Hey! You! Get off of the game box! Or at least, get off of it after using the machine for an hour and 59 minutes. Why so? According to Steve Pope, a counselor and therapist in the United Kingdom, if you gamed for two hours, you just did the equivalent of a line of cocaine.
DUN DUN DUNDUNDUNNNNNNNNN.
“A lot of young people get themselves into a situation where they use video games as an escape from the world and they get hooked on the release of adrenaline it gives,” says Pope. “Spending two hours on a game station is equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces.”
Pope goes on to claim that gaming is the “fastest growing addiction” in the UK and is affecting youth mentally as well as causing problems like obesity.
“I saw one 14-year-old Preston boy who played on games for 24 hours non stop and had not eaten and was showing signs of dehydration,” he adds. “When his parents tried to take his console away, he became aggressive and threatened to jump out of a window.”
There are also children, he warns, that have been stealing from their parents to buy video games. Just imagine if they were actually doing coke! There are even therapists who are addicted to making all sorts of melodramatic claims. Shock! Shock and horror!
Clearly, gaming is one helluva drug.