10 Times Star Trek Depicted Addiction

As depicted in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Game,  sometimes electronic devices can be as addictive as drugs. Writer Fred Bronson was inspired by his experience playing Tetris. 

The episode depicts Wesley Crusher discovering the Enterprise crew has become addicted to the titular game as part of an alien plot to infiltrate Starfleet.

The game consists of a simple headset worn in front of the eyes. The headset projects a grid pattern on which a player directs disks into cones. 

Completing a level stimulates the player's pleasure center and creates a psychotropic addiction that renders the player completely submissive. If a player refuses to play, the game "plays itself", addicting them as if they'd been playing all along.

Crusher and Ensign Robin Lefler discover the game's mind control mechanism and with Data's help, free the crew from the game's influence.

In real life, the American Psychiatric Association has identified the compulsion loop, or habitual chain of activities, as a feature of certain video games. 

In the compulsion loop, anticipation (buy improved gear) leads to a challenge (kill monsters) which leads to a reward (gold and loot) which leads back to anticipation. This produces dopamine that reinforces the desire to play through the compulsion loop, potentially leading to addictive behavior. Of course, in real life, when a player stops playing, the game doesn't play itself (at least not yet).