politik and skool

SO SCHOOL HAS BEGUN.

WORK HARD, PlAY HARD, all. Allocate your time properly.

Season's Greetings

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!

many of you would have gotten some computer games for christmas...remember, work hard, play (not too) hard! play well!

Causes

After a very very long hiatus mostly attributed to the imbalancedness of secondary four life, I am here just to play my little part again! Here is a list of some noteworthy causes dedicated to computer addiction and youth activities, be it local or otherwise:

-TOUCH Youth Centre: Cyber-Wellness & Sports and PLanetCRuSH (http://touch.org.sg)
-Computer Addiction Services(http://www.computeraddiction.com/)
-The Psychiatric Times(and this article: http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p980852.html)
-Community Addiction Management Programme Singapore(www.camp.org.sg)

In addition, since parents play such an important part, parents can also join parental communities and networks where they will be more deeply introduced to their children's psychology and reasons for addiction.

By the way, go google the poem "Addiction" by Kerry Bowden, it is very relevant.

Let's nullify off the Parliament's worry of the rising number of computer addicts, by at least slowing the abovementioned rising. Goodnight!

Hp's Article on MMORPG Addiction

here's an article i wrote for the Rafflesian Times at the start of 2006, about MMORPG addiction. If you didn't read it then, catch it now...




MMORPG Addiction
By: Neo Hui Peng 3L

Kim-Kyung-Jae, a 24-year-old South Korean devotee of online game MU, died of an illness similar to deep vein thrombosis after playing the game virtually non-stop for 86 hours last year. Although his case is indeed an extreme one, the numbers of these cases are not as uncommon as we think they are. Another South Korean 28-year-old man identified only by his surname Lee, collapsed after playing the game Starcraft for over 50 hours non-stop at an internet cafe in the city of Taegu last year as well. He had recently been fired from his job because he kept missing work to play computer games.

MMORPGs are meant to be time-consuming and the success of a MMORPG can be measured by how much people go back and play it. Many youngsters these days believe that they are impervious to such addiction and will never get themselves addicted to online games. As indicated in the previous two cases, this proved fatally untrue. Some of the side effects of this addiction are decreased health, poor work performance, lowered grades at school, and a non-existent social life.

Online computer games are some of the most popular and largest growth areas in interactive entertainment. Players can easily get immersed and feel compelled to play for hours at a stretch, reports of gamers spending 10 to 15 hours a day in front of video games, such as the highly popular World of Warcraft and EverQuest, are becoming more frequent.
Psychologist Professor Mark Griffiths, author of several in-depth studies into online gaming and gambling addiction, told the BBC News website that, according to his research, in one detailed survey of 540 gamers, Professor Griffith and his team found that there were four playing more than 80 hours a week, or for 11to 12 hours a day, which is considered "excessive". The main bulk of addicted people were procrastinators or depressed and lonely people.

He explained many people liked to play MMORPGs for long periods of time because of the social aspect of the games. Unlike help for traditional addictions, such as gambling, there is very little help for computer game addiction, as internet addiction is not treated as seriously as other addictions like drug addiction.

Many players report feeling symptoms of withdrawal when they can't play, and loss of time with friends and family when they do. Sleeping less and constantly thinking about the games they play are other symptoms. While fostering relationships in the game, MMORPG addicts let their real life relationships languish, as well as their jobs, their schoolwork, and their other obligations.

There are several reasons why people are so addicted to MMORPGs. The first and most serious reason being that their online fantasy world is so better to them than the real world. If the online world is so much friendlier and people actually enjoy being with you and playing with you, there is no reason why anyone would want to leave this fantasy world to a real world where he would be neglected. If someone was bullied everyday and school life was so terrible for him, he would surely want to spend as much time as possible in a fantasy world where he could beat up other characters for that feeling of “power”. They spend as much time as possible in their online world to escape from their less-than-enjoyable real world.

The second reason people spend so much time online is due to peer pressure. When you look at your friend’s Ragnarok Online or Maple Story account and notice that he is so much more powerful than you with much better equipment and an with incredibly high attack, you would surely want to spend the rest of the day or week training like mad to match their level.

To me, game addiction should not be based on how many hours a person spends on a particular game but instead on how strongly is a person affected while not playing the game. A gamer playing 2 hours a week could be more addicted than someone who spends more than 18 hours a week. The gamer that spends 20 hours a week on online games but has an active social life and participates actively in co-curricular activities cannot be considered an addict if he is able to remove himself from his online world without suffering withdrawal symptoms when not playing. But a gamer who only gets to play 2 hours a week is considered an addict if he spends the entire day obsessing about his online character and training it. If his obsession causes his relationships to break up and his work to suffer, then that person who plays such a small amount a week is indeed a serious gaming addict.

So I feel the main way to counter-act this serious problem is to change the mindset of gamers. We should make these gamers realise that after all, it IS just a game. And there is no need at all to be so involved and obsessed by training and raising your character’s level. We must be able to make the clear distinction between our online and offline lives and make sure they do not interfere or impede each other.


Take the following test to see if you are addicted to online gaming. If you answer yes to any of the questions, you show signs of addiction and neglect of other aspects of your daily life.

-Do you try to find ways of playing your online game when you're not at home?
-Do you skip appointments, miss classes, or miss days of work because you're at a critical point in your online character's advancement or adventures?
-Do you deny addiction to an MMORPG, but somehow still feel the need to play, or just keep your character and possessions updated (you may be masking it by pretending you're having fun)?
-Do you feel your heart racing as you control your character in fleeing from danger? ...to save his or her virtual life? ...when stumbling upon some serious loot?
-Do you need to play online games with increasing amounts of time in order to achieve the desired excitement?
Are you preoccupied with gaming (thinking about it when offline, anticipating your next online session)?
Have you lied to friends and family members to conceal extent of your online gaming?
-Do you feel restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop online gaming?
Have you made repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop online gaming?
-Do you use gaming as a way of escaping from problems or relieve feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or depression?

Ready For Action

Okay, sorry for the delay but our schedules were very packed. busy school weeks. WE are, however, just finished with our school research project process, and we thank our teacher-mentor, mdm fong say fong for her invaluable guidance throughout the process.

We will be providing the rest of the acknowledgements soon, as well as pictures of our product, which we may or may not be reproducing and taking it further in Singapore.

There are actually good control programs available such as kidswatchtime(www.kidswatch.org) and PC Tattletale. Trial versions are available on many download servers such as www.download.com.sg.

Have a good night(morning)

Leoson

signs of addiction

Now, as a resident guest blogger, I'll talk about the signs of one who is addicted to games. This is not a list taken from any internet website, but rather personal experience, through observing other people and (in the past only okay) myself.

Alright, so these are the signs

1. Going to school feeling extremely lethargic. Like you don't wanna do anything, and just laze around. But once the dismissal bell rings at the end of school, you feel energized, and want to rush home straight away, turn on your computer, and start playing.

2. You think and visualize about games all day long, strategies, visualizing yourself doing what you do in the games, and every hack and slash is recorded in your mind. You daydream in school, in classes, and think about what you can achieve today in your game.

3. You'll be skipping any extra activity that might intrude on your playing time. E.g. CCA, Remedial lessons, other tuition lessons, or music. You'll come up with excuses such as, oh, I'm not feeling well today, and, um, I have this scratch here below my finger, see? So I can't play the piano. You'll find yourself coming up with dozens of excuses to skip those activities.

4. You'll feel as if you're the character in the game all the time. You seem to change your hairstyle to suit the character, walk like it, and even do some hand actions that might look like how the character does it. If its a game that includes magical skills, you will visualize yourself doing it, i.e. holding out your hands, and seemingly willing something to come out, like in the games.

5. You will feel bad-tempered and extremely irritated when your parents or friends call you in the middle of a game. You ignore then and even scream back at them when they ask you to do something other than playing games. In this stage, you are heavily addicted to the particular game, and you would almost need counselling help.

I hope this has been helpful. Good luck countering your addiction!

8 Reasons

8 Reasons why we play computer games concluded by Peng Seng:

1)Peer Pressure
2)A way to destress
3)The addictive nature of the computer game itself
4)Computer games seen as trendy or cool
5)Using computer games as a way to fit into a group of people
6)Ability to 'own' others; such as being able to laugh at others for their incompetence in the game itself.
7)Ability to do what they cannot do in reality in computer games; such as have an alter ego and be able to use 'skills'
8)To meet others.

fight the devil within and win.

Leoson