Game addiction & escapism

"Unable to pass tough university entrance exams and under intense pressure from his parents to study harder, 20-year-old Kim Myung gradually retreated to the one place where he could still feel invincible," reports the Washington Post. That's online alternate-reality games, it adds, not saying which one Kim was into (he gained 10 pounds over four months of subsisting on a bowl of instant noodles a day). "Sociologists and psychiatrists have identified South Korea as the epicenter" of "a game addiction problem … in many industrialized nations… in part because young people here suffer from acute stress as they face educational pressures said to far exceed those endured by their peers in other countries. The country opened its first game-addiction treatment center in 2002, according to the Post, and "hundreds of private hospitals and psychiatric clinics have opened units to treat the problem. Last month, Korea launched a "game addiction hotline." Meanwhile, Europe's first game addiction clinic is scheduled to open next month, Hexus.Gaming reports. It'll be an eight-bed residential unit in Amsterdam, according to the BBC.