Prospectus

As time progresses, man's creation of technology progresses along with it. The technology becomes more useful as its advancement occurs. As a result, man becomes addicted and even obsessed with it. Sometimes he may find himself lost without the object he lived peacefully without before. I too am a man and I understand what it is like to be obsessed with technology. My obsession is with video games. I've found that I am not alone in this matter. Many of my fellow peers are or have experienced the same situation. I want to learn why I and many other teens (predominately male) have fallen into this addiction. It would be simple to say that the addiction is a result of fun and entertainment, but I believe there is another factor beneath the surface. I believe there is something within our unconscious minds that drives us to spend hours playing, challenging, manipulating, and creating the elements of the worlds found in video games.

Two sources from Mirror on America that caught my attention are Welcome to Your Second Life and Our Biotech Bodies, Ourselves. Welcome to Your Second Life is a very good source for my research because of its likeness to my own. The author, Joe Stafford, has some of the same questions and beliefs that I have involving the attraction people have to the virtual world. However, our topics are not identical due to the fact that his topic focuses solely on Second Life - which is technically not a video game but rather a online program - while my topic focuses on video games in general. Unlike video games, Second Life contains no objectives or violence in the program. The creator also is striving to keep the program for adults rather than for teens. These elements may be vital to some of the reasons a majority of today's youth are addicted to video games. I also believe that gamers play video games in order to experience a world where they may exceed the physical limitations of the real world. This is where Our Biotech Bodies, Ourselves comes in. It focuses on the possibility of exceeding average physical capabilities through the use of pills or stem cells. Although they are a possible solution to achieving this goal, pills and stem cells are not the elements of the essay that relate to my topic. The urge they have to exceed their limitations is the factor that contributes to my topic. This urge may serve as one of the drives for video game play.

Along with these to sources I also plan on finding other sources related to the two I currently have. They will most likely be more like Welcome to Your Second Life. I plan on using the school library or Internet to find articles or books that relate to addiction to video games. I'm sure I'll have a better idea of how I will go about doing this after our trip to the library. With my source I hope to find theories or facts that revolve around their psychological attraction to video games. These sources will support my belief that gamers rely on games to fulfill their wishes to reach beyond the physical limitations of the real world, achieve goals that seem impossible in reality, and take risks that they lack the courage or sense to attempt in a real situation.

Research Questions
Is the addiction to video games linked to unconscious desires?
Do people use video games to reach goals unattainable in reality?
Do video games serve as opportunities to express emotions and perform actions unaccepted in society?
Search Terms
Video Game Addiction
Virtual Reality
Unconscious Motives