Do you think people can get addicted to video games ?

i dont like your comparison of gaming to being lazy....

everyone has things they do for recreation or to relax at home...
i work night, and when i get off its all early in the morning...and i come home and relax....and what i do to relax is play video games....i dont like watching tv....i dont like reading books....i like playing video games...its my release....my time out....my self therapy...

Ofcourse yes

Not until gta5 is released

Yes gaming can be addictive. It's a fun activity that a lot of people like to do. As people like fun activities it's normal for you to come back to it more so that it's easy to access. Besides the term fun it's a stress relief and releases certain chemicals inside your body to feel better, thereby again it's "fun".

Addictions become addictions if you get something out of it and leave something important undone. Basically they overpower your normal ladder of everyday to-do. Instead of shopping you game, instead of washing up you game, instead of doing anything important to you, you game.

There are grey areas like socializing. Some consider it a sign of addiction if you won't socialize in real life preferring a PC but they themselves rank socializing more important than you do. Relaxing, doing whatever you yourself find fun. It could even be that those people are extrovert and do not understand how introverts, or how introvert ways can be good for relaxing.

So it all depends on you. How serious it is and what exactly have you sacrificed doing instead of gaming. Make yourself a table of what activities come first in your life. Family, sleep, food, friends, job, social pressure etc. See where playing PC games rank and when you start skipping rows to go to gaming.

So yes gaming as a thing can become an addiction, that does not mean it's bad or a rule of thumb. People become addicted to all kinds of stuff, working out for example, still most don't and deal with their everyday and common activities associated with living a healthy life just fine.

Smoking, drinking, even chocolate are besides mental also physical addictions and bring out the word very well. You basically get stress relief from all those, a short term thing but in the long run it damages your system if done too much. Even chocolate as the kind majority eat has a lot of bad fat in it and builds up cholesterol. Would it be dark bitter chocolate that's more of a healthier kind, not that you would need to eat a lot of that either.

The keyword would be moderation and in reality you kind of know yourself if you have become addicted as you notice other activities that you still hold in importance get left behind in backdrop. So it's basically going for the easy way out and experiencing more stress relief instead of doing activities that don't give that much pleasure.

It's those "Mum, I don't wanna!", "I'll do it later!", "Ahh so tired, not right now!" notes you need to be careful off as you say those and in 1h-3h your still not done anything and it's still in the "I'll do it later!" category.
We usually excuse ourselves in our mind with "i'm tired" or "i'm lazy" even though we aren't. We just prefer fun to boring and that is a dangerous red line. For one we can't be tired as we are at least mentally quite up to the challenge of thinking as gaming fires up the brain quite well. For being lazy it's such a weak,bad and general excuse that it usually works and I don't even know how to get out of that as I use it myself on most of my problems. :p

Eh...I think it depends on what you consider an addiction to be honest.

Addiction
Noun
The state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

Unless you suffer from withdrawal symptoms if you stop playing games, the answer is no.

According to definition of addiction. No, video is not addicted. If it is, there should be withdrawal symptoms.

Of course

Starts scratching

Ughh gotta go play more New Vegas.

Vidoe games can be mentally addicting, just like a huge number of other activities. You can be mentally addicted to books, eating, exercising, shopping, theft, murder, almost any activity that can stimulate your brain in some way you can get addicted to. Most mental addictions are difficult to get over, but they're not impossible, and most importantly, you are able to quit cold turkey with no negative repercussions.

Any addiction can be harmful, but at least it is not an addiction like Tobacco, Alcohol, or Opiates that can actually harm your body if you try and quit.

Plays sad and melodramatic violin song

I was young and dumb. I didn't know what I was getting into when I first picked up the mouse. It was so fast and sudden; before I knew it, I was up all night in Varrock trying to make a few GP or in Kerning City trying to get into a party for a party quest.

Then, my parents took me off games cold-turkey. They canceled the internet service so my house was shut off but I got around it. I started playing Runescape at school and at the library. It got to the point I couldn't concentrate at school.

I swear, I didn't know what I was getting into. I thought it just be all fun and games!

I absolutely think you can get addicted.

wasn't the outcome of research once, that wow was more addictive then crack or something along them line.

Yes.
Cool dude.
Pleasant article.
Pleasant article.
Pleasant article.

extra credits made an epsiode on that that's worth checking out;
for the matter of fact I agree that you can't become an addict similiar to physical addiction to drugs or beer but rather that it solves as an distraction for real life problems and responsibility.
10 hours a day is not healthy, at least not on a regular basis. Moderation is key here.

Quite easily too, I have a friend who plays call of duty and ONLY Call of Duty. He bought around 70 dollars of games over the summer sale, playing Call of duty still! I bet him he couldn't go a week, he upped it a month, he went less than a day. HE said he was literally going insane. People be crazy.

Humans can get addicted to anything stimulating pleasure centers...

I'm a living proof of video game addiction. Just sayin'.

There are and I don't understand that, I mean I like games, but there's so much more to do than that and I'm happy that I found something better a few years ago :)

Bump

For me I don't get addicted. I usually play for 30mins-1hr, beat some levels and get bored and turn off the game.

Yes, people can get addicted to video games. But this isn't a problem with video games, but a problem with the person with an obsessive personality. That person could just as easily become addicted to a single console company (fanboys, lulz) or buying almost every single indie bundle that contains Steam keys and not even playing most of them.

Get an old car and a girlfriend and you dont have time to get addicted.

It's always fun to look at the top positions of the leaderboard of popular multiplayer games. You will find lots of people there with an average playtime of 8 hours per day or more. And I doubt that includes a lot of idling since in the top regions of the leaderboard they all have a playtime like that. Crazy.

If you're clever enough, you won't get addicted to anything.But I'm not clever enough, I'm addicted to video games -_-