Online games play a massive role in the entertainment lives of teenagers and adults today. Whether it be from simple games like Facebook's Farmville to the most extreme and time consuming games like World of Warcraft, online gaming can turn into more than just simple fun. So when does just playing these games turn into a true addiction?

     An online game addiction is when someone cannot stop playing a game or when they give such a massive amount of their time to the game that they give up everything else. Starting to play an online game is very easy, but these simple games can lead to a serious addiction because of the easy reward system that many of the games implement. However ridiculous it sounds, the danger of becoming addicted to online gaming is real.

     There's been a ton of news about cases where people get extremely addicted to an online game. In South Korea, an adult couple abandoned their 3-month-old child to go to an internet cafe to play an online game. The child later died from malnutrition. In addition, a Chinese man died after playing an online game persistently for over two weeks during a holiday. Those are just a few examples of how serious an online gaming addiction can be.

     I also had an online game addiction. When I was at my peak of playing, I was playing around 20-30 hours at a time before I would take a break. I stopped caring about everything else in the world. I was drinking around 10 or more cans of soda a day to stay awake so I could keep playing, letting dishes pile up and grow mold in my room.

     My friend also had an addiction to the same game (we were trying to max out our skill levels together) but it was to a lesser extant. I remember him being consistently logged on in the hours before and after he went to school. I was online the entire time with him. We kept this up for a good three months or so before we stopped.

     Solving an online game addiction is not as simple as you may think. My friend and I stopped our addiction from just playing way to much and burning out, but there are more effective ways of helping an online game addiction. One way to help is to confront them about the addiction because it could bring it to their attention and make them realize what they are doing to themselves. Another way is to forcefully take them away from the game, but this can lead to extreme outbursts of anger and violence.

     The last and most effective way to help an online game addiction is to not get addicted in the first place. It's very simple, play in moderation so that the game doesn't effect your life but you can still enjoy playing the game.