The PC방 Phenomenon

Admitting you have a problem is the first step to coming clean and rehabilitation.  So, friends and family, I admit to you now that I may have a tiny problem: I might be addicted to the PC방 (PC room--pronounced “PC bong”).  There are PC rooms all over Korea and one down the street from my house.  They’re dimly-lit, with no windows or clocks, and stocked with rows of computers that run faster than what I’ve got goin’ on in my apartment.  Not to mention that the Internet connections inside are the fastest that I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world (sometimes downloading at 7 or 9 megabytes per second!)  For five hours on a great system while sitting next to me buddies it’ll cost me less than ₩4000.  Folks, it’s hard to say no to a deal as good as this...

And I’m not the only one, yes, there are others like me (or not like me, actually).  I’m firmly committed to the good ol’ fashioned sense of willpower.  Willpower will help me leave early when I need too, but it’s damn hard to just walk away sometimes.  I might walk in at 11pm, tell myself I’ll be gone at 1am, but the next thing I know it’s 1:43am; I’m staring down the spout of an empty Mountain Dew can, waiting for the next round of Counter Strike with trembling fingers, and I keep telling myself, okay, after this next round--I’ll go home--it’ll be time then.  But the next round comes and I stay put.  My butt is glued to the seat and so is every other butt in this place.

Last time I was in the PC room I stayed from 11pm to 6am!  My excuse was that (supposedly) there was a typhoon outside, better to stay put and keep out of the rain.  My girlfriend didn’t like that.  She said that I was acting like a little boy and she’s not too far off.  Invariably, on any given Monday, the male students at my academy relish in their PC room exploits, (e.g.) I played Maple Story for 8 hours, I got a head shot [WARNING: may contain expletive material], I ate so much ramen and then threw up!  For months I never thought of the PC room, it’s for these brats, I’m never going, but here I find myself watching Dogma [WARNING: may contain expletive material] and wondering if my stamina to lose in Counter Strike has returned.  I can afford to stop gaming for a couple hours, watch some movies on youtube or download torrents, and it will only cost me a couple dollars.  I didn’t know until I came to the PC room that it was so cheap.  Again, it’s hard to say no to a deal as good as this...

However, like any addiction, there is a price: The lights in this place, small blue fluorescent bulbs, were purposefully made to damage the vision of anyone spending too much time here.  (Maybe it explains why more than half of my students wear glasses.)  After hours behind the screen my eyes tend to water and I eventually tear [no mom, they’re not happy tears].  Plus, by spending my late evenings and early mornings in the PC room kills my sleep cycle: I go to sleep at 3am, wake up at 6am (because I still don’t have curtains in my house and the sun forces me awake), and then drift in & out of lucid dreams until noon.  I could see how someone more irresponsible could let this lifestyle take over.  Apparently, students regularly flunk tests and employees habitually lose their jobs because they couldn’t quit the PC room.

I hate to say it’s different for me, but I think it is.  I’m not a student, my responsibilities are handled before I walk in the door; I don’t start work until 2pm, and I only come here with my friends.  We sit down in a row, play games, listen to music, and hang out.  It’s a smoker-friendly cafe and if we weren't here than we’d be somewhere else, doing the same thing.  It just so happens that here we have stupidly-fast Internet, the option to play games, and cheap coffee.  I know it’s easy for social activities to evolve into personal addictions, but I firmly believe that this is different: my PC room exploits are a phase and this too will pass like the kimbob phase and the jjimjilbang phase.

I’m not at the PC room every day, but when me and the boys show up it’s always a late night.  I know the side effects, the costs, and the scary stories.  The PC room is like anything that a person might do with his friends, but the mere act of doing it borders on “in control” and “being controlled”.  A weaker person could get sucked away into cyberspace, but I’m really not good enough at any video games to commit to playing much longer than my patience will allow.  Like I’ve said, it’s hard to say no to a deal as good as this, it’s much easier to say 네.