South Korea & Gaming Addiction By Kay Ray

Summary: In South Korea, a curfew has been imposed on computer games as many youths, such as Yoon Hyuk-joo, a 16-year-old in Seoul, is addicted to computer games and his studies took the backseat. Youths, especially high-school students, have been addicted to popular online computer games such as StarCraft. Psychologists estimate that 10% of schoolchildren are showing tendencies of being addicted to computer games, thought by some psychiatrists to be one of the highest, globally. 

Opinion:

I think that more and more people in South Korea is getting addicted to computer games. The following are some cases that I read. The police discovered a 3-month-old baby who starved to death while her parents were busy nurturing their virtual baby on a game at an Internet café. This shows that not only youths, but also parents are addicted to computer games. They rather nurture their virtual baby than their live baby at home. Not only youths are addicted to the computer games, even parents. In February, a 22-year-old Korean man was charged with murdering his mother after she pestered him to stop playing. Even adults are addicted. Another case in 2005, a 28-year old man died of cardiac arrest after playing StarCraft for 50 hours straight with a few bathroom breaks. I think South Korea should impose a strong curfew to cut off all internet throughout the whole country after office hours. The addictions got so serious that even people would rather play computer games than fulfil their daily needs like going to the bathroom, sleeping and eating. I think South Korea should build more centers to treat computer addictions as the treatment centers try to not let the patients spend too much time on computer games but other activities to keep their minds off computer games.