People can get addicted to just about anything. So, the American Medical Association's proposal that videogame addiction be considered a mental illness is a (excuse the pun) no-brainer.

But there's an even bigger problem highlighted by the aforelinked Associated Press story -- parental responsibility, or lack thereof.

Joyce Protopapas of Frisco, Texas, said her 17-year-old son, Michael, was a video addict. Over nearly two years, video and Internet games transformed him from an outgoing, academically gifted teen into a reclusive manipulator who flunked two 10th grade classes and spent several hours day and night playing a popular online video game called World of Warcraft.

“My father was an alcoholic ... and I saw exactly the same thing” in Michael, Protopapas said. “We battled him until October of last year,” she said. “We went to therapists, we tried taking the game away.

“He would threaten us physically. He would curse and call us every name imaginable,” she said. “It was as if he was possessed.”

"We tried taking the game away?" Tried? How hard is it to delete the game from the computer, delete the character(s) from the World of Warcraft servers and unplug the computer from the Internet? You "tried" taking the game away? Tried?

He cursed at you? That'd get the little cuss a slap and a grounding. If it continued, he can see how your world changes when you start having to pay rent and utilities yourself.

Try actually parenting sometime.