We know that no one is immune to the enjoyment of video games. And they can get you hooked for life.
There's been some flap by university heads in Minnesota that students obsessed with playing World of Warcraft are dropping out of college.
So much so that WoW is now on the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) radar. It's noteworthy that a video game's phenomenal success and popularity -- in this case, in a negative light -- is even mentioned at all by the FCC Commissioner.
Deborah Taylor Tate stated at a recent telecom policy and regulation speech:
"You might find it alarming that one of the top reasons for college drop-outs in the U.S. is online gaming addiction - such as World of Warcraft - which is played by 11 million individuals worldwide."
Once again, here's another incident where a problem is being blamed on the wrong source.
The FCC is wrong for citing WoW specifically. With due respect to players everywhere who are enthusiastic and competitive, and have tremendous love for the game, it's not any video game that causes a student to drop out of school. It's that student who lacks priorities and self control, who lets his/her studies go by the way side, that flunks out of school. That's the consequence of staying up and doing anything for hours on end -- other than school work.
To reverse a sage hip-hop adage, "'Don't blame the game. Blame the playah."
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