'Videogame addiction' in Korea

The addiction question is a perennial, most recently raised again by the Associated Press in Seoul. There appear to be downsides to being "the world's most wired country," in which 70% of the population has broadband Net access. Korea is where a 28-year-old cybercafe gamer died after nearly 50 straight hours of playing the multiplayer online game Starcraft (see our coverage) and where 27-year-old Jun, who led the article, kicked his gaming habit after getting head and shoulder aches from playing for 15 hours at a stretch. South Korea has 17 million gamers, the AP reports, "some 35% of the population, principally males in their teens and twenties." It adds that, "at the 1,000 won-per-hour ($1) Internet cafes popular among young South Koreans, they'll sit eyes glued to monitors for hours on end." One wonders where the parents are, at least for the gamers in their teens. Excess, not the games themselves, seem to be more causative, but environment seems to be a factor too - time spent in a space that's very supportive of excessive gaming, where a gamer's budget seems to be the only restriction. Korean psychologists are getting concerned, according to the AP. "The number of counseling sessions for game addiction quadrupled last year," reports the AP, citing government figures.