Keyboard and mouse in hand, he battled until nearly his last breath.
The death of Lee, a 28-year-old man identified only by his last name who passed away early last month after nearly 50 straight hours of playing online computer games, has South Korea concerned about the health of the millions of gamers in the world's most wired country.
Many of South Korea's 17 million gamers regularly stroll into Internet cafes, the 1,000 won-per-hour (US$1) hangout popular among young South Koreans, and camp out in front of monitors to play for hours -- and even sometimes days or longer.
PHOTO: AP
"I've seen people who play games for months, just briefly going home for a change of clothing, taking care of all their eating and sleeping here," said Jun Mung-gyu, 27, who runs an Internet cafe in southeastern Seoul.
More than 70 percent of South Korea's population of 48 million uses the Internet, and the country has the highest per-capita rate of broadband connections in the world. With all that access has come the rising problem of Internet addiction.
The number of counseling sessions for game addiction quadrupled last year from the previous year, a government agency said last week. There were 8,978 cases of counseling for game addition last year, compared with 2,243 cases in 2003, according to data released by the Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion.
This year, there have already been 7,649 counseling sessions in the first seven months.
"The rise is mostly due to increased awareness of game addiction," said agency official Jang Woo-min. "More people are becoming aware of the importance of healthy and productive usage of computers."
Gamers camped out at Internet cafes typically live on instant cup noodles and cigarettes, barely sleeping and seldom washing. Lee wasn't the first to die of such causes in this game-crazed nation: In 2002, a man expired in Kwangju after 86 hours of marathon gaming, among others.
Lee collapsed Aug. 5 in Daegu after having eaten minimally and not sleeping, and died a few hours after being transported to a hospital. Doctors presume Lee died of heart failure, although no autopsy was performed.
Internet cafe proprietor Jun himself isn't far removed from his game-addict days. Just a year ago, Jun found himself playing up to 15 hours of online role-playing games a day, which gave him constant headaches and cramps in his neck and shoulders.
"You have no life, you only focus on gaming, putting off all things like getting a haircut," recalled Jun, who said he felt obligated to return to the games every morning when he woke up.
Jun eventually was able to pull himself out of the addiction a few months ago as work began to occupy more of his time. That wasn't the case for the deceased gamer Lee, whose addiction led him to often miss work and got him fired from his job.
Physicians working with professional e-sports teams recommend gamers rest 10 minutes with their eyes closed after every five matches, and never play in the same posture for more than two hours.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”