called &#8220;StarCraft&#8221; for 50 hours at an Internet cafe. The parents of a 13-year-old Chinese boy who killed himself after playing a computer game for 36 hours are suing the game&#8217;s licensed Chinese distributor.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In all honesty, I didn&#8217;t find kicking the gaming habit to be very difficult.  Then again, I didn&#8217;t play for 50 hours at a time.  I understand the things they said in the article, that MMORPG&#8217;s can be brutally addictive and people use them as an escape from their real life issues&#8230; but can it really be sat on the same shelf as drug addiction or alcoholism?<\/p>\n<p>I thought it was a pretty decent idea until I saw this&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Treatment for excessive game playing is not covered by health care insurance, so patients have to cover the cost themselves &#8211; 500 euros ($640) a day.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Yet another Dutch money racket.<\/p>\n<p>Uhhhh, worth it?  I&#8217;m thinking no.   If I had money like that to throw around and wanted to quit gaming, I could spend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.neckermann.nl\/OffersOverview.asp?action2=bar&#038;regionID=24&#038;countryID=8&#038;ovprice1=405&#038;ovprice2=493&#038;nDate=38945&#038;rf=http%3A\/\/www.neckermann.nl\/\">2 weeks in Spain<\/a> hanging out on the beach and weaning myself from the game&#8230; rather than spending 500 euros per <strong>DAY<\/strong> sitting in a stuffy canal house listening to some guy telling me gaming is bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looks like I got out just in time&#8230; Apparently addiction consultants Smith &#038; Jones are coaxing gamers back to reality in a clinic in Amsterdam. They say&#8230; Research suggests online game playing may trigger the release of the chemical dopamine in the brain. A study done in London&#8217;s Hammersmith Hospital showed that increased levels of &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[59,18,33],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-life-in-nl","tag-dutch-news","tag-gaming","tag-netherlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4766,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/4766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadutch.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}