Online game playing has become incredibly popular over the past few years. The sheer diversity of games available over the Internet is profound. You can dial into the Internet Chess Club, for instance, and play matches with grandmasters half a world away. If you click open another window, you can engage in a brisk round of Texas Hold ‘Em with semiprofessional card sharks in Las Vegas.

Yet the most profound gaming phenomenon that has evolved as a result of the Internet is interactive online play. Competitors from around the country and around the globe populate intricate and highly imagined gaming worlds. Hard-core aficionados collect themselves into teams or clans to take on rival groups in games like Halo 2 or World of Warcraft. The photorealism of some of these games is suggestive of a new and almost disturbing level of virtual reality.

The Phenomenon of Interactive Gaming

Many people who play interactive online games do so 40 or 50 hours a week. Indeed, some psychologists argue that this wave of online interactive game playing may be profoundly detrimental--even addictive--if it reaches the level of interfering with one's actual analog life. There are those who fear that children who get addicted to internet games at a young age may fail to develop appropriate social skills and responses and then lash out violently as a result of overexposure to war scenarios.

At the same time, evidence suggests that online game players do very well at spatial relations tasks. A military study of new recruits discovered a correlation between sharp shooting scores and video game playing history. Thus, for all the heartfelt concern about the loss of productivity associated with online video game playing, there may ultimately be a silver lining in our new wireless economy.