What is addiction and who benefits from addiction?
I ve observed it now a couple of times and I m sure others did so as well. Friends or colleagues look kind of unhealthy. They are pale-faced, look overtired, they have problems with concentrating on their work, they always talk about the same stuff, seem kind of disconnected to the real world, etc.
Overall I m guessing they ve got a drug problem. They change their social habits. Stick at home, barely leave to buy food (most of the time they call a delivery service.
So what could it be? Cocaine is unlikely - that “just” ruins you economicly and fucks up your brain and nose on the long run. Marijuana is told to have effects like that - at least thats what “they” tell us. So is it this weed?
This morning I picked up the Newspaper and saw this advertisement in our local Newspaper.
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A free Sunday-Newspaper which reaches every household in the region. It promotes the fact that Media Markt opens from midnight Wednesday to Thursday morning at 2 am to sell the new World of Warcraft Addon.
Wow - I ve thought. Thats weired that they are opening just for the selling of a computer game (well I assume you are allowed to buy other stuff as well). But, as always, we can be sure that this is well calculated so it s worth to give an extra pay (if they do so) for their employees to open in the middle of the night.
The symptoms I was writing about in the beginning of this post was not about a “normal” drug (illegal by federal law). No I was describing the symptoms of friends who got addicted to the Computer game World of Warcraft. The Addon to World of Warcraft is launched in Germany on the 13. of November so Media Markt wants to be the first dealer who satisfies the needs of his addicts. It seems like there are enough human beings around who are willing to wait at midnight in front of a Media Markt (on a weekday) to buy a Computer game which will keep them in front of the computer for several days, weeks, months, … who knows?
I m not calling for the government to intervene in the selling of World of Warcraft but I ask myself how you justify the intervention in the consuming habits of one product and ignorance in others. Don t get me wrong. I don t want to make “gameing” illegal. But I think that some things should just not be allowed to be promoted too much… Tobacco, Beverages, Drugs, Computer games, GM foods, …
BTW: I ve found an amazing video: The Story of Stuff! Check it out!