Video Games and Mainlining Heroin: Researchers Think They’re The Same

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the arcade or dig out that PS2 researchers now believe video games are as addictive as narcotics.

Technology Review: Show a smoker a lighter, and he or she will get the urge for a cigarette. The same physiological responses that trigger a smoker’s craving may also be at work in the brains of people who spend a lot of time playing video games, researchers say. And that could add more fuel to the long and heated argument over whether video games are hazardously addictive.