HEY NERD, YOU'RE NO ADDICT

Nine out 10 compulsive gamers are not addicts according to Europe's only dedicated clinic for treating games addicts.

The Smith & Jones Centre in Amsterdam was set up by Keith Bakker in 2006 and, despite having successfully treated hundreds of people addicted to computer games, he maintains that they are not addicts. Instead, their compulsive gaming can be attributed to their social environment/experiences. This has resulted in the clinic changing its treatment to reflect that their compulsive gaming is a social problem, not a psychological one.


Bakker says addiction counselling is no longer the best way to treat those people that spend 4 hours or more every day playing games like World Of Warcraft and others.

"These kids come in showing some kind of symptoms that are similar to other addictions and chemical dependencies, he told BBC News. "But the more we work with these kids these less I believe we can call this addiction. What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers - this is a social problem."

He added:

"This gaming problem is a result of the society we live in today. Eighty per cent of the young people we see have been bullied at school and feel isolated. Many of the symptoms they have can be solved by going back to good old fashioned communication."

Any compulsive gamers out there want to share their view? As a former World Of Warcraft crackhead, cold turkey was the only thing that worked.