Moldy Peaches

Video game rehab! Generation X is slowly leaving a permanent mark on society. Sadly, this maybe a direct result of an older generation not knowing how to deal with emerging trends and technology. More and more research is emerging to suggest that video games actually have a positive effect on development - increased hand / eye coordination and problem solving

Leave it to the Dutch to break new ground. A Dutch firm - Smith & Jones Addiction Consultants - recently launched a detox center focused at video game addictions. The Center has already treated 20 video game addicts, aged 13 to 30, since January. Some show withdrawal symptoms, such as shaking and sweating, when they look at a computer.

The detox program runs four to eight weeks, including discussions with therapists and efforts to build patients' interests in alternative activities.

"We have kids who don't know how to communicate with people face-to-face because they've spent the last three years talking to somebody in Korea through a computer," said Keith Bakker, director of Amsterdam-based Smith & Jones Addiction Consultants. "Their social network has completely disappeared."

Apparently it starts with a Game Boy (the marijuana of vids), perhaps given by parents hoping to keep their children occupied but away from the television. From there, it can progress to multi-level games that aren't made to be won. The clinic is for people who can't put their joysticks down. Apparently that group also meets two doors down on Saturday under the heading "Masters of Our Domain."

Hyke van der Heijden, 28, a graduate of the Amsterdam program, started playing video games 20 years ago. By the time he was in college he was gaming about 14 hours a day and using drugs to play longer.

The recent trend in video games actually dispels the myth of loners playing games against themselves. X-Box Live? On-line Networks for World of Warcraft and Everquest? These actually bring groups of people together - virtually - and require rules and interaction.

The last - butchered English word - goes to the Addictions Center.

The Smith Camp; Jones outdoor gaming treatment camp

There are millions of people in the world that have a form of addition to computor gaming. Many of these people have gotton tgo the point that they cant live with gaming and they cant live without gaming. Smith and Jones is running a special survival camp from July 10 - July 24 in Holland and the forests of Germany. This camp is the first of its kind in the world. We will look at the damage that gaming is causing in the lives of our participants. Teach them new skills to live without gaming and show them that real adventure is better than fantasy adventure {sic}.