尽管目前并没有得到官方认可，但从今年多例报导可以看出Facebook“上瘾症”确有其事。这种“上瘾症”由来不久，但目前19%的Facebook游戏玩家都承认对游戏“上瘾”。今天我们联线IT顾问Nnamdi Osuagwu谈谈Facebook游戏“上瘾”，他同时是《Facebook Addiction: The Life and Times of Social Networking Addicts》的作者。

Nnamdi Osuagwu

现在市面上出现了越来越多关于暴力或者犯罪的Facebook游戏，人们也慢慢意识到这类游戏带来的威胁。但是目前Facebook上瘾和游戏上瘾都还未被美国医学协会认定为正式的疾病或者失调。您对这个问题是怎么看的呢？

事实上，很多医学专家一般都不太赶得上科技的“流行”，我指的是网络科技，而不是医疗设备科技。这种外界的普遍看法可能并不准确，毕竟现在也有很多医生使用Twitter，医疗服务也开始将社交游戏融入其中。

那如果说大部分医学专家对网络科技不感兴趣，他们也就无法及时体会暴力的社交游戏所带来的威胁。如果要令医学界认定这种疾病，就必须用更多的不幸事例说明。

经营网络上瘾症节目reSTART的Hilarie Cash医生曾提出Facebook游戏本身就是为了令人上瘾而设计的。您是否认同这一看法？

从开发的角度来说，我并不认为社交游戏是专门为令人上瘾而设计的。他们是为了令玩家尽量长时间的滞留其中。这样一来，有助于广告商充分进行广告宣传，有助于市场调查公司进行数据分析等。因此，如果说开发公司是为了令人上瘾而开发的社交游戏，这种说法令人觉得充满恶意。好比说开发公司在开发这一程序是怀有什么不良企图。实际上像Facebook或Twitter，不同人在其进行各种不同的活动，我们很难说它们是恶意开发的程序。

这是一种科技，而我认为网络科技是要尽可能长时间地吸引用户，这就是我们进行开发的根本原因。我认为Hilarie Cash医生的那番话是出于心理的看法。我可以理解她的感受，但我不认为我们是为了令人上瘾而射击游戏的。在开发时，我们会考虑各种因素，但是我们不曾怀有歹意。我们只是考虑如何令用户一直使用我们开发的应用，如何向用户提供最好的服务等。至于令用户上瘾我们没有考虑过。

您认为我们应该如何治疗Facebook游戏上瘾证？这种症状是否可以医治呢？

我认为人们应该寻找自己的人生目标，并为之不懈奋斗。我们投注大量精力从事的事情必须有益于实现我们的梦想。因此，如果某人每天花费大部分时间在Facebook上，他并没有理解这一服务的深意。这样的人一般很难治疗，医生给的建议可能只是治疗症状。

但是游戏上瘾的确是个问题，不仅是Facebook游戏或者各种角色扮演游戏。也许有方法可以解决这一问题。我不是精神病医生，但我很想知道为什么有的人觉得要在一款游戏上花费10到12小时每天。这样一来生活中的其他事情怎么办？

Facebook Addiction

是什么令您想写一本关于Facebook上瘾的小说呢？

我写这本书首先是因为我对计算机科学的了解。有一天当我在网上观看朋友的互动时突然谋生了这一想法。当我开始想写一本关于人们不断更新自己的网络状态的书籍时，Twitter已经发布但还不盛行。因此，我将Facebook上瘾和酒精上瘾、毒品上瘾相比较，便得出了“Facebook Addiciton”。我想写一本以此为基础的书，但由于我想令玩家真实地感受到这种症状，我深化了一些人物性格，将它写的更加真实。

您的作品中刻画了一些Facebook上瘾症的特点，Facebook上瘾有什么症状呢？

我认为当Facebook对我们的生活产生不良影响时，就可能是上瘾症的开端。我自己并不是这方面的专家，因此我访问了几位患有上瘾症的人，他们都有都向我说，一开始Facebook上瘾的症状微乎其微，然而当我们注意到的时候，它一般已经对生活产生了极大的负面影响。

因此，我认为当Facebook令我们的工作、生活和人际关系出现问题时，我们就必须开始质疑自己使用Facebook的方式是否正确了。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

While it’s far from official, you’ve probably already figured out from this year’s headlines that Facebook gaming addiction could be very real. This type of ‘addiction’ is extremely recent and while 19 percent of Facebook gamers admit to being addicted, it’s not exactly being treated like one.

We turn to Nnamdi Osuagwu, IT consultant and author of “Facebook Addiction: The Life and Times of Social Networking Addicts,” (a novel that explores our rampant digital culture and incessant need to update our status and check in on our friends by melding fact with fiction) to see if he can give us any answers.

Facebook AddictionWith cases emerging of violent and negligent crimes as a result of Facebook gaming, the threat seems very real. However, Facebook addiction, like gaming addiction has yet to be classified as an official disease or disorder by the American Medical Association. Why do you think this is?
[Experts in] medicine, generally, are late adapters to technology. Not in terms of medical devices or things of that nature, but online technology. Maybe this is just the outside looking in because some doctors are now getting on Twitter and health services are now figuring out ways to integrate social media into their organizations.

So, if they’re late adapters on that scale, you can assume on another scale of looking at online issues like gaming addictions and things like that they’ll be late adapters in terms of recognizing that as a threat. In order for them to recognize it as an issue, unfortunately more cases have to surface. That’s the nature of the beast when you’re dealing with medicine.

Dr. Hilarie Cash, who runs an Internet addiction program called reSTART, says Facebook games are designed to be addictive. Would you agree with that?
Being on the development side, I wouldn’t say they’re designed to be addictive. They’re designed to keep people on as long as possible. That helps you advertise, that helps you track your analytics, increases in usage, stuff like that. Saying that they’re specifically designed to be addictive sounds somewhat malicious; like, they have malicious intent when they build these systems. That’s like saying Facebook or Twitter is designed to be addictive when we see different people using it in various ways.

It’s technology, and I think online technology is designed to keep people using it for as long as possible. That’s why we build it. She’s obviously looking at it from the mental side; that’s her background. I could understand her feelings about them being designed to be addictive, but I don’t think we’re building these systems that way. There are a lot of different things in projects that I may build, but I never think about it with malicious intent nor am I trying to harm somebody. I just think about how we keep people using it, how we can be of the best service. To say whether that’s designed to be addictive, I don’t know.

In your opinion, how do we go about stopping or treating Facebook gaming addiction? Is it even treatable?
I’m a firm believer in a person finding what they want to do in life and going towards that. With anything that you spend a lot of time doing, I think it should be geared towards the dream you have. So, if you’re spending the majority of your time on Facebook, and you’re not trying understand it or if you want to build your own game some day, you’re just sucking up time. In terms of treating it, it’s a tough call. A lot of times in medicine, they treat the symptoms of something.

To bring it back to gaming addiction, it is an issue. Not just in Facebook games, but games in general-games where either you have to spend a lot of time in or games in which you can become someone else-what’s the underlying issue? That might be a way of trying to solve the problem. I’m no psychiatrist, but I would want to find out why you feel the need to spend 10 to 12 hours a day on this particular game. What about the other things that are going on in your life?

What exactly drove you to write a novel on Facebook addiction?
I wrote the book because I have a background in computer science.The idea hit me one day when I was online watching my friends interact. Twitter was out, but it wasn’t as popular when I started to think about the idea of writing a book about people who update their status continuously throughout the day-similar to how you send a tweet.

I started to think of the comparisons between Facebook addiction and alcohol or drugs and that’s how I came up with “Facebook Addiction.” The goal was to write a fictional book based on that, but I wanted the reader to really feel it, to essentially identify with some of the characters. So, I just wrote it like it was real, like these people are really suffering.

Your novel characterizes traits of Facebook addicts. What are some signs of Facebook addiction?
I think when it starts to negatively impact your life. I’m not an addiction expert, but from other projects like my first novel, “Ice Cream Melts,” where the goal was get real-life ‘ice cream melts’ stories, which are the transitions from a high point to a low point. So, I did interviews with people that had addictions. And one of the things they always say is, ‘It started off small, and I really noticed it when it started to negatively impact my life.’

So, I think when Facebook starts to seriously cause issues in your life, whether you’re having issues at work or neglecting your current responsibilities or that you just have to be on it. When you just see it impacting relationships with other people, I think you might want to question your Facebook usage. （Source：Games.com）