Could SL ever make you go this far?

This is a terrible story. I felt it should be posted here.
http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20070715/D8QD02LO0.html

The answer is always "No no, of course not." Had the couple been asked- they'd probably reply the same way before it happened. It's like asking yourself if you'd ever kill someone. No no, of course not- but when put in the situation, people often make funny/bad choices.

I'm not excusing them. Thier actions were unpardonable- especially with the acknowledgment that they could have provided care and chose not to. There was food, but they did not give it to the children. One assumes tat they didn't go hungry... you have to stand up from the computer at *some* point... so on some level there was a conscious decision to ignore. The only other alternative view is that it was a mental illness- but even mental illness doesn't "excuse" bad behavior to me- it simply defines the appropriate punishment and rehabilitation.

I don't have to imagine children suffering from neglect due to parental mental illness. It happens. It sucks. For the rest of their life, the children have to live with the scars- and so do the parents. Sober, on medication, in the same reality as everyone else it's difficult to look at your past and realize that you pretty much ruined the life of someone you loved.... regardless of the circumstances.

Sadly, the fact that it was rooted in video games makes it sensational- not that it was neglect. Always gets me when the media take a situation with only one facet that makes it "special" and focuses on it. What of the other child pornography cases out there? Why are Second Life's special- not because it's illegal or even because it's on the internet- it was so shockingly related to the papers because it drew on the question of internet consent and the avatars agreed to it. Sure they were over 18, but they were dressed as children.

Same deal here. Neglect a child in a cities slums- let it die of exposure or hunger while it's parents are engaged in other illegal activities and at best it might make the local news but probably not even that. Neglect a child due to "internet addiction" and suddenly it's national news.

I suspect that parenting was beyond them and they would have found something else to avoid it. They were both very young and had two babies. I think it has less to do with what they chose to be distracted by then by the fact they would have been lousy parents period.

There are lots of similar cases.

Korean couple left their 4 month old daughter alone to play WoW at an internet cafe for hours, daughter died of suffocation:


Another Korean died of heart failure due to lack of food and sleep after a marathon online gaming session (Blizzard's StarCraft) in an internet cafe:


A Chinese MMORPG player stabbed another player to death because he sold a lent virtual sword:


An older case... 3 year old child died because the Everquest-addicted mother was in a hurry to get back to her computer and forgot her daughter in the car:


Everquest again... father killed his son because he disturbed his gaming experience:


Another Everquest player commited suicide at his PC, EQ still running, because a fellow player had stolen his virtual money:


I remember reading of another Everquest related suicide once... player killed himself because he was unable to recover the corpse of his EQ character and lost his armor and weapons. I can't find the website anymore, Google only comes up with the Woolley case I linked above.


Well... every harmless thing can be addictive, be it TV, food or computer games. There are even internet addicts. Not addicted to online games, but to the internet itself, i.e. the constant information exchange on blogs, websites like MySpace or forums.

Agree with all above really.

I've neglected my OWN food requirements before now tho. Mainly cos I forgot I was hungry ... but I've done that with TV, books ... working too many hours ...

Shame it never made me skinny!

Well said, Dnali.

I'd also add that those who neglect children because of an alledged addiction fall under the same category. They would be lousy parents even with out chemical distration.

That's horrible.

Until now, the most excessive online game story I'd heard was about the woman who prostituted herself in RL to get a WoW epic flight mount.

Thank you all for bringing some sunshine to my Sunday morning. Going to give my kid a frozen waffle to suck on, brb.

Not even close - *nothing* could make me 'go that far' - and I think it's safe to say that all these people had issues beforehand, it just so happened the final straw had to do with an internet game.

Crazy cat ladies are crazy unto themselves, they don't catch it from felines. Nor does the internet make you an addict. Though I strongly suspect it can make you stupid after excessive exposure... grin

My answer is "Hell no", and I can say that with the utmost confidence...

I've had a very strange life, and addiction is one of the issues I've struggled with in the past. Even through all of that, and how it almost completely destroyed my life, my children have always been taken care of. Not always by me, when things were at the worst stages, but they were always taken care of. And now that those issues are a decade behind me, I am again in custody of my children (and have been for quite some time) and they are not only well-provided for, but are happy and healthy and doing very well.

Addiction, be it to drugs or online games or anything else, can do horrible horrible things to people. But it doesn't necessarily mean that anyone undergoing addiction could end up like the couple in the article. Whether afflicted people neglect their kids to such a degree is still a highly individualistic and situational thing.

It's too easy to give a pat answer and say "the Reno couple were too distracted by online video games, mainly the fantasy role-playing 'Dungeons & Dragons' series, to give their children proper care". It's not the addiction that made the poor choices, it is the people, and they should be punished accordingly.

.

I forgot to answer my own question. I can see how SL can make you forget about time, but even at my most engrossed I am always stepping away, tending to things, eating, etc. There is no excuse for that. As others have stated those people should not be parenting, and need help.

It's not just the internet either, I recall back in the early 80's hearing stories about D&D players killing themselves after the loss of a D&D character....

SL can be an addictive thing as well, I personally went through an addictive stage from the time I first started until about 4 months later. No one died or got neglected because of it, but I was at a point where absolutely every free moment was being dedicated to SL. After an (SL) friend freaked out on me, I nearly left SL entirely. I wound up coming back, but the "addiction" of dedicating every free moment to it went away, which, is a good thing. I've since made my first life my first priority, and Second Life, my second.. as it should be.

Certainly not just anyone. It's an extreme case and further along you'll see I agree that excuses are just that- excuses. a simply "I'm sorry" can't wipe away the past. Sadly, I actually know someone who was neglected pretty terribly as a child due to mental health issues in a guardian. It's not a good situation for anyone- the kids or the parents, or the family/state when intercessions are necessary.

That said, addiction is serious and should be considered as such and treated so that the past doesn't repeat itself. Punishment without rehabilitation just puts a lot of people right back into their bad habits... including occasionally sending kids back into danger when the intervention failed to correct the problem. =/

~At a Tupperware party, one woman Stabbed another to death in an Ongoing dispute over resealable containers.

~One man Shot another to Death after losing all his holdings in a Monopoly Game.

~Also Over Monopoly Losses, a Man Hung Himself.

There have been, and always will be Addictive Personalities, Obsessive Compulsives and those persons who lack any sense of Proportionality at all. These persons, No Matter What Obsesses them are NOT representative of the Average partaker, Nor do they reflect any "Evil Influence" exerted by the Object of their Obsession. They Are Ill. Like the alchoholic, the person who Must count every Tle in the Bathroom, or the Celebrity Stalker, they are Suffering from a Mental/Physical compulsion that Needs Treatment. You Don't Blame the Beer, the Bathroom Tile, or the Celebrity for those compulsions so Why Blame the Net Games? Net Games are The New Object of a Very Old Illness.

"The Fault lies Not in our Stars, but in Ourselves."
William Shakespeare.

My prayers go out for those children.
Angel.

Spend five minutes on Fark.com and you want to weep for humanity. The interwebs are just putting all the insanity of the world in front of our faces. Used to be we would only see it on the nightly news. We all need to read more Eckhart Tolle.

It probably happens in lesser degrees more often than we would like to believe. i know I have witnessed small instances of child neglect because of the parent chatting online...

The Very same things have been said in turn about Television, Radio, Movies, Rap music, Punk music, Rock music, Jazz music, Classical music, Detective novels, Romance novels, Comic books, Books Not printed in Latin, Printed Books, Books.

"Blaming Television for Violence in Society is like Blaming the Mirror because you have Pimples"
Sorry, i've forgotten who said this one.

"Whenever something goes wrong it's always Gods Will or Sombody Elses Fault."
Hawkeye Pierce speaking of Frank Burns in M*A*S*H*

Angel.

I agree it happens in lesser degrees.

As for this story, though the Internet aspect is interesting, I think it is by far not the "cause" of the neglect.

What is the cause is the parents' inability to grasp the fact of their children, and their children's needs. Usually, this is innate. It is unusual that BOTH parents would suffer from this disconnect. (Which, by the way, makes me think there are other things involved, too, in this case, such as drugs.)

Whatever it is that causes some people to do this disconnect in their minds - a sort of denial which renders their children not really there to them - is a separate issue, not dependent on internet games or any other distraction.

That disconnect is the real pathology going on here, I think, and is the common thread in many neglect cases, whether initiated or exacerbated by drugs or any other distractions or not.

coco

This is so true. I am involved in the medical field, pediatrics, and most people have no clue about the amount of child abuse/neglect that goes on. Very few cases make it to the news, or to the internet.

I just spent two hours on fark.com!

You should never have told me that site existed!

Now I'm neglecting my family and everything else for it . . .

coco

When members of the community of abuse survivors try to speak up, there is always a chorus of people willing to blame and demonize the victims.

Our society still thinks children are property. I'll never forget the day I saw someone abusing a child on the bus and gave her a concerned angry look - only to find every other person on the bus turned toward me with a look as if to say, "Say anything about this and you're toast."

Most people think there is no abuse, only discipline, and all discipline is justified to them, no matter how permanently injurious it is to the child. They don't seem to be able to make a connection in their minds between the future damaged adult and the present child, who has no rights to them.

And so, more because of this than anything else I can think of, our society is slowly rotting away and will not last.

It's the same as alcohol or drug addiction.

I agree with everything you said, except for the part about alcoholism. Unlike obsessive behaviour and purely mental addictions to online games, gambling etc., alcoholism is a purely physical dependance which is simply caused by regular ingestion of alcohol.

I don't say that some alcoholics don't start out as an addictive personality who look for something to escape reality. But it can also hit an alcohol consumer without any psychological risk factors. Someone who merely drinks 2 bottles of beer each day. Or a glass of bourbon every evening.
The body gets used to the toxic substance over time and can't operate without the neurotoxin anymore. But in addition to the alcohol dependendance, the body also develops an alcohol tolerance and soon craves higher amounts.

Once someone reached that state, their psychological predisposition doesn't matter. They're physically addicted. Withdrawal of the neurotoxin will lead to (been there) a physical illness: fever-like symptoms like sweating and chill, stomach cramps, headaches, nausea, blurred vision, dizziness, sometimes circulatory breakdown, collapse, even cardiac arrest. Of course, the severity of the withdrawal symptoms depends on the amount of alcohol the body got used to.

This is nothing like the "withdrawal symptoms" of a game addict or an obsessive-compulsive person who desperetaly tries to withstand the urge to wash their hands for the 100th time. It's a physical malfunction that can have deadly consequences if it isn't treated with substitute drugs.
You can turn every living organism into an alcohol addict. Give a cat or dog a bowl of beer each day, and they will develop the same physical alcohol dependance.

As a former alcohol addict, I somehow understand that governments make the attempt to protect their citizens from highly addictive substances. Alas, they get it wrong and ban completely harmless drugs like cannabis, while alcohol is too established in our society and therefore tolerated.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a libertarian and totally against the prohibition of anything, toxic and addictive or not. If someone wants to ingest drain pipe cleaner, that's their decision. But there need to be warning labels on drain pipe cleaner and alcoholic drinks, plus sufficient education about the effects of drain pipe cleaner or alcohol on the human body.

The internet, online games etc etc do not cause child neglect. The last I heard the parents of the children cause it.

Not really, as I pointed out above. A physical dependance is different from a psychological addiction. The physical addiction can hit everyone who consumes addictive substances, while a psychological addiction doesn't mean that the object of obsession is addictive for everyone.
It's the other way round: the addict has a mental condition that leads to being addicted to usually harmless activities. If a MMORPG addict had been born 200 years earlier, they might have turned into obsessive readers, trying to escape reality through a written story. Which doesn't mean that books or MMORPGs are addictive (unlike alcohol or other hard drugs).