An Unobserved Societal Issue, Video Game Addiction in the 21st Century

An unobserved and undiagnosed addiction that is becoming prominent in the 21st century is addiction to playing video games. The mental health community, parents, and friends need to be educated on the signs and symptoms of this hidden addiction. Education is necessary to insure that these addicts get the necessary intervention they require. There are many video game players that have healthy relationships with family, friends and colleagues. Many of these relationships are even developed online and expose the individual to other cultures that they may never have had the opportunity to experience. Yet the addicted remain isolated from society at large. One of the reasons that these individuals don't receive the help they need is due to this isolation which goes unobserved by others. Like all other addictions, video game addiction crosses all conventional boundaries (e.g. culture, sex, ethnicity, etc.). This paper attempts to address the growing need to identify individuals suffering from video game addiction.