Roughly 2 weeks ago we heard news of the first "internet overdose". It happened in Kwangju, South Korea. "Kim" played for 86 hours straight then died from apparent exhaustion. Here's a snippit from the last incident.

 

More than half of South Korea's population of 47 million has internet access, and there are also about 22,000 cyber cafes - also known as PC rooms. Many of these PC rooms are open 24 hours.

I'm in South Korea. That's not an understatement.. people literally play 24 hours a day. The cyber cafes provide blazing access, movies, and games for less than US$1.00 an hour.

 

Today, I read that yet another person has died from an Internet Overdose. His name was Lien Wen-cheng, he died in internet cafe in Taiwan after playing 32 hours straight.

 

At 7am on Saturday, a staff member found the man on the floor of the cafe's toilet foaming at the mouth and bleeding from the nose. "They rushed him to hospital but he was already dead," local police said.

 

Psychologist Peter Watson explained that playing games over prolonged periods without sleep places the body under considerable stress.

 

"Depending on the game, the brain is receiving [the impression] that it is constantly under attack," he said.

 

"We would not expect hardened soldiers to cope with a 32-hour fire fight, and yet some people think they can play these games constantly for long periods of time."

Play it safe folks. The games will be there tomorrow. It is simply not worth it!

 

More information @ Vnunet