Videogames are as bad for you as cocaine

Charlie Sheen’s in the news a lot lately, and it’s not because of his overbearing video game habit.  According to one anti-games therapist though, playing video games is as bad as doing lines of cocaine – going so far as to call videogames the “silent killer of this generation.”

“Spending two hours on a game station is equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces in the brain,” therapist Steve Pope told BBC Radio in an interview.

“We’re now onto second generation game station players who have always grown up with it. Computer game addiction can also spiral into violence as after playing violent games, they may turn their fantasy games into reality. “It is the fastest growing addiction in the country and this is affecting young people mentally and physically.”

Hi calls his anti-gaming crusade a “personal quest to spread the message”, and urges parents to “go upstairs to your kids bedroom and try and take the game station controller out of their hands,” convinced that  “in the same way as an alcoholic would if you tried to take their booze – it’s scary”.

Curiously, Pope admits he has no statistics of any sort to back up his claims, and that he’s pretty much pulling this all out of his arse. this leads to me to believe two things : Steve Pope has never played video games, and he’s never done a line of coke. I tried a line of Coke once, but all that happened was the bubbles made my nose tingle.

Source : MCV

Last Updated: March 11, 2011