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Wednesday, January 3, 2001

Some kids on way to video addiction

By ANNE GEGGIS | News-Journal Staff Writer

DAYTONA BEACH — Sherie Brown looks warily at the screen that both her sons are glued to as each jiggles a joystick to make their cartoon character bonk the other, either with a swift kick or a fist swing.

Electronic hiccups and burps spew from the TV when a hit is scored. Beyond that, though, the room is completely quiet. "Super Smash Brothers" appears to have mesmerized these two, Tyler, 12, and Travis, 7, into silence.

"If they got away with what they wanted to do, they'd be at it 24 hours a day," sighs Brown, a Port Orange mother, who works as an assistant to a hotel general manager. Once, she lifted the customary limit on their game-playing just to see what would happen. "It was a marathon," she says.

Since "Pong" -- the world's first home video game -- debuted in 1972, video games have quickly found a place hooked into Americans' TV sets -- and psyches. Mario and Pikachu have become as familiar to today's kids as Mickey and Bugs were to the generation before. Video games, in their 30 years of existence, have come from obscurity to consume more than 30 percent of the U.S. toy market -- about $6.9 billion a year.

And this year's impossible-to-get-gift, Sony PlayStation 2, sold out in 30 seconds on the Amazon web site and propelled a round of bidding on a local radio station that ended with a $1,500 donation to the Children's Miracle Network for the $299 video game platform.

Brown, who limits her sons to two hours a day of gaming and forbids what she considers realistically violent games like that of Mortal Kombat, says she's been aware of video games' addictive powers from the get-go -- since her twin brothers first brought home "Pong."

"My mother yelled out, Christmas dinner is on the table. Can you come?' Brown recalls with a smile. "They'd yell back, 'In a minute.' "

Too often, parents fail to see a problem taking shape as their children become more expert at scoring points and accumulating "extra life" in the virtual world, says Regenia Proskine, clinical director of The House Next Door, a nonprofit counseling center in DeLand.

"I don't think people realize how addicted their kids get to video games," Proskine says. "When there was pinball in the arcades, you could play 50 cents or $1 and then you had to learn to stop because your parents wouldn't give you any more money and the game was over. With video games, the game is never over. You play and play until you've mastered the skill."

Although she grants that these games can improve hand-eye coordination and encourage kids to focus, Proskine points out that most of the students involved in the mass school shootings that occurred between 1997 and 1999 were heavily involved in video gaming.

"That's something we have to pay attention to," she says.

Matthew Falanga, 14, is just enthralled by the realistic graphics of a new game he found under the tree, SSX Snowboarding. He was one of the few to find a Sony PlayStation 2 - his sixth video game system - under the tree along with five new games to go with it.

"You can crash into trees, you can do tricks," enthuses Matthew, a DeLand High School freshman who's been exercising his joystick moves since the age of 4. "My dad yells at me if I stay on more than three hours. It's the challenge that keeps you going."

Studies show that teenage boys are the most susceptible to video game seduction. Being fully grown doesn't make one immune, however. Chuck Cohen, a Port Orange car salesman, found himself spending hour upon hour with the Sega Network after his 11-year-old son had gone to bed.

"One night I went in there and almost had an epileptic fit," says Cohen, 46.

Trying to keep his son, Scott, away from the more addictive material, Cohen doesn't allow the boy to play games that entail entering a fantasy world.

"It's hard to get compulsive about 'Monopoly' but it's easier to get into something like, 'Dungeons and Dragons'," he says.

For Maressa Hecht Orzack, however, a simple game of computer solitaire led her to start Computer Addiction Services at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. The Harvard Medical School faculty member says becoming obsessed with these games is often a way of avoiding some other issues - in her case, frustration with a computer program at work.

"Many times these kids have had long histories of depression, low self-esteem, or they are very bright and bored in school," Orzack says, adding that video game addiction can be particularly difficult to treat because, like eating, there's no way for most people to avoid computers entirely.

Colby Paiva of DeLand says he's in it for the fun. He plays on both his Nintendo 64 and a laptop computer. Christmas brought him The Sims, a game in which he sets up a simulated family. He said he knows when it's time to quit.

"Sometimes my thumb will get tired from clicking a lot," he says. "Sometimes you can also get that dry feeling in your eyes, because you're blinking so much from staring."

Warning signs of video game addiction

Computer Addiction Services at McLean Hospital has compiled a list of danger signs that indicate video game use might be getting out of control:

-- Having a sense of well-being or euphoria while at the computer.

-- Inability to stop the activity.

-- Craving more and more time at the computer.

-- Neglect of family and friends.

-- Feeling empty, depressed, irritable when not at the computer.

-- Lying to employers and family about activities.

-- Problems with school or job.

-- Carpal tunnel syndrome.

-- Dry eyes.

-- Migraine headaches.

-- Back aches.

-- Eating irregularities, such as skipping meals.

-- Failure to attend to personal hygiene.

-- Sleep disturbances, change in sleep patterns.

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