Addicted to an Online World

When many people think about videogames, they imagine a thoughtless experience where someone idly plays a game to pass time, compete with friends, or procrastinate from work. But in her book Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle explains how role-playing games and other MUD’s (see this post) have created near-utopian escapes from real life trials and tribulations. Because of the appeal these games have, it is not surprising that people are susceptible to becoming addicted to Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMORPGs).

In this article, Michael Fahey describes the course of an addiction to the MMORPG EverQuest. He explains how, over the course of a mere four months, he managed to lose his girlfriend, car, job – essentially his life, all because he was completely consumed by his life in an online world. At one point he stopped eating, sleeping, or interacting with the people that he loved, all because it would take up time that he could have been spending online in EverQuest. Ultimately, he says, the videogame was not at fault, he was. Personal problems and self-esteem issues drove him to the game, and he found it easier to play the game than address his real life. “I ran from my problems, hiding away in a virtual fantasy world instead of confronting the issues that might have been easily resolved if I had addressed them directly. As far as I am concerned, the only thing Sony Online Entertainment is guilty of is creating a damn good hiding place”.

This story is a fascinating read, and I found myself truly sympathizing with Michael’s problem. But in doing so, I realized, both myself and Michael may have been missing a very important point to consider. Perhaps spending all of his time in a virtual world was not a terrible thing to be doing. How and why do we differentiate our virtual lives from our real ones? Why would it not have been perfectly acceptable for him to have an online job, online girlfriend – to basically spend his main life online?