You've got the shakes, but you don't have a fever and you weren't just sniffing lines off a bathroom mirror. So what could be the cause? Games! Why do so many people get addicted to games? It is the same question posed seemingly hundreds of times. So is there something more there than people just wanting to have fun?

From the article:

In a study published in the January issue of Motivation and Emotion, investigators from the University of Rochester and Immersyve Inc. looked at what motivated 1,000 gamers to keep playing video games.

"We think there's a deeper theory than the fun of playing," lead investigator Richard Ryan, a motivational psychologist at Rochester, said in a prepared statement.

The gamers were divided into four groups, each asked to play different games. They answered questionnaires both before and after playing the games. The researchers used the questionnaires to look at the underlying motives and satisfactions that can spark players' interests and sustain them during play.

The researchers found that the games can provide opportunities for achievement, freedom and even a connection to other players. Those benefits trumped a shallow sense of fun, which doesn't keep gamers as interested. Players reported feeling the best when the games produced positive experiences and challenges that connected to what they knew in the real world.

Read the full article over at forbes.com