Voiceover: Come on in, it's almost another world here in the video arcades of America. A billion games are played every month, a quarter each for escape, which can last a long time if you’re skilled. Pit yourself against the computer! Millions, mostly teenagers, have. So many, in fact, that psychologists are beginning to worry that some youths are becoming spaced-out on the space games.
Teenager: “You can get hooked on it!”
Reporter: "Are you?”
Teenager: “Yeah!”
Voiceover: Many cities have reacted by making the arcades off-limits to all under 17 from 8 to 3. This is the after-school rush in Oakland. Long hours at the screens, psychologists say, can lead to extreme introversion, youngsters communicating in a video fantasyland and not with their peers or parents.
Professor Robert Gable, Claremont College: "It's not addictive in the sense of a drug dependency where you're going to have withdrawal symptoms, but you can become physically dependent upon it because you get an arousal and then a relaxation response. It's the same as a rollercoaster, or gambling, or playing cards, intensified."
Voiceover: Many teenagers are frank and admitting their dependency.
Teenager: "Well, it's moving lights, partly. Some of these games are really hard to do. It just takes a lot of skill, hand-eye coordination, and it doesn't cost as much as some other things, and it's legal."
Teenager: "It's addictive. It is, because you sit there, you just want to play it more and more."
Jan Soderstrom, Video Game Maker: "We don't really prefer to use the word 'addictive.' We think it's associated with negative connotations. We prefer to use the terms 'compelling' and 'highly popular,' which obviously they are."
Voiceover: And, the manufacturers add, they teach a bit about computers too. This is the current craze game, Pac-Man.
Teenager: "I like the little man. He's really neat, eats up all the other things, you know."
