Doctors backed away on Sunday from a controversial proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder akin to alcoholism, saying psychiatrists should study the issue more. Addiction experts also strongly opposed the idea at a debate at the American Medical Association's annual meeting.

They said more study is needed before excessive use of video and online games - a problem that affects about 10 percent of players - could be considered a mental illness.

"There is nothing here to suggest that this is a complex physiological disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders, and it doesn't get to have the word addiction attached to it," said Dr. Stuart Gitlow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

A committee of the influential physicians' group had proposed video game addiction be listed as a mental disorder in the American Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, a guide used by the American Psychiatric Association in diagnosing mental illness.

According to a 10 page report released by an American Medical Association committee, excessive video game playing leads to social dysfunction. As a result the committee is recommending it to become a formal disorder in the upcoming revision of the 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV.' In the report a heavy video game user plays for more than two hours per day. This in turn leads to negative actions such as aggressive thoughts and aggressive behaviors. The report also compares video game addiction with that of pathological gambling.

According to Sophos' latest press release Administrators will be able to block network traffic essential for the multiplayer online game Second Life using Sophos Antivirus very soon. The implementation of its application control ability allows to control which websites and online applications can be accessed using the PC. This service, which intention it is to raise productivity in companies, will start with integration of the 'Second Life'-strings into the usual updates on 22nd of March.
That is a pretty unusual approach - Second Life might have 4 Million users. But only around 25000 can be seen online at the same time at most. They should have started with World of Warcraft which has around 2 Million users online everytime. I don't get the hype around Second Life. It's hideous and there is nothing really appealing in it. But that might just be me...

You don't like fantasy role playing games like World Of Warcraft and the graphical impression Second Life (say hello to 1992 vector graphics) gives is not to your taste? Then maybe you should get a picture of Outback Online which is not possible at the very moment because of missing screenshots or even a playable version. But the fuss it's creators at Yoick.com low down at Australia are generating at the written and online press is immense.

"We believe what Second Life did was great, but it's time for 'virtual worlds 2.0' . . . unlimited, open, scalable worlds."

The Age

Anyway, if you like to you can sign up for a beta account over here.

It seems like sometimes you simply cannot get between a teenager and their iPod. Frank Burd, A 60 year old teacher in Germantown, Pennsylvania, confiscated one of his 14-year-old student's iPod's. The student, infuriated, came back with one of his 11th-grade friends, and proceeded to break Mr.Burd's neck in two places. Fortunately, Mr.Burd's condition is stable and improving. The two delinquents will be charged as adults in court.

Edit:
Some details have come to light that detail exactly why Mr. Burd took away the iPod. The ignorant freshman had decided to blast his music at maximum volume, for the sake of disrupting class. After several warnings, Mr.Burd took away the iPod with the intent to give it back to him after class. Upon the ending of class, Mr.Burd was assaulted by the freshman and his 11th-grade friend before he had the chance to give back the iPod. The rest of the story is as posted above...Mr.Burd's neck is broken in two places, the two delinquents will be charged as adults, and Mr.Burd's condition continues to improve.

Anyone who's played Zelda: Twilight Princess knows that it is an extraordinarily long game, filled with a lot of events that contribute to the plot. It also has a ton of dialog, which would be a real pain to memorize, let alone write down. Yet strangely, a man has somehow find the passion and the disturbing amount of spare time to do just that. This man, who prefers to remain anonymous, claims he can "probably recite every line of dialog front and back while burping, and can espouse all the crazy timeline theories that abound and what it all means in the grand scheme of things". In the event that someone may not want to listen to all this/have time to do so, he wrote the script down as a very long text file, which can be grabbed off of Neoseeker.

A study spanning over 10 years has figured out that procrastination is on the rise. The problems with this aren't very hard to figure out. If people are constantly distracting themselves from what needs to get done, then not only does the procrastinated project seem rushed and of poor quality, but procrastinators are making themselves fatter, more stressed, and poorer. The problems with procrastination aren't just on a personal scale. People who procrastinate on their taxes are estimated lose an estimated $400 a year. Professor Steel, who helped conduct the study, claims "That stupid game Minesweeper -- that probably has cost billions of dollars for the whole society." While some people would ask why people procrastinate in the first place, the real question should be "why not?", as distractions are as close as the start menu on most home and office computers. Over 26% of Americans admit to being chronic procrastinators.

Blizzard studios has announced that over eight million people world wide have active World of Warcraft accounts, are in the middle of their trial month, or have accessed World of Warcraft in the past 30 days. This translates to roughly 2 million subscribers in North America, 1.5 million in Europe, and 3.5 million in China. The North American figures show that statistically, 1 in every 167 people owns a World of Warcraft account.

Joel Zumaya, relief pitcher for the Detroit Tigers, was unable to play three baseball games during this major league season. The reason? He had apparently played too much Guitar Hero, and hurt his wrist in a manner that rendered him unable to play. The Tigers asked Zumaya to stop playing Guitar Hero, and he quickly recovered. He played in the world series pain-free, can throw a baseball more then 100 MPH, and was 6-3 with a 1.94 ERA in 2006.

The Fairtrade Foundation, which was funded by the World Development Movement (WDM), placed a very interesting billboard in the game Second Life.While it is not easily seen, at the bottom of the billboard is a very interesting counter. It counts how many preventable child deaths occur while people game away in virtual environments such as Second Life (one every three seconds). WDM's Peter Taylor said:

Millions of people are now spending more and more of their time in Second Life or similar virtual environments. We are here to remind them that they can't escape the problems of the real world.

The WDM founded the Fairtrade Foundation, which aims to help eliminate poverty and debt. The WDM is asking Second Life "residents" to remember reality and donate.