Best of all, 2-cent managed to get Scholastic to donate nearly 1,000 books to an elementary school in New Orleans. Incidentally, I too wish I could read every book in the world. But in the meantime, I’d settle for Lil Wayne and Drake taking a break from their idiocy long enough to read one…

My hypothesis is that ADHD is not a disorder at all, but one manifestation of a shift in global consciousness. I am not suggesting anything metaphysical here, rather that the proliferation of technology – particularly that which allows access to information and/or stimulation – has dramatically changed human behavior and interaction.

That the increasing prevalence of ADHD is most visible amongst the youth population only reinforces this possibility, as children have not merely been acclimated to this new technological climate, but are being born into it. A correlation has already been drawn between the mass proliferation of television and the increased need for immediate gratification. Before television, or even radio, the only way to acquire information privately was to read, which for anyone takes considerably longer than receiving the same information from electronic media. If one becomes accustomed to acquiring and accessing information at high speeds, they will have little patience for slower content delivery methods.

This shift from delayed to immediate gratification can occur in a short span of time. Consider the ease and complacency with which we once surfed the internet using a dial-up connection. Slow as it may have been, it allowed us access to a great deal of information much faster than reading a book, and faster still than searching a library for the particular books containing the information we sought. For those of us who have moved on from dial-up to DSL or Cable or even T-1 internet connections, going back to dial-up is unconscionable. We might even feel more inclined to read a book than to wait minutes for a single web page to load.

Now imagine a child who has only ever known this fast-paced information-saturated environment, with television, internet, and video games providing instant stimulation. Where it is difficult for those of us who have witnessed the progression of information delivery systems to regress to slower formats, it may be near impossible for children who have only ever known this environment to do the same.

High speed, even instant, delivery of information has also created an environment in which people are accessing larger quantities of data from multiple sources. We have, out of necessity, learned to navigate tremendous amounts of information for the particular bits we need, to filter out – with varying degrees of success – that which we do not need. We are inundated by information – willingly and not – from everywhere, creating a veritable culture of information.

An analog can be found through comparing the everyday behavior of people in a major city to that of people in a smaller town. In a smaller town, people may take the time to greet and socialize with many, if not most, of the other people they encounter. Invariably, all things move at a slower pace – travel, commerce, conversation. A large city on the other hand is likely to be the opposite – faster driving, high-speed marketplace transactions, and shorter conversations conducted using faster speech. It is likely that the average person in a larger city will completely ignore the vast majority of the people they pass on the street, not necessarily out of any disinclination to communicate, but because they have learned – out of necessity – to filter out most people, due to there being so many of them. Were they to stop and talk to even a small percentage of those they passed, they would not get anything else done.

People from large cities who visit small towns often experience impatience and frustration with the slower pace. They may even become annoyed or flippant with the people of that town for being attentive, for conversing or providing a service more slowly. They are, unlike the citizens of the small town, accustomed to high-paced interactions, to multi-tasking, to people and information filtering. For the people of the small town, those from the city may seem to have short attention spans, or even to be rude.

In truth, their methods, and even reasons, for interacting with others are simply very different. A conversation for a person in a large city is just as likely to serve a very particular purpose as it is to be for socializing. Often times in a large city, one person approaches another out of a specific need, and once that need is fulfilled, or once it is evident that the other cannot fulfill the need, the person moves on. People from the city do not have shorter attention spans, they are simply accustomed to shorter and more purposeful conversations, as opposed to talking for its own sake. It is for this same reason that people in larger cities tend to be more cynical of those who approach them, as chances are good that the other wants something other than casual conversation.

Television – and more so the internet – have had the effect of bringing the “big city environment” into every setting where they are available. No matter where we are, we are able to communicate with many people – often simultaneously and often in short bursts – at the same time that we access and parse through huge amounts of information. We have the ability to accept or filter out as much or as little information as we want, and that time allows.

Many of the elder population, and those simply out of touch with these sweeping changes in the global society for other reasons, find it very difficult to jump right in and participate, as this new high-speed environment is completely unlike what they know. Conversely, children born into this environment cannot conceive of an environment of slow and sustained conversation, gradual acquisition of information, and overall delayed gratification. To those on the outside, these children may seem to have short attention spans, but actually they have learned to divide their attention amongst multiple people and activities simultaneously.

In the academic setting, where the concerns around ADHD are greatest, this apparent “attention deficit” may correspond to missed opportunities for learning. I would argue, however, that these missed opportunities do not represent any deficiency or disability on the part of the child, but the failure of educators and administrators to evolve their content delivery methods in accordance with the larger social shifts.

Many current educators have been teaching for a long time, their careers encompassing the shift from the slower-paced low-information climate to the high-speed information-saturated environment. They may or may not have personally evolved to be able to navigate the new environment, but either way, they are not likely to have changed their teaching methods, which have become routine, and in most cases conform to rigid district, state, and federal standards.

Because the environmental shift occurred in a relatively short time span, it likely caught educators and parents off-guard. In only a few years, they witnessed – but may not have consciously acknowledged – a major change in the needs of their students, new needs that could no longer be met by the old practices.

If children have been born into, or have become accustomed to navigating large amounts of information – information they they want to receive – in a short time, they are likely to be impatient where information they do not even value is being provided to them over a long stretch of time. They may, to teachers, parents, and psychologists – all invariably of the “old guard” – appear to have short attention spans, or an “attention deficit”.

Have you ever observed a young person comfortable within this new technology-saturated environment? Have you ever seen one text message on a cell phone, while communicating in 5 separate instant messaging windows on a computer, while playing an online video game, taking a break only perhaps to look up an FAQ for that game, or to post their progress on Twitter or Facebook? This is hardly an exaggeration, as even I – an adult who has managed to adapt to the sociotechnological shift – perform similar feats on a regular basis.

And children born into it are far more efficient than I could hope to be. Would you consider such incredible multi-tasking an attention deficit, or could you perhaps acknowledge that these individuals have a talent for dividing their attention between multiple people, across several tasks, and all at high speed and with lightning efficiency?

This is something that I intend to investigate further, for if my hypothesis is correct, and ADHD is a misdiagnosis, then a great deal of time, money, and resources are being allocated towards a dead end.

However, there are reasons to suspect that even were my hypothesis to be verified, or even if it illuminated some new possibilities for ADHD diagnosis and treatment, that the current approach would not change at all. Why? Because like everything else, ADHD has become a market – a market that has produced billions of dollars for pharmaceutical and insurance companies.

Some data from the Centers for Disease Control:

• Using a prevalence rate of 5%, the annual societal ‘‘cost of illness’’ for ADHD is estimated to be between $36 and $52 billion, in 2005 dollars. It is estimated to be between $12,005 and $17,458 annually per individual.
• There were an estimated 7 million ambulatory care visits for ADHD in 2006.
• The total excess cost of ADHD in the US in 2000 was $31.6 billion. Of this total, $1.6 billion was for the treatment of patients, $12.1 billion was for all other healthcare costs of persons with ADHD, $14.2 billion was for all other healthcare costs of family members with ADHD, and $3.7 billion was for the work loss cost of adults with ADHD and adult family members of persons with ADHD.
• ADHD creates a significant financial burden regarding the cost of medical care and work loss for patients and family members. The annual average direct cost for each per ADHD patient was $1,574, compared to $541 among matched controls. The annual average payment (direct plus indirect cost) per family member was $2,728 for non-ADHD family members of ADHD patients versus $1,440 for family members of matched controls.

Source: CDC

The preoccupation with an imaginary “deficiency” overlooks a real social shift, one that if acknowledged and adapted to, could enable parents, educators, and society as a whole to better meet the evolving needs of children in the short term, and for the whole of society in the long term.

Some questions whose answers might inform my hypothesis:

1. Is ADHD as prevalent, or does it even exist, in low-technology environments?

2. Are children diagnosed with ADHD proficient in the use of data technology (text messaging, internet, video games)?

3. Is the proportion of students diagnosed with ADHD higher in larger cities than in small towns?

I’ve long understood that language and thought are two sides of the same coin, meaning that language acquisition is critical to learning.  For students from other countries who come to live and learn in the United States, their ability to speak – and think – in English is vital in determining their success academically and in their future lives as participants in our society.  I have never been of the ethnocentric mindset that non-English speakers should learn English out of some obligation to the country or its citizens.  I think that it is well within a person’s rights to maintain their first language and never learn of bit of English, if they are able to live comfortably while doing so.  Where an inability to speak English inconveniences native English speakers, as happens often enough in customer service scenarios, it is not the fault of the non-English speaker, but of the company that hired the worker in a capacity where speaking English was important.  After all, where customer support lines are outsourced to other countries, it has nothing to do with customer convenience, and everything to do with the company maintaining their bottom line – that is, saving money.

What’s important is that we recognize that all language has equal value within its own cultural context.  For non-English speakers who live in and work in settings where English is not used or even necessary, it certainly should not be required.  Any talk of English being the “official” language of the United States is nothing less than xenophobic nonsense.

However, there is much to be said about the practicality of learning and using English in contemporary American society.  Because of the great cultural plurality that makes up the United States milieu, it can be expected that there would be a common language to allow all of its disparate members to communicate.  English is as good a choice of any, and is in fact the best choice, if only because it is the language of academia and of commerce.  This means that in order for people to have equal access to education, and to be well-positioned to participate in the U.S. economy, it is important for them to learn English – and not just any English, but Standard American English (SAE). This is not about acquiescing to the prejudices of those who devalue other languages, but for the the obvious utility of knowing the language that undergirds American society.

Considering these things brought me to the idea of designating speakers of African-American Vernacular English as what Education calls “English Language Learners (ELLs), meaning that they should participate in programs teaching English as a second language (ESL).  Thirteen years ago, the Oakland Unified School District passed a resolution that said that “Ebonics” – coterminous with  AAVE – would be recognized as a language distinct from English, and that speakers of AAVE would be eligible for programs geared towards ELLs.  At that time – mind you I was eighteen years old, uneducated, and self-righteous, a dangerous combination – I dismissed the Oakland resolution as so much nonsense.  At that time, and well into my college years, I maintained that there was no such thing as AAVE, that it was little more than slang, or at my most thoughtful  that it was a variation of English that resulted from socioeconomic inequality.  For those reasons I thought it should not be recognized as a language, and I thought that doing so would only perpetuate a situation where African-Americans were not learning Standard American English.

It has been a frequent occurrence of late for me to come to a position in my adult life that is the complete opposite of my position in earlier years, and every time it has occurred I have been able to attribute the difference to the profound ignorance of my youth.  By this I do not mean that I “came around” to an “adult” way of thinking, but literally that I was ignorant – I simply did not have the information needed to even take a position on a given issue.  Such is the case again with AAVE and its recognition as a language.  Imagine my dismay to discover that my own attitudes towards AAVE were rooted in racism – a subtle form of racism that devalues something due to its association with a group of people.  Regarding AAVE not as a language, or worse, as some mutant or inferior variant, stems from the institutionalized idea that African-Americans and their culture are some perversion of humanity or American culture.

If you reject that idea outright, consider how you or others use the word “ghetto” – invariably to refer to something of inferior quality.  And although the term came into use first to describe ethnically homogenous neighborhoods – especially Jewish ones – in the common parlance of today, “ghetto” refers to low-income African-American neighborhoods.  So, if “ghetto” in some way equates to African-American or “black”, and it is used to describe something inferior, then what does that say to you?  Think about it carefully.  It is also similar to the current trend of referring to unfavorable things as “gay” – equating homosexuality with the negative.  AAVE, for its association with African-Americans, is regarded as inferior.

What I failed to understand thirteen years ago when the Oakland “controversy” first made headlines, is that recognizing AAVE as a language did not preclude African-American students learning Standard American English.  This was a misunderstanding shared by Jesse Jackson, who I mention here only for his questionable designation as an important “black leader”.

Jackson said:

“I understand the attempt to reach out to these children, but this is an unacceptable surrender, borderlining on disgrace. It’s teaching down to our children.”

[...]

“They cannot get a job at NBC or CBS or ABC unless they can master this language, and I’ll tell you they can master it if they are challenged to do so.”

These words indicate that Jackson – along with so many others – completely misunderstood the OUSD resolution.  Far from “surrender”, the resolution was empowering to African-American students in a number of ways. As stated by TESOL – the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages:

TESOL affirms that the variety of English known as African American Vernacular English, Black English, Ebonics and sometimes by other names, has been shown through research to be a rule-governed, linguistic system, with itsown lexical, phonological, syntactic and discourse patterns and, thus, deserves pedagogical recognition.

The Board notes that effective educational programs recognize and value the linguistic systems that children bring to school. Their programs use these linguistics systems as an aid and resource to facilitate the acquisition of Standard American English. Research and experience have shown that children learn best if teachers respect the home language and use it as a bridge in teaching the language of the school and wider society. Likewise, if the children’s cultural and social backgrounds are valued, their self-respect and self-confidence are affirmed and new learning is facilitated.

Because language and thought are closely related, the achievement disparity between African-American and Euro-American students, sometimes falsely attributed to genetic differences, likely has more to do with the language disparity.  If African-American students are speaking and thinking in AAVE, but are being assessed academically in Standard American English, then it is only logical to expect that those students would be at a disadvantage – the same disadvantage faced by students of other languages.

Now here you may be thinking that it’s a stretch to compare African-American students who speak AAVE, which is by definition a different form of English, to students from other countries who speak languages completely unlike English.  To say that a student who only speaks Spanish is in the same position as the student who speaks AAVE would be a stretch, and so that’s not at all the point I am trying to make.

The fact – and this is perhaps the essential point of this essay -  is that different students, varying by background, economic status, and other factors, for their differences have different needs.  When it comes to language differences, educators recognize that English-language learners arrive in their classrooms at different levels of proficiency in speaking English.  Most school districts identify and categorize students within different proficiency levels, ranging from “pre-emergent” – meaning that they do not speak any English – to “proficient”, meaning that they have a mastery of English equal to that of native speakers.  There are varying levels between pre-emergent and proficient, such as basic, intermediate, and advanced.  Most districts test their ELLs to determine their level upon entering school, with the expectation that they show adequate progress and within a few years time reach English proficiency.

The Oakland resolution intended to take this same approach with its African-American students, that is, to ensure that they had access to those resources that amend the language disparity between AAVE and SAE.  It is a given that students with no knowledge of English have a special need for English acquisition, but what is taken for granted is that all students born and raised in America should speak and have mastered standard American English, an idea that completely ignores the cultural diversity of the United States, including the different languages that are spoken here.

Beyond recognizing AAVE as a separate language for theoretical purposes, I suspect that were students who speak AAVE as their first (or only) language to be tested for English proficiency the same way as students from other countries, we may find that many of them test below the “proficient” designation.  Ordinarily it is up to parents to tell the school districts whether or not their children will need ESL accommodations, but because those needs may not even recognized by the parents – let alone school administrators – many students are held to the proficient standard even where they are not proficient.  Where AAVE is dismissed as a mere dialect or slang, the needs around English language acquisition are ignored, and the achievement gap is attributed either to economic differences or genetic deficiency.

Thirteen years after the Oakland resolution, even though I find myself doing a 180 degree turn and supporting it instead of denouncing it, there are a few places where my thoughts still diverge, and where I still maintain some of my earlier positions.  The Oakland resolution stated that AAVE has a basis in the the languages of West Africa, particularly the Niger-Congo languages, and it is for that reason that it should be recognized as a separate language and not a mere dialect.  I found this argument difficult to accept thirteen years ago, and I have my doubts about it today, but the difference today is that I recognize it as an argument for linguists, and withdraw from taking any position.  I am convinced still that AAVE is rooted in socioeconomic inequality, in particular, the numerous institutional barriers between African-Americans and access to educational resources.  Starting with slavery, African-Americans were only expected and allowed to learn enough English to fulfill their roles as servants, and propagating into the present with the fact that African-Americans remain disproportionately in the lower economic class, which invariably means diminished access to quality education.

The difference in my perspective now is that I understand that the “hows” or “whys” of AAVE are irrelevant.  Only the “what” is important – that AAVE is a separate language.  Even were we to continue to regard AAVE as a mere dialect, it would not change the fact that a language barrier exists, and that resources need to be directed towards bringing AAVE-speakers to proficiency in Standard American English.

While I am not suggesting that making the necessary connection between AAVE and ESL is a one-shot solution for closing the achievemnt gap, I think that in recognizing and addressing the disparity, we can expect the same positive results shown by speakers of other languages.  To ignore the language barrier, and continuing to attribute achievement differences exclusively to economic – or worse, genetic – causes, is to deny students – and future citizens – an equal opportunity to succeed.

Let me be clear that any venomous edge or tone to this post is reserved exclusively for Nadya Suleman, not for any of her fourteen children, who are unwitting participants in a profane human experiment.  Under normal circumstances, the birth of a child or multiple children should be a celebrated occasion, but all too often where they are unexpected or unwarranted, it becomes a conundrum.  Children demand so much time and so many resources that their arrivals should be planned so that they can be properly accommodated.  Because this is often not the case, we have a swelling adoption system, an excess of abortions, and/or children raised in unsatisfactory conditions – something that invariably echoes into the future as they become members of society.

For this very reason, Nadya Suleman is a moral deviant.  She has not only brought one child into the world under unsatisfactory conditions, but she has brought in eight of them – in fact a brood – merely to satisfy the desire to have more children.

Undoubtedly the birth of the Suleman octuplets was to the applause of many pro-life advocates, but her case also highlights exactly why every pregnancy should be preceded by extensive thought and planning, and why the option for a woman to not follow through to birth must always be available. After all, life is more than a heartbeat and air pumping through the lungs; there must be consideration for quality of life as well.

Even before the inadequate financial circumstances into which Suleman’s children were born, there was the high risk involved with bringing octuplets to term in the first place.  History shows that the risk is high, as before Suleman there were seven reported cases of octuplets, each with tragic results.

• September 13 and 16, 2000 – Four boys and four girls born to Mariella Mazzara of Italy. Four died within a month.
• December 8 and 20, 1998 – Six girls and two boys born to Nkem Chukwu of Houston. The smallest died within a week.
• December 5, 1996 – Four boys and two girls born alive to Rosario Clavijo in Spain. Two other fetuses were stillborn.
• September 30 to October 2, 1996 – Six boys and two girls born to Mandy Allwood of England. All died.
• December 20, 1985 – Five boys and three girls born to Sevil Capan of Turkey. All died.
• August 16, 1979 – Five girls and three boys born to Pasqualina Chianese of Italy. Six died within two weeks.
• March 10, 1967 – Four boys and four girls were born to Maria Teresa Lopez de Sepulveda, 21, of Mexico City. All died within 14 hours.

In light of these odds, Nadya Suleman’s actions were so selfish and careless that it can barely be understood, and can truly only be attributed to some sort of psychological malfunction.  I am sure it will come out at some point that Ms. Suleman suffers from some obscure disorder, at which point the nation’s shock and awe will necessarily change into at least disgruntled neutrality and perhaps even sympathy.

But she will get no sympathy from me, because outside of whatever psychosis she suffers from, she has showed the clear cognizance and presence of mind to arrange for the national welfare system to support her bizarre pathology, to conduct multiple interviews, and to have a website constructed to exploit people’s concern for her children in order to solicit donations.  She was supposedly even in talks to be paid up to $2 million for an interview and to star in her own reality television show.  Whatever illness Ms. Suleman may suffer from, it does not seem to have rendered her incompetent, leaving her completely responsible – morally and legally – for her perverse actions.

Although Nadya’s Suleman’s moral compass is clearly off center, the needle also necessarily points to the physician or medical team.  He, she, or they – aware of the situation, allowed her to take fertility drugs despite protests by Nadya’s own mother.  One can scarcely imagine the flight of judgment required for a highly educated medical professional to condone such a thing, which naturally leads to speculation that there may have been a more sinister motivation behind it.  Recent reports indicate that the care Nadya received reached costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Newly grounded from the euphoria of pulling off an octuplet delivery, her medical team is looking expectantly to California’s Medi-Cal system for compensation.

Could the sanctioning of a poor woman taking fertility drugs and subsequently giving birth to eight children really be based on something so trite as personal profit?  Or perhaps for the  acclaim a hospital would receive in being one of the only hospitals in history to safely deliver octuplets?  Either way, there was a major lapse in personal and professional integrity.

For Suleman’s part, she has cashed in – figuratively and literally – on her overnight celebrity, appearing in several interviews to defend her decision.  So this was no momentary failure of judgment, but a conscious and sustained commitment to moral bankruptcy.  At the same time as she makes the audacious claim that she is not taking advantage of taxpayers, she continues to pull in $500 per month in food stamps, which are of course paid for by taxpayers.  While the welfare system is necessarily in place to support the poor and disadvantaged, especially children, it was never intended to support those who would intentionally put themselves in a disadvantaged position.

Any vitriol towards Ms. Suleman has nothing to do with the fact that my taxes are helping to support her deviancy, because her situation has not increased my taxes, and I doubt that even one penny from my income goes directly to her.  And I completely support the welfare system, in spite of the fact that my family managed through poverty without it.  I would even see it expanded, if it ensured that the poor and disadvantaged were provided some relief.

Most people participating in the system – exceptions made for other exploitative deviants like Ms. Suleman – are in genuine need, and it is because of that need that I have no objections to contributing to that system.  Ms. Suleman, in creating her need voluntarily, is taking from those who find themselves at an unexpected disadvantage.  That she would deny that this is the case, and that she would be unrepentant, only compounds upon her disgrace.  That she gave birth to eight children she cannot support is a problem in itself, but that she has no concept or conscience of how she affects others is completely unacceptable.  It only becomes a greater trangression when we consider the state of the U.S. economy, and that the needs of the legitimately disadvantaged have only increased.

Things only get worse when we consider that more than half the world’s population lives in absolute poverty.  In very few places, and perhaps only in the United States, can – or would - a person willfully subject themselves and their children to poverty, and then look expectantly to the rest of the world with an open hand.  In most cases, with poverty comes humility, and reservations about receiving aid from others.  The people of the world’s poorest countries eke out a living as best they can with what little they have, and are invariably grateful – never expectant – for those who assist them.

Nadya Suleman is not only ungrateful – for the privilege of living in a country where her situation is even possible – she is indifferent to the fact that there are those who are suffering around her, and in the world at large.  This becomes clear in how she has embraced her sudden fame, making a public spectacle of herself and her children, even having the audacity to hire a publicist, as if to formally legitimize her celebrity status.

Reports are coming in that Ms. Suleman has gone into hiding, due to a number of people making threats towards her and her children.  She has allegedly checked into a hotel, leaving her publicist to interface with the public.  The welfare system does not cover the fees for a publicist, nor does it cover hotel costs.  Word also has it – and picture evidence affirms – that she had some sort of plastic surgery performed on her face.  Yet she has had to rely welfare system and the donations of strangers for support.  The people who have offered or made donations to the Suleman brood almost certainly did it for the sake of her children, and considering her need.  They probably did not – do not – intend to fund her public relations campaign.

It is not only a physical problem, as Nadya Suleman takes from the collective mouth of the poor, and the hand of the generous, but an ideological one, as she strengthens the case of those who criticize the welfare system as one of waste and excess.

It is for these reasons that Nadya Suleman – and the medical professionals who have explicitly endorsed her deviancy – are deserving of any vitriol that comes their way.  Instead of her actions being celebrated in the media, they should be examined by a mental health professional, and on proof of competence, examined in a criminal context.

Whatever the outcome of the situation, however, it is important to separate the Suleman children from the indiscretions of their mother, and proceed in matter that protects and provides for them as new members of society.  Even if it means their mother is deemed unfit – all evidence seems to point to this – and that they need to be placed in another’s care.

My personal stance is that neither video games nor movies, nor any other form of entertainment can be so influential as to negate or override the effects of strong parenting. Many compelling arguments have been made from both sides, each stacked with all kinds of so-called evidence from psychological case studies or anecdotes. Since the literature on the topic is so robust, there is no need for me to beat a dead horse. Instead, in spite of being an avid video game player, and supporter of the medium in its many forms, I am going to iterate what I suspect is an overlooked and perhaps even more dangerous problem than violent or sexual content.

That problem is overstimulation. What that means is that video games sometimes create in the player’s mind an alternate version of reality, i.e. a fantasy, that engages them both intellectually and emotionally. Perhaps it takes them to distant and beautiful lands, populated by wildly diverse and often impossibly beautiful people. Perhaps it enables them to perform feats that are inconceivable for any number of reasons, such as slaying a horrific creature to save millions, or something simpler like rushing for 350 yards as a running back in the NFL. Or, perhaps, most dangerous of all, it instills within them a sense of purpose, which when fulfilled provides a powerful catharsis.

To people who do not play video games, these things may seem trivial, or even unlikely. But as I can attest from personal experience, the way video games engage a person’s mind – provided they have some ability to suspend disbelief – is unmatched by any form of media. The difference may lie exclusively in games’ interactive component. No longer merely the passive observer, as when reading a book or watching a movie, video games create for players the sense that they are doing things that are impossible in reality. This, in itself, should not be much of a problem, as engaging the imagination is a wonderful thing – for children and adults alike. It provides a supplement to the often mundane normalcy of daily life.

However, for people – like myself – who have played or continue to play video games for hours upon hours, or worse, spend the majority of their waking hours in front of one, the bleeding of fantasy into reality has very undesirable consequence. It is not that there is any trouble distinguishing between the two, as the sex and violence reactionaries complain, but that the fantasy diminishes the stimulation of reality. Imagine that you’ve just spent 60 hours (divided up over a several days) participating in an epic quest, where you’ve befriended or made enemies of all sorts of exotic characters, where you’ve witnessed sacrifice, experienced love or betrayal, and risked your life for some grand cause that – live or die – was totally worthwhile.

After that intellectual and emotional spike, you must then return to the tedium of daily work or school to sustain your livelihood. This is of course broken up by any number of activities meaningful or fun, but none quite to the scale of the adventure you just recently experienced. Imagine then, that you have not only played one of these games, but have made a habit of playing them, one that has endured for years. If in that time you failed to find an equal sense of enjoyment or fulfillment in reality, would you not become underwhelmed? The obligatory routine of life is accepted by most as a necessity, and for most of us, it is not too difficult to cope with it, as we supplement our lives with all sorts of great experiences and share them with others. But if you have spent an abundance of time engaging in fantasy, you may become overstimulated, making the comforts and pleasures of the real world pale by comparison.

I described my own personal experience with this phenomenon in another article, entitled The Death of Idealism:

“How could I not be touched and influenced by these stories of extraordinary people and circumstances? How could I return to the real world without bringing some part of it with me, some desire to experience at least a portion of what they did? How could I possibly accept a mundane life? My rational side understands that these stories are crafted to have just that effect, and that for the most part real people don’t live that way. But my romantic side demands to know why that has to be the case.”

Having played so many video games, and having devoted so many hours of my spare time (and time reserved for more important things that were then neglected) playing them, I have often found the real world lacking in its ability to stimulate me on the same level. The meaning of life, the question of purpose, these are common human conundrums, and not necessarily indicative of any dysfunction. But when there is little enjoyment to be found in the activities and interactions that buffer most people against the boredom of tedium and routine, you become even more reliant on video games (or other media), or you suffer from deep disenchantment.

This is no small problem. If one finds that there is nothing to sustain them against the inevitable disenchantment with the world we all feel at some point in our lives, then only further disenchantment and angst can follow. Conceivably, this is why the most “avid” (or “addicted” to put it another way) video game players are often “at odds” with the culture or society around them – or vice versa – why those who are at odds with their surroundings for other reasons are more likely to escape through video games or other media. Role-playing games (RPGs) and their players present the best cases for this phenomenon. The problem is further exacerbated in the genre’s newest manifestation – Massive Multiplayer Online RPGs (MMORPGs), such as World of Warcraft or Everquest.

MMORPGs are potentially the most dangerous, as they only create a sort of promise of purpose without ever actually fulfilling it, in order to keep users subscribed to a monthly-pay service. These, you’ll find, often lack the intellectual or emotional stimulation of other games, keeping players busy with the most repetitive of tasks. There are several things that keep the players going instead. One is the community aspect – enabling them to interact with other people instead of computer-programmed characters. A person who for whatever reasons is already maladjusted or at odds with society, but who like anyone still needs human interaction, may find it here in this imaginary context.

If a fantasy world is fulfilling the very real needs of a person that their everyday lives are not, it only encourages them to continue playing. The other lure is the inherent status system present in many of these games, that is, rank and notoriety assigned on the basis of accomplishments achieved within the game. Reaching a certain “experience level”, acquiring rare items, being the leader of a large in-game clan, or winning a certain amount of battles – these are the kinds of things that can make an MMORPG player quite “popular” within the in-game community. This kind of “fake validation”, when balanced against how much and for what reasons a person is recognized by others in the real world, can create further disenchantment.

I have either implicitly or explicitly connected avid video game playing with social maladjustment. The evidence for this is everywhere out there, but also comes from my personal experience. I participated in the MMORPG scene briefly – my first and only game of choice being World of Warcraft. During that time in my life I was exceedingly depressed for several reasons, and the game – in its never-ending nature – offered a promise that, if I so chose, I did not have to ever go back to those things which troubled me. It was the perfect escape. However, for me, the game’s repetitive style of play, and sheer lack of a real point failed to sustain me. Ironically, it was another game that broke the World of Warcraft spell – a game that fulfilled that need for intellectual and emotional stimulation that has kept me coming back to video games for years. That I would need one video game to “save me” from the somewhat self-destructive habits revolving around another, may speak of an even greater problem.

In my choice of friends or companions, their interest in escapist entertainment was a criterion. Certainly it is natural enough to want to spend time with people with whom you can share the things you enjoy, but that is not likely the only reason that we choose our friends or companions. For me, especially in the case of companions, this has been overly important. It occurred to me that perhaps the need for this common interest in particular stems from the disenchantment that I often feel towards the real world and people in general. Perhaps people, simply as they are, have become insufficient in providing me with the kind of stimulation we come to expect from friends or companions. That, simply put, is terrifying.

Granted, many people simply are dull, or at least are able to live standard run-of-the-mill lives with no internal conflict, and it is not too strange to require more from one’s companions. Still, at the same time, there are people who do live lives rich with purpose, who do all kinds of exciting things, and who do have much to offer in terms of intellectual and emotional stimulation. Yet I have found that even some of these people I’ve met, who should by all rights be very interesting to me, simply are not – and for no reason that I can easily fathom. The only thing that comes to mind is that they are not the stuff of fantasy, that no matter how great or purposeful their lives are, they are still limited by the relatively “tame” circumstances of the real world.

This phenomenon, I suspect, is rare. Perhaps the overstimulation of video games has had a somewhat unique effect on me, as someone who may have otherwise (i.e. having never played a video game) required more out of life than the “average person”. That statement is not meant to imply any sort of qualitative difference between myself and any other person, but just to say that different people require different levels of intellectual and emotional stimulation. Indeed I envy those who can achieve satisfaction, happiness, or fulfillment with less difficulty.

As I have already said, here and in other articles, I adore video games as entertainment, and hold utmost respect for them as media. Yet, rare though it may be, the overstimulation of video games – or any other form of escapist entertainment for that matter – is certainly a problem that deserves further examination. At the very least, it can be said that people need to moderate their indulgement in fantasy, to balance out their sources for enchantment between fantasy and reality…