A few months ago a Japanese man married a video game character. Yep, that's right... legally married a video game character. In another equally bizarre incident,the BBC reported in August of 2005, a South Korea a man died after playing StarCraft (an online role playing game) for 50 hours straight. In Asia, gaming is a profession. The more remarkable players are celebrities in their repective fields, with games being televised 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. These two incidents, while rather isolated in the extreme nature, demonstrate the intricate ways in which our understanding and interaction with technology are so closely connected to our very existence.
As an occasional gamer, and a friend of avid gamers, I found Steven Johnson's arguments concerning the structure and use of video games rather enlightening. I can't say that I agree with him 100%, but the implications of his argument are intriguing to me.
Johnson claims that the environment inherent to video games stimulates our brains to produce opioids and rewards the player unlike any other form of entertainment. This strengthens his arguments that we need to evaluate the "form" of video games, rather than the content because there is an implication that something more complex is involved. Through the this kind of achieve-and-reward situation, one could extrapolate further implications concerning the lack of life-or-death driven obstacles inherent to our own evolution as a species. As technology has advanced, our survival instincts have been lulled to a point at which our rewards for ensuring survival are actually rewards for achieving comfortability. Obviously this doesn't hold true to all cultures, but in cultures that embrace the achieve-and-reward video game (and I know Johnson says we shouldn't the take content of the games too seriously) daily life is not a struggle for survival.
The connection of brain chemistry to the virtual world is interesting. The established links between clinical depression and video game use are pretty clear. Video game addiction develops almost primarily within those already suffering from clinical depression. However, like most addictive forms (let's face it, there are stranger ones than video games) the amount of time spent playing is typically a reflection of the level of depression being suffered. However, few addictions have so permeated out society to the extent we cannot escape it. Technology (whether you have an ipod or a blu ray player or upgrade your laptop) is an addiction that we all suffer from. At what point do we embrace this addiction and allow for a symbiotic relationship, and at what point do we resist?