Video Games Killing South Koreans

This is the kind of thing I was thinking about when I started this blog. (Well, this and the monster breeding I post about a lot.) Technology alienates one from reality to the degree that alienation gets so astonishingly pronounced that some people disconnect entirely, even from biological necessities. Shocking (and, may I say, darkly hilarious).

A South Korean man has died after reportedly playing an online computer game for 50 hours with few breaks.

The 28-year-old man collapsed after playing the game Starcraft at an internet cafe in the city of Taegu, according to South Korean authorities.

The man had not slept properly, and had eaten very little during his marathon session, said police.

.....

The man, identified by his family name, Lee, started playing Starcraft on 3 August. He only paused playing to go to the toilet and for short periods of sleep, said the police.

"We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion," a Taegu provincial police official told the Reuters news agency.

He was taken to hospital following his collapse, but died shortly after, according to the police. It is not known whether he suffered from any previous health conditions.

They added that he had recently been fired from his job because he kept missing work to play computer games.

I thought I read in one of the articles on this guy's death that there was a young couple who left their baby at home to suffocate while they played on-line video games. They claimed they were only stepping out for a 20 minutes, but lost track of time while playing. Insane.

UPDATE: Ok, I didn't find that story, but I foundthis one.

The parents of four kids have been sentenced to three months in jail for neglect, after becoming addicted to internet gaming.

It emerged in court that both parents had become utterly engrossed in the online gaming world - the 28-year-old father spent all his waking hours playing online, the BBC reports.
Click Here

Neighbours spotted two of the children standing naked on a window ledge, and called the police. The subsequent investigation uncovered what Arbroath Sheriff Court, Scotland, was told was one of the worst cases of neglect seen by police or social workers.

The youngest was found in a heavily soiled nappy. The other three were all dirty, and hardly clothed. Two of the children needed emergency dental work, and one had to have all her teeth removed.

In sentencing, Sheriff Norrie Stein said that the level of neglect had been appalling.

"This neglect appears to have occurred over a significant period and despite extensive home support, clothing and laundry services, and parenting classes, you have clearly chosen to disregard your children," he said.

He concluded that there was no alternative to a prison sentence.

Whew. Found the infant death one, too. Here we go.

Korean press picks up tale of tragedy when couple plays World of Warcraft to excess, infant perishes from neglect.

In a story out of Korea, which is just now surfacing in the Western press, a couple in Incheon, South Korea, were arrested last week when their 4-month-old daughter died after being left alone by the couple for hours. The mother and father reportedly had gone to a nearby Internet cafe, lost themselves in playing Blizzard's massively multiplayer online PC game World of Warcraft, and returned to their home only to find the infant dead from suffocation. "We booked the pair on criminal charges, judging that when you consider the situation, they were responsible for their daughter's death," a policeman told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. The couple reportedly told police, "We were thinking of playing for just an hour or two and returning home like usual, but the game took longer that day." The infant was the couple's only child.