Yesterday, I wrote about the controversy surrounding the remarks of a Chinese university professor and supposed gaming addiction expert Tao Hongkai. Before we go any further, though, in case you missed that post here’s what Tao said again. This was printed, verbatim, in one of China’s largest newspapers:
“The damage that violent web games does to players’ brains is like the influence of opium on the brain of an addict; this shows that violent web games are internet opium, spiritual narcotics. Earning a living playing web games is like being a drug dealer; this way of living can only harm others and harm yourself.”
Yesterday, I described this argument as “total and complete bullshit,” and while that probably suffices, I can’t resist the urge to go deeper. I honestly think that what Tao said is so stupid, so manipulatively idiotic that he should be stripped of his professorship and degrees and ordered to spend the rest of his life playing some horribly buggy third-rate MMORPG with only NPCs to talk to. That’s not going to happen, of course. But here’s why I think it should.
First of all, let’s talk about brain damage. There’s little evidence that gaming, violent or otherwise, causes any damage to the brain. Some studies do say that violent games can affect changes in the brain, although whether that’s true and how long those changes persist is still a matter of some debate. But the word Tao used suggests actual damage, physical harm. I can find little evidence of that, other than a 2007 study from Taiwan with an extremely small sample size.
Phineas Gage knows that real brain damage comes from having an iron spike fired through your head, not from playing violent video games.
But of course, Tao is may not really be suggesting that games cause brain damage, he’s simply trying to make an analogy between game addiction and addiction to narcotic drugs like opium. This, however, is nonsense. While games can certainly be addictive, there is a difference between the I-can’t-stop-it kind of addiction and the complete chemical dependence kind of addiction associated with opiates. Or, to put it another way, the withdrawal symptoms from game addiction are pretty much all psychological: irritability, mood swings, anger. But the symptoms of opioid withdrawal are in a whole other league: muscle and bone pain, tachycardia, vomiting, diarrhea, etc.
This difference is the reason that substance addiction is treated differently from purely psychological addictions like gaming or gambling addiction, and it’s the reason why Tao’s comparison is utter bullshit. In comparing gaming addiction to opium addiction, he conjures up the image of weakened 19th century Chinese lazing about in their opium dens while foreigners ransack the country. But gaming addiction is an entirely different sort of affliction.
Moving on, though, Tao says that “earning a living playing web games is like being a drug dealer” because by doing things like selling items to other gamers, you are providing them with fuel for their addiction. But this assertion, too, falls apart under even the most basic logical inquiry. After all, if providing customers with a potentially addictive product makes you a drug dealer, then every shopkeep that stocks beer or cigarettes (which in China is pretty much every shop everywhere) is a drug dealer, too. So is every teahouse waitress and Starbucks barista (caffeine can be addictive, too). And of course, those are just a few of the physically addictive things that are sold regularly; it’s possible to become psychologically addicted to just about anything. If your only criteria for being a drug dealer is being involved in an industry that sells a product that may be addictive to some people, then almost everyone is a drug dealer.
Et tu, grocery store cashier?
People in the games industry — both developers and professional gamers — are not drug dealers and more than the kid at the register scanning your six-pack of beer is a drug dealer. We as a society have almost universally decided that while some things are simply too addictive and harmful to permit (opium being one of them in most countries), for the most part, it’s up to individuals to control their own impulses, or to seek help if they cannot. Most people who play games will never become addicted; should we ban games entirely because addiction does afflict an unlucky few? Should we condemn the people who work hard creating and playing these games just because some people have trouble stopping?
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