According to Johan Huizinga (1949), as a Homo Ludens, man developed play (game) element in our culture during evolution. Roger Caillois (1961) categorized play into four groups: Agon (competition), Alea (probability), Mimicry(roleplaying), and Ilinx (altered perception). Current video/computer games are comprised of one or more of them combined. As these sociologists of game assert, game is one of the most basic and fundamental elements of our culture. However, some gamers become highly immersed in playing games, even to the degree of addiction. In 2013, National Assembly of Korea proposed a bill that would help alcoholics, drug addicts, gambling addicts and video game addicts. This caused huge social debates among experts and lay people. While some experts say that gaming addiction is not a truly existing phenomenon, some people say that we need law to regulate gaming in order to help prevent the addicts. These issues have become a problem of technological governance. This article analyzes 80 researches or so that may help us to learn about the problems and answers of the internet addiction, gaming addiction, and internet game (online game) addiction, or computer games for the youth in general. In order to maintain a well performed technological governance, first we need to know the characteristics of the issue. The author hopes that this article may be a ground study to start the scholastic discussion about the gaming governance in Korea.

2011년 도입된 청소년보호법 제26조는 ‘인터넷게임중독’이 실재한다고 전제하여 인터넷게임에 대한 접근을 일정시간동안 제한하는 기술적 조치이다. 이 조항은 도입과 함께 헌법소원의 대상이 되었다. 이 제도는 기술에 대한 사회적 수용과 저항을 잘 보여주는 논쟁사례이다. 우리는 ‘인터넷게임중독’이라는 용어가 학술적으로 여전히 논쟁적임에도 불구하고 사회적으로 널리 사용될 수 있었던 배경을 진지하게 살펴볼 필요가 있다. 이 논쟁을 기술사회적 관점에서 분석함으로써 국가 주도적 기술도입이 불러온 기술혐오를 발견할 수 있다. 기술혐오에 대한 해법은 병리적 프레임 보다 기술에 대한 비판담론 프레임으로 극복해야 할 필요가 있다.