The flight from personal responsibility, pt 487
This time with regard to gambling. The Standard carries a warning over Electronic Gambling Machines (EGMs), which would appear to be glorified one armed bandits. The Casino Advisory Panel (whatever that is, and I didn't vote it) says "[EGMs] are a highly addictive form of entertainment". Well maybe they are habit forming, but attempted pathologising of card playing, drinking, or come to that blogging does not necessarily make such behaviour a problem. The paper also dug out an oursourced comparison of EGMs to crack cocaine. How very, very original. Remember 'crackberries'?
Further digging throws up a book review of a study of EGMs and their supposed addictiveness: "Despite overwhelming acceptance that gaming machines are associated with the highest level of problem gambling, the empirical literature provides inconclusive evidence to support the analogy likening electronic gaming to ‘crack-cocaine’. Rigorous and systematic evaluation is required to establish definitively the absolute ‘addictive’ potential of gaming machines and the degree to which machine characteristics influence the development and maintenance of problem gambling behaviour".
And just for a point of comparison: "The risk of becoming cocaine-dependent within 2 years of first use(recent-onset) is 5-6%; after 10 years, it's 15-16%. These are the aggregate rates for all types of use considered, i.e., smoking, snorting, injecting". Source
Further digging throws up a book review of a study of EGMs and their supposed addictiveness: "Despite overwhelming acceptance that gaming machines are associated with the highest level of problem gambling, the empirical literature provides inconclusive evidence to support the analogy likening electronic gaming to ‘crack-cocaine’. Rigorous and systematic evaluation is required to establish definitively the absolute ‘addictive’ potential of gaming machines and the degree to which machine characteristics influence the development and maintenance of problem gambling behaviour".
And just for a point of comparison: "The risk of becoming cocaine-dependent within 2 years of first use(recent-onset) is 5-6%; after 10 years, it's 15-16%. These are the aggregate rates for all types of use considered, i.e., smoking, snorting, injecting". Source
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803
blogging isnt addictive is it?
As the old joke goes, 'I could quit at any time, I've just got a bit of a cold at the moment'.
Ah, I'll have to bear this in mind next time I snort coke.
JH - Just doing my bit. Prefer sterling, euros, dollars or roubles?
Where do I get the funding to do this research? I will need a considerable budget to cope with evaluating both addictions...
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