Why Games are Addicting?

I gave up video games back in high school because I noticed myself becoming severely addicted to them and it was beginning to take over my life. I couldn't concentrate in class, during sports, and my sleeping patterns became irregular. All I could think about was my Nintendo 64 Gaming Console sitting at home waiting for me to sweep the controller off the table only to make love to it over and over again. Please don't take that literally! I realized this habit was not healthy and my time spent playing video games was time taken away from other social activities that I could of been partaking in. There were many days where I tried to force myself not to play video games. I couldn't break the addiction. So, I eventually got to a point where I was able to take my console and all of its games and give them to a friend. They were pretty excited to receive a free Nintendo 64 and numerous games. I went through a couple of days of remorse and ventured outside for a nice long run to take my mind off of my guilt. It was tough, but I managed to pull through. Breaking a behavioral addiction is a difficult thing for young adolescent to go through by themselves. Especially with an ever growing, socially evolving, piece of technology like video games. I recently raised some questions (below) and began doing some research about "Game Addiction." My results were a little surprising... Why are video games so addicting? What chemicals do they stimulate in the body to satisfy the human mind? Why can't people cut video games out of their daily routines? One guy said, " B/c it is so fun it is like u berly sarted to play at 1:00 and u stop at 3:13 but it fills like u just played for 30 mn" (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_are_video_games_so_addicting). I was able to answer these questions from an article that I obtained from an online source to help me understand why people love video games so much?

SOURCE:
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060228/clark_01.shtml

ABSTRACT:
"... so far research has simply suggested that at most, people are becoming addicted to games, not that games themselves are actually responsible for addicting people. Some people do seem to be addicted, yet games may not be the real culprit. Nevertheless, research that directly examines whether certain games are addictive should not be shunned, it should be welcomed. There are two reasons for this, neither of which is completely obvious. First, it is entirely possible that games are in no way addictive... Addiction is complicated. To revisit the introduction's caveat: this article isn't intended to transform you into a trained clinician. Instead, it's meant to shed some light on the very basics of addiction. It also shows why some of the research deserves to be viewed with a critical eye. Some people do have problems with games; that's getting harder to discount. What we can do, as game creators, is understand that a problem exists, and try to understand research advances as they occur."

Only YOU can break the Addiction!