Addiction: World of Warcrack

• In a short amount of time (about 3 - 4 weeks), I have gone from playing zero digital games (okay, I admit, I have a mild Solitaire habit) to playing World of Warcraft 2 - 3 hours a day. I have brought two characters up significant levels. Bentley, my gnome, is almost to level 30, and I easily took GenY up to level 17 (opting for the "expert" route, which I will discuss later).
• The game has certainly been acknowledged as addictive by experts, parents, and the general public, and it has become a part of a possible larger new problem of Internet/digital addiction.
• Some initial investigations:

Wayne, a classmate, notes that the maker of Runescape, has issued a series of tips on how to avoid addiction to its game: Jagex response to Runescape's role in addictive behavior

An editorial from Australian news on a teenager's WoW addiction (interestingly, in three of my guilds, I have encountered Australian and New Zealander players):

I should also say that my family has struggled with this very issue of a family member addicted to an MMORPG, so my father recommended a few books to me after I discussed this project with him, and I found a couple on my own. I have also had several high school students (in my role as an English teacher) who have been addicted to these games to the extent where it affected their performance in school. These were the most informative books, in my opinion:

• Plugged In: A Clinicians' and Families Guide to Online Video Game Addiction (T. R. Waite)
• Caught in the Net: How to Recognize the Signs of Internet Addiction--and a Winning Strategy for Recovery (K. S. Young)

I am really interested, especially with respect to how games' addictive properties might overlap with their motivating ones, in what exactly makes certain games so compelling.

• A study at Stanford's School of Medicine has recently proposed that certain games activate the reward regions of men's brains more than women's.
• Maressa Hecht Orzack has been specifically studying the addictive properties of World of Warcraft and is the founder and coordinator of the Computer Addiction Service. An article about her in the Harvard Gazette details the symptoms as she has identified them of generalized computer addiction.