South Korea's Online Shame
Here's a shameful little stat for you. A government sponsored survey has shown that 2.4% of South Korean aged 9 to 39 need counseling for their addiction to online gaming. 9 years old?
The problem can even reach fatal proportions. Last year, seven people died from deep vein thrombosis (caused by sitting inactive in front of the monitor for too long), heart failure or exhaustion, while feeding their habit. Even those too young to know what a computer is can suffer, as shown by the involuntary manslaughter charges brought against a couple in their 20's who left their 4-month-old infant alone at home while they went to a neighbourhood internet cafe to play World of Warcraft, staying there from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
The question is why Korea seems to be so hard hit by this addiction. A government-funded agency that provided counseling to 2,243 people in 2003 saw the figure more than quadruple to 8,978 in 2004. Some are trying to claim that Korea is such a stressful place to live, the populace turns to these games as a get-away from the stress.
Certainly, South Korea is one of the world's most wired countries, with 3/4 of all households having high-speed broadband internet connections compared to 1/3 of American homes. That may facilitate the addiction, but it doesn't explain it.
It might be the celebrity status of professional players who can earn $100,000. a year. Maybe young Koreans dream of becoming such a player, the way many a north american youth might dream of the NBA or the NHL. I don't know.
Maybe it's just one more indication of how few people know how to see the beauty in the sunset, or feel the joy of the breeze on their face. Maybe it bespeaks the number of those who must have personal gratification at all times, and totally lack an understanding of how volunteering time and effort to help others feel good could help them feel good, too.
I can't explain it, but I know it's a bloody sad state of affairs.
The problem can even reach fatal proportions. Last year, seven people died from deep vein thrombosis (caused by sitting inactive in front of the monitor for too long), heart failure or exhaustion, while feeding their habit. Even those too young to know what a computer is can suffer, as shown by the involuntary manslaughter charges brought against a couple in their 20's who left their 4-month-old infant alone at home while they went to a neighbourhood internet cafe to play World of Warcraft, staying there from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
The question is why Korea seems to be so hard hit by this addiction. A government-funded agency that provided counseling to 2,243 people in 2003 saw the figure more than quadruple to 8,978 in 2004. Some are trying to claim that Korea is such a stressful place to live, the populace turns to these games as a get-away from the stress.
Certainly, South Korea is one of the world's most wired countries, with 3/4 of all households having high-speed broadband internet connections compared to 1/3 of American homes. That may facilitate the addiction, but it doesn't explain it.
It might be the celebrity status of professional players who can earn $100,000. a year. Maybe young Koreans dream of becoming such a player, the way many a north american youth might dream of the NBA or the NHL. I don't know.
Maybe it's just one more indication of how few people know how to see the beauty in the sunset, or feel the joy of the breeze on their face. Maybe it bespeaks the number of those who must have personal gratification at all times, and totally lack an understanding of how volunteering time and effort to help others feel good could help them feel good, too.
I can't explain it, but I know it's a bloody sad state of affairs.
1 Comments:
I've heard of this too ... but have you heard of the wealthy and lazy gamers in America? What they do is outsource their game playing to cheap-labour-gamers, who slog through the lower levels of games, then hand over characters once they've reached higher levels in games to those who hire them.
Weird.
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