By Jim Rossignol on July 27th, 2009 at 9:00 am.
UPDATE: Oh God, will everyone please read John’s article here, where this stuff is covered in detail. What follows is a review of a book, not an exhaustive article on game addiction, as should be plainly fucking obvious. Thanks.
This week I’ve been reading Game Addiction by Neils Clark and P. Shavaun Scott. This authorial duo have created a book that should not be judged by its cover, and should definitely be read by a wide range of folks who are interested in knowing a bit more about where gaming now sits amid general electronic culture. Scott is a psychotherapist who provided expertise and case-studies to the project, while Clark is an academic, gamer, lecturer and recovered game addict who seems to have done most of the word-laying. Game Addiction is probably the most important work yet written on the subject of habitual gaming, and draws together a wealth of information that I’ll be going back to for some time. Read on for some more thoughts on the book itself, and why that might just be a poor choice of title.
I should stress that this is, for the most part, a straight-forward, well-constructed book, but there are nevertheless wobbles from the outset. Clark claims that “this book is neither pro-games, nor anti-games”, which seems like an interesting approach for a book that is entitled “Game Addiction”. We seem, from the cover itself, to be focusing on the problems inherent in gaming: addiction is necessarily a negative angle to take. However, Clark rapidly redeems himself by taking a wide-angle approach to the subject of gaming as part of a lifestyle. He attacks the issue by looking at what it means to game, why games are so powerful and potent, and why we love playing them. As the book progresses, and the portrait of gamers and gaming becomes more detailed, Clark and Scott demonstrate what a jungle of concepts the notion of “addiction” is actually obscuring. In fact, they seem to undermine their own choice of title when, in the concluding remarks, Clark writes: “Addiction is one word with many faces. When applied to games, it lumps together draws which are fundamentally different. Using it betrays our ignorance… People applying the word addiction should consider it an interim term. Though it may never fall out of fashion, it should.”
Strange that this book isn’t leading the charge on that one, eh?
Anyway, as the book makes abundantly clear, what really matters about gaming addiction and all the issues surrounding, clouding and supplementing the issue, is that we educate ourselves in the true complexities of habitual gaming. Games are – as we and the authors of this book know all too well – remarkably engaging and compelling. We need to recognise and describe this as a basis for getting to the negative/obsessive aspects of our gaming behaviours in a sensible fashion, as the book explains: “Before we talk about addiction, whether in neurochemistry, psychology, or any other area, we’ve got to acknowledge that the gaming experience alone can exert a forceful pull, even with the simple tradition of immersion.”
The book talks at length about just how “real” games seem to us: it dwells on the idea of a “real illusion”, which is something I’ve ended up mulling over a lot myself. (I don’t think Clark is always useful in his analysis of the nature of engagement and immersion, but it’s definitely the right thing to tackle in this book. Personally, I like Steven Shaviro’s “prosthetic reality” idea best of all, along with the notion of understanding gaming as extension, rather than “illusory” or “virtual”, and I’ll be writing about that soon, elsewhere.) What’s important, says Game Addiction, is that we understand some of the basis of gaming experience – how we play, why we play, why we experience it so viscerally, even when it can be so abstract – before we even consider its effects on gamers and their lives. It’s the right approach to take.
Clark and Scott spend some time on the well-trodden ground of what it is about games that make them different from other media, and although occasionally struggling to articulate the most important ideas, the book rapidly expands the topics that dominate the discussion: MMOs, and the added appeal and addictive qualities of online play. There’s a huge amount of material pertaining to online behaviours in here, and Clark carefully folds in a bunch of research from areas such as developmental psychology, neurology (with particular reference to current trends in neuroplasticity, which is something I’m very interested in), while adding a wider collage of anecdotal and academic resources to the mix. Game Addiction goes some way to flesh out the ramifications of what gamers are doing when they spend six hours a day in a game: it examines the activity, the rewards, the processes of reinforcement, the wider behaviours of habitual gamers, and even suggests a little about what might be happening at a neurological level. The idea that prolonged exposure to games isn’t having significant physical effects on us is, it seems, rather wishful thinking.
Game Addiction points out that the problems of excessive gaming come from all kinds of directions, including the social dimension of being friends with other highly-practiced players. As soon as you stop practising for many hours at a time, your game begins to drop, and that means you can come under pressure from other gamers who put in similar amounts of time. (I find this with FPS gaming, having played Quake III competitively. I almost can’t enjoy FPS games now because I want the high of absolute mastery, or nothing, from myself and my team-mates.) This isn’t necessarily bad, but it is part of the kind of gaming behaviours that do cause a problem, behaviours which this book, of course, describes.
What this means is that Game Addiction is damning of “grind” heavy games. At times, it seems like Clark is betraying his “not anti-games” by painting a deliberately bleak pictures of traditional MMOs. He’s quick to nod towards the complexity of these clever multiplayer constructs, and the positive side-effects of social gaming, but I couldn’t help feeling that grind-based games are beginning to become their own worst enemies when subjected to this kind of scrutiny. It seems like an impossible task to come away with a truly positive picture of their game model, and the way we gamers behave when playing them. They are not games that encourage balance in our lives.
What this book is about, I think, is balance. Certainly, it’s warning. It tells us to pay attention to games or “secondary worlds” as something that is important to our future. Not recognising significant problems early on has led to many a calamity, and Clark and Scott have identified the problems, and the potentials for problems, in gaming. But crucially, Clark and Scott are not attacking gaming as a medium or as a way of spending leisure time, but they are asking for – even demanding – that we look at education, and find concrete ways to inform gamers, children, and parents, of how to approach gaming with a sense of balance.
My initial reaction towards the nannying cry of “making sure people understand the dangers”, rather than relying on them to figure things out for themselves, as Clark seems to have done, was that it seems somewhat condescending. But, well, the said reality is that most people are stupid. And education is a lot better than governmental meddling or crude censorship. Since we don’t seem to have much self discipline, and we do neglect things because we’re busy playing games, we need to be told to take a step back and think. Clark and Scott are right to call time, because there are problems, particularly with regards to young children and videogames. (And also television.) They carefully point out that while play is essentially to the development of children – and indeed all infant mammals – screen-based play is peculiarly truncated, and does not offer all the sensory and psychological nutrients that we need. One of the most interesting observations is that while kids will project imaginative situations onto objects they play with in the real world “the stick is a pony”, they don’t tend to do the same thing with screen entities. A chicken on a screen is just a chicken. (Which I think could do with being examined further – do screens have some particular hold over our imagination that the real world does not? Does it suppress imaginative leaps? An intriguing prospect.) Perhaps the diversity of games, with new interactive possibilities, will change that.
“Everything in moderation” is a good rule of thumb, and could be a general motto for life, however hard it is to stick to. The evidence is that this is true tenfold for children, especially younger children, as this book makes plain. The younglings cannot be exposed to extended time with any screen-based entertainment without significant consequences to their psychological development. It is our generation – the prospective parents of the future – that need to be made to understood that. Children need more than screens to develop normally.
Anyway, Clark and Scott have compiled probably the best set of resources on this topic that is available to us at the moment. It’s a little slow and dry in places, but it’s not supposed to be entertainment. The nature of habitual gaming going to be a huge social issue in the coming years, of that there seems little doubt. Those people interested in the debate – which should be most of you, frankly – would do well to pick up this book, arm yourselves with Clark and Scott’s research, and continue following the army of experts, critics, and researchers that Game Addiction refers to. This is a practical and sensible starting point to understanding a subject that is going to loom ever larger in all our lives.
Neils Clark was a major contributor to John’s feature on gaming addiction, published in 2007. You can read it here.
Where do I buy its?
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Definitely a poor choice of title. There is no such condition. A person with an addictive personality and poor self control can become addicted to any kind of stimuli. Treating the symptom and not the underlying problem is a horrendous idea.
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Buy it on amazon.
Regarding the title – so long as they explain exactly what they mean by their choice it is not so bad.
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Might i suggest that the book be called ‘Game addiction?’? The question mark could even be a sticker the retailers could apply to already published copies.
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“Treating the symptom and not the underlying problem is a horrendous idea.”
Fame and fortune starved psychologists?
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“A person with an addictive personality and poor self control can become addicted to any kind of stimuli.”
Aah TB, I remember hearing your take on this years ago when I played WoW, and I couldnt put it better. Gaming is not a chemical addiction, like nicotine or hard drugs. Even if it were, you’d still have only yourself to blame.
What if you really enjoy long-distance running? Is that an addiction? If you really enjoy looking after animals? You like driving? Its the same thing, but society would not label it an addiction because it is, for the most part, morally acceptable.
The fact is, the only people I’ve met who have been addicted to something, are likely to get addicted to anything they really like. They just have addictive personalities.
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I think the books title is aimed at people who want a book that is anti games, and maybe its a clever ploy to get them into the book and then shatter there perception. If so bravo on that front.
I do agree that gaming can be addictive, but I hope in this book they mention people who play games more then socialize because they have maybe social problems and they can’t really communicate very well with other Humans. because sometimes that is the case.
Also i do wish people would maybe go a little deeper into MMOs since there are a lot of positives to them as well as the negatives. I just find it a little bit shameful that they go through all this research about other games and they just do the stereotype view of MMOs. Maybe in their next book MMO Addiction hey.
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Totalbiscuit: I think the point of the book is that that’s not entirely true, even if the title isn’t terribly accurate. I mean, we are seeing a lot of habits being formed by games in a lot of broad, noticeable ways that they aren’t by, say, books.
Or even movies, or music, or what-have-you. Other media don’t engross us for large handfuls of sequential hours at a time. You finish a two and a half hour feature film and you’re exhausted, and want to do something else – you get off of a six hour video game binge and you’re annoyed that you have to eat, and planning what you’ll do when you play tomorrow.
And the whole thing’s done with an extreme level of concentration. The closet analogue, I think, is a good page turner of a book; it’s not so much that games demand this level of concentration as that they pull you into it. An extremely engrossing book, however, is this way because of its narrative flow. It’s going somewhere, and it pulls you along – it necessarily has to end at some point, or you’ll get tired of being strung out and wonder off. Games, on the other hand, are very procedural beasts; even in the most interesting games, you’re likely to spend the vast majority of your time repeating the same tasks in multiple, slightly different iterations.
Some games ARE narrative, but a lot of them aren’t. And the fact that basic acts of gaming – task repetition and skill honing, interspersed with rewards – is so disproportionately engrossing is significant.
“Addiction” might not be QUITE the right word, but claiming that there’s “no such thing” is a pretty significant act of denial.
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Bad choice of title for a book arguing that “addiction” is a bad term
I think obsession is better word for it
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“There is no such condition.”
It seems more like there are several such conditions. The problem is that classifying them under the same terms as “drugs are addictive” or “gambling is addictive” does not represent their nature, or the behaviour of “addicted” gamers. It’s quite a different problem.
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Is pleasure an addiction? I consider games a pleasure, but strangely games, underneath its entertainment surface are also work. It is fun work, but work after all. You need to learn skills and apply them. The reward for it is not money, but in cut-scenes, achievements, new graphics, etc.
What I want to say is that games are really strange. They include many forms of art like images, sound, music, story; it also is work at the same time; it is interactive.
I think that games are strange, but are also unique and so varied. Could that be the reason that many of us are at least obssessed with them? Because they sometimes simulate life, but at the same time they give us unique experiences which we couldn’t (shouldn’t) get elsewhere.
I really love games and being a gamer!
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“I think the books title is aimed at people who want a book that is anti games, and maybe its a clever ploy to get them into the book and then shatter there perception. If so bravo on that front.”
This
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“Or even movies, or music, or what-have-you. Other media don’t engross us for large handfuls of sequential hours at a time. ”
The only reason my Dad doesn’t spend six hours a night watching TV these days is because I got him a Wii. I have a friend who spends his downtime reading, he gets home, makes his tea and unless it’s Friday will spend the rest of the night reading. Often a single book (he loves those Russian nihilists).
Other media does engross us for similar periods. In fact, fundamentally me, my parents and my friend are embarked on the same activity – staving off boredom. The only change there is the media, and I think if I’m really honest, the reason gaming holds me more than TV has, at least in part, a fair bit of influence from a juvenile brain making the association that TV was something the older folks were into, thus inherently uncool. Like Dire Straits.
In fact, I wouldn’t be that surprised if my own kids turn out to be more engrossed in TV than a PC for much the same reason …
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Now look I can deal with the internets going mad about booth babes being lusted over, i can deal with l4d2 just being an update to l4d but at full price and and I can deal with a badly named book on gaming addiction. But calling Dire Straits uncool just isn’t on.. I demand an apology.
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So, whilst I’d agree with Archonsod about the misleading comparison with other forms of media (I can happily spend hours reading a book, and once binged my way through 5 books of a fantasy series to “catch up”, without any of this “feeling of exhaustion” that apparently should have differentiated the experience from that of gaming), the key difference is that gaming is increasingly social.
My early gaming experiences were social only really in the same way that heckling at the TV is social – there are other people present, and commenting/offering advice, but not directly involved in the media experience itself.
Modern games, becoming more multiplayer focussed, are increasingly social in the way the book describes, and thus differently-”addictive” to other media. (That said, as Jim also mentions, and as I’ve
complainedwhined about before, the competitive sense this engenders can actually be off-putting for the more casual gamer – I’m fairly sure one reason I enjoy TF2 less now than I did is that I’ve logged considerably fewer hours than the “average” player, so I’m horribly outclassed by my team and the opposing one.) In this sense, they’re addictive in the same way, perhaps, as the social-networking-site-of-your-choice – that is, because, like all “addictive” things, they give you a more concentrated dose of something humans like (interaction, in this case) than “reality” has.report
I heard something about booth babes? Where?
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@AbyssUK
Seconded!
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@Archonsod: As someone who spent most of his childhood either reading or watching TV, I’m not sure if I agree.
Watching TV is a passive activity. I think it only looks terribly engrossing by contrast; when you’re sitting planted in front of the TV, there is, almost by definition, nothing else interesting going on. I watched TV in the same way I trawl the internet for videos of kittens being adorable or click the “random” button on TV-Tropes now; it’s a good time waster.
This is also what happens when I reread books. It’s not terribly engrossing, but it’s vaguely interesting and it passes the time. I do it because it’s marginally more interesting than doing nothing. And if it takes some force to move me, it’s because after hours of doing practically nothing, I’ve established some level of inertia. (A fair bit of gaming falls into this category too: most of it involves Flash games or indie platformers or something I’ve already played a while back.)
There’s quite a bit of a difference between doing something for hours because there’s nothing else to do, and doing something for hours because you’re completely enthralled. Both TV and books can be properly enthralling, but they tend to need to be consistently interesting to manage this. (Mostly) Only in video games, though, does something being “addicting” have so little to do with whether it’s “fun” or “interesting.”
I mean, I have followed TV and book series far past the point where I stopped enjoying them to find out what happens next, up to when I suddenly realized that I didn’t actually give a shit? But that’s the exception rather than the rule, while there’s an entire genre of video games revolving around joyless, repetitious tasks interspersed with rewards in the form of funny hats and/or plot.
. . .
@Sam: The “feeling of exhaustion” was specifically referring to that moment you get after you finished a movie (mostly in theaters) when you stand up and stretch and blink and realize that you’ve been sitting in the same place for an hour and a half. This feeling is integral to the movie-going experience. :)
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So my cunning plan to adopt a young South Korean child bring him up with strong moral values and about 18 hrs per day minimum Starcraft training may still result in untold riches but could result in him getting psychological damage?
Bah! No-one tells you these things til its too late do they?
I’d filled out the adoption papers and everything…..
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@Noc (this is Sam, btw, I forgot to log in last time):
I take your point, but I’m not sure that it’s a feeling of “exhaustion” – I get more of a desire to talk about the movie with other people. I get the same response with books and some games – although, the change in light-level (I suspect) involved in movie theatres does provide something of a “oh, it’s light again” response on leaving…
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Where were my commas in my previous message? I was typing at the speed of KG speech patterns perhaps.
@pilouuuu I’ve often thought the same regarding a lot of games could be construed as ‘work’
Here’s something I’d like to see an article on, as gaming becomes increasingly mainstream and as more people enter the workforce with gaming experience : the use of gaming tropes such as achievements, mini-rewards as they can be applied to the Business environment. Particularly how they can be used to make all the project tasks I’m currently working on bearable and maybe even trick my mind into enjoying them more and motivating myself and my colleagues along the way.
I’m sure I saw a blog or something similar on this once but a quick google has left me bereft.
Anyone seen something similar?
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Where were my commas in my previous message? I was typing at the speed of KG speech patterns perhaps.
@pilouuuu I’ve often thought the same regarding a lot of games could be construed as ‘work’
Here’s something I’d like to see an article on, as gaming becomes increasingly mainstream and as more people enter the workforce with gaming experience: the use of gaming tropes such as achievements, mini-rewards as they can be applied to the business knowledge working/information environment.
Particularly how they can be used to make all the project tasks I’m currently working on bearable and maybe even trick my mind into enjoying them more and motivating myself and my colleagues along the way.
I’m sure I saw a blog or something similar on this once but a quick google has dug up very little.
Anyone seen something similar?
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“People are stupid” is a dangerous road to go down, IMO. It’s an easy solution to the craziness, but it also leads one into elitism and other reality-warping affectations. My gut feeling is that it’s less that people are /stupid/ per se (a problem with individuals) and more that people are incurious and unintrospective (a problem with a [sub-]culture). In this particular case it’s likely also true that most people have more important things to be introspective about than their gaming habits.
Also, I’d opine that picking out traditional MMOs as a particular target here is largely fair, given that their success is built in no small part around their reward mechanisms, which by accident or design make for shall we say very compulsive gaming habits. Yes, there’s a bunch of positives in them, too, but the core progression mechanic is (I would say) not trivially defensible in this context.
Also, agree with Xercies on the title, if it gets people with an anti-gaming mindset to read the book it’s a worthwhile ploy.
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Interestingly, seen a documentary about game addiction yesterday. Mostly focusing on, small wonder, WoW.
Gaming addiction is not yet recognized but there are plans to take it up into the DSM. As such, the only way to treat it is through private clinics. And they’re really not cheap.
Mmorgps are especially addictive because they have a ton of mini achievements. “Ooh, two more hours and I’ll hit a new level”. “Ooh, maybe that new epic will drop”. “Ooh, if I play for another ten hours, I might get the new PVP rank and get a new item”… Yeah, I’ve been there myself. One ex game designer noted that symposiums were being held with the title “How do I make my game more addictive”. Says enough really.
They also interviewed a few addicts. They all reached the point where it was being obsessive and it started wasting their lives. Playing over eight hours a day. And therefore not continueing your studies or looking for a job. Neglecting other hobbies, friends,… And basically being unable to think about anything but the game. Sure, you might take a break of an hour but in that hour, you’re not doing anything but thinking about the game.
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TOOTR: There’s a games->’work’ article linked in one of the Sunday Papers, iirc, I don’t know which one though. Was a good article from what I remember, but I don’t have the time to find the link right now.
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This is interesting, and in most current games very true. One slight counter-point I’d like to bring up is Minecraft, where all you have are cubes, and then you must “imagine” them into something.
And (not that recently) there are ASCII games, which require quite a bit of imagination!
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Yeah, it’s a good argument for abstract approaches in games.
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@andy
Oh, dear, I’ve been programming too much perl.
As I was scanning comments the shape of
games->’work’
reminded me of instantiating a hash for a second.
OK, off to play something mindless to compensate now.
(and now back to your regular addiction comments programming…)
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Was going to post a nice big rant here decrying the entire concept that this book espouses but thankfully some other sensible people have beaten me to it.
Addiction is a medical condition that involves chemical and physical changes in the brain centered around the consumption of opiates or other powerful drugs.
Games are not drugs. Period. May as well discuss the dangers of needlepoint addiction. Sure some people claim addiction to games but they are just weak willed and lack any form of any basic self control. Writing like this simply gives those morons an excuse to languish in their own laziness.
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“Addiction is a medical condition that involves chemical and physical changes in the brain”
Extended exposure to videogames does make chemical and physical changes to the brain, so much so that videogame-based therapies are being used to treat specific learning difficulties.
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As someone who basically spent all of yesterday playing Empire, I can relate to this.
I wonder whether augmented reality will make a lot of this less problematic. Part of the problem is that games offer a reality more exciting than the one outside – choosing between being a superhuman in a tropical paradise, and being a kid in a concrete jungle, I know which one I’d choose. Perhaps augmented reality games might bring games outside. That said, there are probably more basic solutions to the problems of addictive tendencies in heavy players of games.
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Another thing I’ve noticed is the need for information density. I’m rarely able to sit and watch a TV programme on a computer screen without opening another window and simultaneously reading something at the same time. I think there are many positive things about this – the major reason IQs have been increasing steadily over the years is primarily down to access to information. But equally, information, and the internet in particular, can be addictive.
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@Jim
That is wildly inaccurate. Videogame BASED therapies are being employed for sure, but those therapies are carefully constructed around specific activities known to stimulate specific parts of the brain, not just plonking someone with learning difficulties in front of WoW for 48 hours.
This is a totally different thing and has bugger all to do with addiction…
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No, there is no such condition.
Addiction by definition requires a physical negative effect to occur when the addictive substance is taken away.
A game does not physically alter or effect your body (or more importantly – brain) and thus does not create a negative effect when taken away.
It is NOT an addiction – it boils down to your prioritising, lazyness, procrastination to do anything other than what you deem fun and worthwhile.
Its like watching TV and thinking “Oh i need to wash up…but I can’t be assed… I’ll do it tomorrow morning”.
Its feeling like you have nothing better to do and would rather spend the time earning X kills or X levels or doing X raids etc.
You stop drugs when you’re addicted – Cold turkey kicks in, your body reacts and you feel extremely ill.
You stop drinking alcohol when you’re addicted – much like above.
You stop playing the game you’re “addicted to” – You become bored.
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@ Noc “I mean, I have followed TV and book series far past the point where I stopped enjoying them to find out what happens next, up to when I suddenly realized that I didn’t actually give a shit? But that’s the exception rather than the rule, while there’s an entire genre of video games revolving around joyless, repetitious tasks interspersed with rewards in the form of funny hats and/or plot. ”
If they were truly joyless, they wouldn’t have many subscribers. It’s the exception though. As you say, you’ve watched a series long past the point it held any interest, the same applies across the media. I know people who go to the Cinema to see a movie every Friday not because they are film buffs, but because that’s what they do every Friday. People build themselves into these little patterns, it’s just what we do.
I’d say the only way the MMO’s differ is because they’re not just a game – even if you do find the game itself dull and repetitive it doesn’t matter if you’re there primarily to hang out with friends.
In fact, I bet there’s little difference between your example of TV and the average person’s MMO experience. For the first month or two after a subscription you tend to play it because it’s interesting. Three or four months down the line you’re interest in the game wanes and you’re playing simply because you want to hit a specific goal, or because your online friends are playing. Five or six months you’ve lost all interest but you play it because it’s there. Eventually, you get bored and ask why you’re paying for this shit every month, and cancel your sub or let it lapse.
“Extended exposure to videogames does make chemical and physical changes to the brain, so much so that videogame-based therapies are being used to treat specific learning difficulties.”
Extended exposure to life makes chemical and physical changes to the brain, that’s kinda how it works. The problem with using it to define an addiction is that you end up seeing any repetitive behaviour as an addiction. I turn up to work every morning, I suffer negative psychological effects when I don’t do it for a long time, yet I wouldn’t say it’s an addiction as such. Our brains are like Vista, they pre-cache stuff they expect you to do, then throw a wobbler when you don’t do it.
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It’s been suggested that game addiction is more like, say, a gambling addiction, in terms of being an impulse control disorder. It’s obviously not a physical addiction.
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its pretty funny when everyones says think of the children and your like bugger off i want to elbow drop someone from the top of the empire states building in prototype.
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Don’t give the authors too much credit for the title. Authors don’t always have complete say over the title the publisher ends up putting on the book. Google is failing me, but I’m sure I read a review with one of the authors of “Grand Theft Childhood” (Olson & Kutner, 2008), which similarly presented a more nuanced conclusion on their subject than the sensational title would suggest, in which s/he said that they were not enthusiastic about the title but the publisher insisted it would sell better.
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@Catastrophe
I’d say surely with the MMO model of constant reward affirmation then there is probably some kind of chemical impact in terms of increased serotonin levels, during play. Plus there is a large social aspect to MMOs that if you drop out of them can impact upon your mood.
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Addiction is just another word for something someone thinks you shouldn’t be doing. Balance in life is fine if you like hugging trees and believing what other people tell you is true without finding the truth out for yourself. Balance in life has little relevance to Gaming Addiction. If you play games A LOT like me then your balance is playing other games. Just like watching TV and watching different shows. You have been watching tv or surfing the Internet most of your lives and your fine. Playing games all the time or smoking or whatever your addiction is doesn’t make you who you are. Life long influences put you in front of games all day such ad bad parents, poverty, desire to be left alone. These dint make you bad these make you who you are. Gaming addiction belongs up there with all the other crackpot Freudian ideas long ago. The only reason these crackpots are given a forum is the same as Freud, no one else knows any better. Keep playing games, you are contributing to an unparrelled ability for social interaction, community, and fun which these so called addiction experts are telling you tour not getting.
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I hope this book has the kind of diplomatic language to make clear that idiot games like WoW don’t require any skill on the part of the player, and item drops are consciously designed as a kind of softer gambling/lottery with very similar symptoms as the old gambling addiction.
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I think gaming is addictive.
By which I mean I have seen friends and felt myself some of the lesser effects which are very similar to some of the physical addictions mentioned but none the less negative for that. I haven’t witnessed cold turkey type withdrawl as such but certainly witnessed mood swings /disorders when not being able to play the ‘game of choice’.
If you are arguing that addition needs to be chemically based well….
I strongly believe that a large part of the initial infatuation when you fall in, what you humans call, love is brought about by a massive amount of chemical changes that occur in the brain.
Would you class ‘love’ as addictive? Robert Palmer would (and thus my argument ends ;) )
Its obvious that some of feelings that some games can invoke closely mirror ‘fight or flight’ , associated endorphins and reward paths in the brain etc. Can someone get used to these feelings? Crave them if not available?
By saying games are not an ‘addiction’ my opinion is being dismissive or just pedantic.
I fully agree that the young should be educated on these issues – particularly as games become probably more immersive. Just don’t take my games away from my shaking hands ok? Now then…..just one more go…..
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@ andy and off topic
Thanks – I dug about a bit and found links to Seriosity – a consultancy service that applies psychological and economical principles from mmo’s to the workforce.
At first glance I like their intent but am non-plussed by their methods. Interesting though.
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I wonder how many of the “there’s no such thing as gaming addiction” people went on a 6-8+ gaming stint after writing that.
Modern games with their flashy graphics and fast paced gameplay cause huge stimulations in the brain and large releases of brain chemicals; not as much as hard drugs but certainly a lot more than a normal person’s everyday life.
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FWIW, most book titles are NOT chosen by the authors. The publishers do it. At best the authors make suggestions, but ultimately the publishers pick a title they think will lead to greater sales. In this case, I wonder just how closely the publisher read the book.
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@Andy: of course they do. Modern blockbuster movies, with their flashy effects and explosions, implausibly attractive actors and rapid cutting techniques also cause huge stimulations in the brain and large releases of brain chemicals; not as much as hard drugs (or caffeine), but certainly a lot more than a normal person’s everyday life.
All you’ve said is “modern games are stimulating”. Of course they are – otherwise people wouldn’t be interested in them!
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@ Kadayi
I kinda worded some of what I said wrongly, but the essence of what I meant is there – doing anything can effect chemical changes in your brain, but there is NO negative physical effect when “cold turkeying” the game you’re “addicted” to.
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It’s all about the neurochemistry at the end of the day. Like anything in life that can be classified as addictive its the nature of wanting to experience that “high” again that will keep an addict coming back for more. Easiest example would be something like Cocaine, which when used releases, and blocks the reuptake, of dopamine in the brain. Dopamine being the neurotransmitter associated with the brains “Reward Pathway”, hence its release in association with activities such as sex, eating and other naturally rewarding activities (and the precursors of those activities). Now a person who uses Cocaine doesn’t become addicted to snorting the damn stuff, they become addicted because of the effect it has on their neurochemistry. Applying that to something like an MMO game model (Do this, REWARD, Do this, REWARD, etc etc) it begins to create a false sense of accomplishment (and release of dopamine) that the brain is effectively unable to distinguish from if you were carrying out those activities in the real world. As someone who has ADHD, I guess its something I’ve always been a little more intimately aware of than some.
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Except, of course, Cheezey, long term cocaine use leads to quite significant alteration in brain chemistry, compensating for the “high” – and resulting in the unpleasant effects of withdrawal when you’re not full of cocaine. The unpleasant physical consequences of addiction are one of the defining characteristics of the condition, as Catastrophe mentions.
MMOs don’t do that. Most things that don’t directly mess with your neurotransmitters don’t do that. So, they’re “addictive” only in the sense that people enjoy doing them more than things that aren’t as fun.
(I believe, incidentally, that your distinction between “false” and “real” senses of accomplishment are flawed in any case. Clearly, you really are accomplishing something by completing tasks in an MMO – the fact that you’re not moving around physical objects is beside the point. It’s no different from Peggle playing Ode to Joy at you when you complete a level…)
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I think “don’t requiring any skill” is a bit harsh, antonymous. It aint Quake, but it’s about as demanding as MMOs get at the highest level.
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Look, I could stop gaming any time I wanted. I don’t have a problem. When the power goes out, it’s just coincidence that I go through hot sweats, panic attacks and steal gameboys from children at the park.
I just need a few AAA games to tide me over, I can’t get by on those flash games, god knows what they cut that with, but I could stop, anytime.
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Cocaine is not chemically addictive does that mean it’s not addictive at all? It’s just the person having an addictive personality. Maybe it would be better to just say it’s a dependency not an addiction just like Cocaine?
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Oops, sorry I think Cheezey just made the point I was trying to make but much better than I did. (No edit)
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I believe that MMOs are not addictive…to smart people. I have played Many MMOs and I do like the gear and that but I know when to stop. I know when to say after 4 hours “Ooo I think I’ve played a little bit to long I think I’ll stop” When I play 8 hours its not because Im addicted…its because theres nothing better to do on that day. Also when I go on raids I must not be on that raid, I can actually go away for a few weeks and not think “Oh my god I need to be home at 8:00 to be in that raid”
Maybe I’m rare in this case, or call me childish(like some people did in PCG) but i don’t believe that if your smart about it MMOs are not addictive.
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I think that’s pretty offensive tbh Xercies, I love smoking pot and I love drinking alcohol but it doesn’t mean I don’t believe you can get a problem from abusing them. I don’t think it’s anything to do with intelligence.
In fact, maybe they are just much smarter and can see the pointlessness to our existence and think fuck I’m just going to get drunk/play WoW.
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@Charlie: Cocaine does cause long-term significant alterations in dopamine signalling in the brain. Yes, the primary mechanism for “addiction” to cocaine is reward based (and thus not like addiction to drugs like heroin or alcohol), but chronic cocaine abuse does have other long-term effects on brain chemistry which make withdrawal a more complex process. So, it isn’t clear cut, actually.
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@aoanla: Games cause alot more stimulus than movies because the involvement, movies and TV have also been described as addictive as well…. so not really a good counter point.
@Catastrophe: People don’t go cold turkey on gaming, they just find something else less stimulating to do; a book to a gaming addict is the equivalent of methadone to a heroin/morphine addict
Gaming and TV addiction really should be called Hyperstimulus Disorder, and if we were to do an experiment to test if cold turkying gaming addition does or doesn’t have physical effects we would have to do a test where all stimulus is removed.
So if we had a sample of 100 people, 50 hard core gamers and 50 average joes, and we stuck them in empty rooms consisting of only white floors, walls, and ceilings, and a bench to sit on – which group do you think will go batshit first?
Saying excessive gaming doesn’t lead to addiction is like saying that excessive alcohol consumption doesn’t lead to alcoholism, or that excessive eating doesn’t lead to eating disorders.
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@Archonsod: Can I use this quote in my signature? “Our brains are like Vista, they pre-cache stuff they expect you to do, then throw a wobbler when you don’t do it.”
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Gaming forms habits. Habits are addictive.
One such withdrawal symptom is turning into a raving pig-demon. Like this chap
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@Andy: that depends on what you think I was countering. What I was countering was the language and tone used in your comment which implied that games were somehow special in that regard. In fact, by definition, all stimulating activities have the feature that they are associated with changes in brain activity – that’s what stimulating means.
Thus, nearly all stimulating activities can be “addictive” in the sense that engaging in them is a pleasurable activity (and thus something you will feel inclined to repeat).
(To be fair to Charlie and Cheezey, who I was devil’s advocating at, this is only one remove from why cocaine, in particular, is habit-forming.)
In any case, this also means that the specific case of computer game “addiction” isn’t really that shocking, or in some senses interesting.
We know that people tend to become “addicts” when they have few options for activity or are in unpleasant conditions, and when the contrast between their “normal” stimulation and any other stimulating process is thus much greater. I just dislike the use of the term “addiction” to refer to purely psychological addiction of the form that habit-forming behaviours represent, since the pejorative is so strong that it biases opinion unfairly.
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There is no such thing as global warming…
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Maybe they named it that because they were hoping it would bring anti-games people to buy it and perhaps change their mind after becoming more educated about it?
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So, I guess all the people who believe addiction has to be substance based don’t believe in gambling addiction or sex addiction? They probably should be called addictions either, right? ;)
Let’s not get tied up in the words. Whether you think it should be defined as addiction or not, the fact that there is such a huge draw from certain games, the dramatic effects measured in the brain chemistry of gamers when playing and the very real problems that are arising from people playing games to excess mean that, for me, the more information we can gather on the subject, the better. Some people are currently researching into the psycholgical “classical conditioning” that arises from games, particularly those with a “grind”. Boil it down to its basics and it’s: click-button, receive reward, repeat but require more clicks. It’s this sort of thing that makes the public scared of what was previously a niche hobby and is now a global phenomenon.
Also, regarding of the book’s title, they appear to stress the inadequacy of our current terminology, specifically the use of the word “addiction”. Getting information about how and why we play into the eyes of the public ASAP is incredibly important for the industry. The more we can get people to form a lexicon for different types of gaming lifestyle, the better games will be received by governments and parents alike. Imagine a gaming equivalent to “bookworm” instead of “games addict”. If using the word “addiction” in their title has brought about such a reaction from one little website, maybe this is the spur in the side that will force others to start giving their labels a little more thought.
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I would say dependency is a more accurate word to use with gaming.
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del: No, all the people who believe addiction has to be substance based are being accurate. Games, like movies, sex, gambling, eating, etc etc etc involve pleasurable experiences that make the world seem better when you’re involved in them. That this results in the formation of habits, which people can become dependant on, often in order to cope with their “real life”.
This is not the same thing as a physiological addiction to a substance which causes genuine withdrawal symptoms. (For a start, habit-forming/dependance-forming behaviour is strongly linked with social issues and general wider problems for the individual in question. So, if increasing numbers are becoming “addicted”, it might well say more about the social environment and aspirational status of those numbers, rather than their “chosen” dependency.)
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@aoanla: I don’t think you read my post. =(
Since you really want to talk about the use of the word, let’s, but briefly. There are two types of dependancy through which addiction can be measured; physical and psychological. I regularly use the term addiction to mean “compulsive use”, which is inaccurate, but I’ve never heard anyone in the field of psychology dispute that there are not addictions which are a) purely psychological or b) only triggered by certain factors. The phrase “Addictive Personality” is used regularly to define someone that is easily influenced into compulsive behaviour, but there are also documented cases of individuals who have only one “fix”. It is perfectly possible for a gambling addict to never find anything compulsive in gaming, sex or any other act that might draw others into compulsive, uncontrolled usage.
Is that enough, or do we want more on this one?
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So if we had a sample of 100 people, 50 hard core gamers and 50 average joes, and we stuck them in empty rooms consisting of only white floors, walls, and ceilings, and a bench to sit on – which group do you think will go batshit first?
we’ve already had this experiment in the u.s. and elsewhere:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande
the answer is “everyone will break eventually”.
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I know a 16-year-old guy who decided not to go on holiday with his family so that instead, he could play WoW for a whole week, uninterrupted.
As del says, the wording isn’t really important, whether it’s addiction, dependency or obsession, whatever their Oxford Dictionary definitions are doesn’t matter. It’s clear to see that there’s a definite issue there, which is a direct result of playing games to an excessive level.
Something in WoW has caused him to have a reaction that defies normal social behaviour and development. You can use whatever cleverly worded argument you want to say that it’s not specifically ‘addiction’ or whatever, but to deny that problems with too much gaming like this exist is kind of silly, in my opinion.
What about the news stories you hear from time to time of people dying from deep vein thrombosis in Korea by playing games in internet cafés for 36 hours straight, can you say that there was no ‘addiction’ there?
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@Scroggage: I’m not denying that problems with too much gaming exist. I’m noting that these problems are basically the same as problems with too much eating, sex, gambling, etc, and that these problems are often the result of external factors which cause the individual to seek escape through pleasurable activity.
So, what I’m saying here is: your wording demonises the object of the “addiction”. I believe that, in most cases, the evidence suggests that the real problem wasn’t the object, it was the person’s “real” life being a bit shit really (to summarise).
(Not to say that del mightn’t be right about some people having specific addictions. However, in the majority of cases, that isn’t the case.)
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@Scroggage: Maybe I’m alone here, but I would think most 16 year olds would rather have a house to themselves for a week instead of going on holiday with their parents.
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“dhex says: we’ve already had this experiment in the u.s. and elsewhere:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande
the answer is “everyone will break eventually”.
Right… because random solitary confinement is exactly the same thing as the experiment I outlined…
The question wasn’t ‘if a person will crack’, it was how long they can last before they do, and which group on average lasts longest before signs of anxiety immerge.
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You call it ‘LITCHen’, I call it ‘LIEchen’ – Lets call the whole thing moss.
Lot of debate – apart from pedantry regarding terminolgy we have an issue that isn’t going to go away.
Its going to come down to whats ‘normal’ behaviour and although sex/eating/gambling/drug/ addictions/dependencies/shit life coping mechanisms stand out pretty quickly whereas little johnny spending up to 28 hours a week gaming is something that , give or take, is culturally acceptable for many and is possibly creeping under the rader for many parents who are possibly and more and more likely gamers too.
I’m certain the amount of time I spend reading the internet and yes, as others have mentioned, multitasking with many windows open, texting wasn’t ‘normal’ a few years ago but seems to be now.
Is this barrage of stimulus ‘a bad thing’ or does it just seem to be to the ‘played on my grifter building ramps in the woods in my day’ brigade?
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people seem to want to have it both ways to say that games offer a unique experience compared to traditional non interactive media, and yet not consider that this power can have adverse as well as positive affects.
the social aspects of mmo gaming is often used as a counterpoint to the “grind” aspect. But in many ways the reward systems in mmo’s creates a ‘peer pressure system’ where a premium is placed upon those individuals who can dedicate the most time to the game.
Having played WoW 2-3 night’s per week pretty much constantly since release i have often felt pressure to be more ‘hardcore’ than i wish to be.
The example the Scroggage give of someone choosing to play wow 7/7 is not unusual. Ive seen many people sink similar amounts of time into the game.
To me someone playing a social game 7/7 is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem lie with what sort of ‘values’ the game teaches him.
MMO society is often(although not exclusively) radically individualistic. Social groups are often considered on temporary things to be stayed in only as long as the player is getting what he wants from it, and little if any reward is placed on loyalty.
The only rule in MMO society often seems to be ‘can i get away with it’.
I’m not saying this sort of attitude is the only one present in mmo’s but it is often the one which is most prevalent due to developers hesitance to do anything which people consider interferes with ‘their character’
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Howard: it isn’t “wildly inaccurate”. It’s not even slightly inaccurate.
And I know what the therapies are, I brought it up.
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I have to thank EA for not letting me get obsessed with gaming. EA comes out with a great game like Battlefield Heroes, and as soon as I start to like it so much that I want to spend most of my time playing it they ruin it with their signature “we don’t value your input” patches.
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Surely the Title will help the book sell more copies…you quoted the book the second paragraph “Addiction is one word with many faces. When applied to games, it lumps together draws which are fundamentally different. Using it betrays our ignorance… People applying the word addiction should consider it an interim term. Though it may never fall out of fashion, it should.” This books title will catch a parents eye, almost definately a concerned parent and if what you say is true about the book trying to dispell the use of addiction in order to describe it would educate the reader and help them understand why it is that there son/daughter feels compelled to play a computer game for 6 hours or more. So surely the title is a pretty good one if you look at it that way
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@TOOTHR: I think he is trying to say that throwing liking things more than is good for you in the same basket as being addicted to drugs is ignorant.
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Maybe a better word than addictive would be unavoidably compulsive :) There is a major difference between the casual 1 – 3 hours of play, and I don’t think that’s being classified as the “addictive” quotient. If you play for 8 hours a day, and you’re not addicted, then you should probably revise your schedule, unless of course you’re in the games industry in some form or another. I spend 10 hours a day on a computer, but I’m not addicted to being on a computer, I just have to be on that long for my job. A 13 year old kid who spends 10 hours a day playing WoW or some other MMO is exhibiting addictive tendencies without question. At the very least, that kid is wasting his life, especially if all he’s doing is fighting away boredom.
Someone (I can’t remember who) also made the comment that only because the person is spending that free time playing games, the activity is given a negative connotation, but I think that’s an exaggeration. If that person was running, or exercising, reading, etc. then that person would just be accepted with no question, so the saying goes. The problem is that very few activities afford such a huge range of people to spend that amount of time in said activity. Not many people are going to spend 8 hours a day running, or 10 hours a day playing soccer, or 12 hours a day climbing. Physical limitations alone don’t allow for that. Same goes with exercise, reading, watching movies, watching TV, and those who do that without purpose are still lumped into that same “addictive” category.
I would say the thing that separates passion from addiction is purpose.
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“A 13 year old kid who spends 10 hours a day playing WoW or some other MMO is exhibiting addictive tendencies without question.”
This article needs to reference at least a few of the recent studies stating that gaming is NOT an addiction and should NOT be classified as one as it does more harm than good thinking of it that way.
I played muds 10 hours a day or more as a teen… I loved them, don’t regret it a bit. Met a lot of people, learned to code, became a linux geek back in 1995, etc… I had no “purpose” of doing this, but it happened regardless.
Gaming 10 hours a day says “hey you know what… I don’t want to join the fucking army and kill Iraqi’s… I don’t give a shit about how successful I am in business… I want to fucking have fun and love the world. So fuck you and your bullshit pressure… Quit pretending you are happy working your bullshit job, writing bullshit psychology papers, judging everyone around you. Quit pretending you aren’t part of a country that slaughters millions of people in the middle east for oil. Oh, btw, did I mentioned “fuck you”.
Thanks.
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First there are those saying “it’s not an addiction if it doesn’t include chemical withdrawal”, then there’s the responses that “even if it’s not chemical withdrawal, it’s causing people to act in a way that is not ‘normal’ behavior” (the term “normal” social behavior used at least three times by different commenters)
I’m less bothered by the loose definition of addiction than I am the inherent assumption that deviation from “normal” behavior is inherently worrisome. Many, if not most, of the famous/successful/high-achieving people throughout history have been (almost by definition) “not normal”. I’m more interested in whether the behavior is objectively bad than whether it’s abnormal.
Which is, in fact, one of the many definitions I’ve heard tossed around for addiction:
If you realize that your behavior is actively harming your life, but you continue to do it, that’s probably an addiction.
Hardly the be-all-and-end-all definition, but at least we need to get off the “chemical addiction is the only addiction” and “if it’s not normal it’s not good” mindset…
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Like Geoff says, I guess the overriding question is: Does playing games to the point of obsession negatively impact your life, and how should people help you if you find yourself doing this?
Whether or not obsessive gaming is a psychological addiction or not, if it’s harming your life then this is a problem. I think watching TV for the same length of time would have the same connotations.
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Hello All! My first opinion, well opinionated story, on RPS here (God knows I should have found this website sooner!). Personally I have been gaming for 20 years and would describe myself as a dedicated gamer who favors rpgs, racers and some action games / fps types. As a young gamer, I balanced my time between gaming, school activities and family duties. To me, video games was a way to immerse myself in different worlds and just get away from stress or when life sucks.
I truly believe there is an addiction or obsessive problem to gaming. I have a relative who plays video games almost half the time to the point of actually burning out his XBox rather than getting the ring of red first. He neglects his studies and family and is actually looking for a job in the gaming business which is very very difficult where I live in (the closest to gaming profession here is probably sales assistant). His father at first blamed me for the addiction but now realizes that he was “too soft” on his son and asked me personally to change his ways. That was almost 7-8 years ago but slowly I have given him some direction in life. He continues to “hang out” at the local game store playing games so that he won’t get caught at playing hooky.
But enough about my relative. I believe everyone on this opinion board probably has someone like him and will never be like that. Well I have a confession. I myself have been to that “darkside” of the moon.
In 2006, Guild Wars was my addiction and had a negative impact on my marriage; the missus quoted “it was like living in hell”. My wife is a casual gamer playing Sims and the occasional platformer or seek and find games. Yes she has played Mario and she understands my relationship with games. Her admission to my addiction was even more profound if you take this into account.
I was in transition between jobs and had nothing to do. I was hooked at the free to play mechanic the game offered (being in transition, I could not afford WoW). I spent zombie nights playing and grinding, and sleeping during the day ignoring everything only to wake up late afternoon to continue. Although looking back, I did enjoy playing it with my friends and would gladly continue when GWII finally surfaces, I admitted that I was overly obsessive with the game and neglected too many aspects of my life; like being with my wife and family.
I actually preferred my Guildmates company rather than my family’s. Strangely (or is it my own strangeness?), my guildmates had better control over the game than I had, logging off more frequently to be with their families or go do something else. I sincerely believe that if I had the sense to do just that, my wife wouldn’t have minded at all. However it was an addiction that almost tore my marriage apart. It was only after getting a job did I totally remove myself from Guild Wars.
Now after becoming a father and more mature than ever, I continue to game but with some reservations. I avoid MMO’s but still play games and bringing my family along for the enjoyment; the missus continues to play Sims and loves cinematic games like Assassin’s Creed, Bioshock 2 and God of War. She can’t wait for GoW3. My 1 year 4 month old daughter loves to play Plants Vs. Zombie with her dad and can make zombie noises too! But now I have some sense to take a break sometimes to do what they want.
Anyway I hope this self portrayal of an opinion can show that too much gaming can be bad and if left unchecked can be as destructive as drug abuse. I had a social problem while obsessive types like Korean or Chinese MMO players face health risks. Like too much of a good thing eh? P.S. I’m looking into some casual MMO’s that doesn’t require much time investment to tide me over before September comes along with new games; which is better FlyFF, Free Realms or Runes of Magic?
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“Whether or not obsessive gaming is a psychological addiction or not, if it’s harming your life then this is a problem. I think watching TV for the same length of time would have the same connotations.”
Define harm. Unless the individual in question considers it “harmful” to themselves, I don’t see what basis anyone else can have to claim it to be so.
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All the denial and kneejerking you see at hardcore gaming sites when the potential of “gaming addiction” being a real condition is addressed is to me a pretty damn good sign that such a condition probably does exist. After all, the crowning warning sign of addiction is close-minded denial and scrambling to rationalize or deflect the issues regarding the addictive behavior.
Of course, like any addiction, there’s typically an underlying cause that drove the person to seek comfort in the obsessive stimulus. It’s almost always stress or self-esteem related if there isn’t already a genetic predisposition to addiction (which would be manifested by several additions, not just one).
I mean, it’s common sense folks. If you feel like shit all the time and ascribe very little self-worth to yourself, of course you’re going to seek out experiences that can fool you into believing that you’re powerful and valuable. If you’re also an introvert, you’re probably socially isolated at this point, so what better to artifically cover your bases than an MMORPG? You have the time to become one of the best tanks or healers or DPS-ers on the server because all you do in your free time is play the game, so you get into a “hardcore” guild of people in the exact same mental state as you and after long enough you start to think “these people couldn’t survive without me healing/tanking/dpsing.” And now you’re valuable and part of a community. You’re also exponentially more addicted than before.
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To put this simple “Game addiction” is a stupid idea.
You can be addicted to *anything*, if you have a problem on your life, and uses something else as a “support” or to avoid your problems. Video games are good entertainment, so can provide that protection.
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I’ll give up my game “addiction” when real life becomes equally interesting.
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Personally, I can game for hours and hours on end, feeling absolutely great despite not eating, drinking, or sleeping — and then as soon as I stop, I realise I’m incredibly hungry, thirsty, and tired.
To the people who say that gaming doesn’t have any actual chemical effect on the brain: Can you honestly say there’s activities in your life that not only keep you from satisfying your basic needs, but also keep you from even realising you want to satisfy them?
Let’s look at gambling. Here, you’ve got the classic studies that any first-year psychology student should be able to cite (or so I’m told) — whereby monkeys can be enticed to push a button if they get rewarded randomly. Rewarding them every time doesn’t work, and (obviously) not rewarding them doesn’t work. But treat them like a gambler at a slot machine, and they’ll push that button all day long.
The key here is dopamine, the reward chemical of the brain. With random rewards, the dopamine level just keeps going up and up. But as soon as you stop the activity, you find yourself coming down from what is essentially a chemical high — with positive memories now associated to the activity that “rewarded” you so much. Everyday activities seem bland, and you just want to go back to your gambling.
Gaming is at least as addictive as gambling. And with gaming, I suspect there may be other effects at play, too, like adrenaline for action games — plus the whole social aspect, of course.
It seems okay to create support groups and run “know your limit, stay within it” ads for gamblers, even though the large majority of the population aren’t gambling addicts. But try to even talk seriously about “gaming addiction” and you get yelled at by all the people who don’t have the condition and think that they can fix the problem by blaming the “addicts” until they reform. WTF?
Yes, some people are more susceptible to addiction than others. But then, some people are more susceptible to cancer than others. We don’t go blaming them for their obviously risky lifestyle and demand that they be refused treatment, though. (Well, most of us don’t.)
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Wasn’t trying to offend anyone with my comment, but I think putting 10 hours of time into any one thing begins to border on the obsessive and compulsive. Whether it is a physically addictive, or emotionally releasing experience, it draws us to it for some reason. Just like Dolphin said, there is always an underlying cause, but we choose to deal with it in different ways. Growing up I spent tons and tons of time with video games, and I can say honestly that I really should have put more time into other things, but it was an escape. I am not criticizing video games, any more than I blame the gun for murder. It is simply an additional outlet to an underlying human issue. The issue exists, and it needs to be addressed, ignoring it to play video games only expands the irony.
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RPS is addicting. I spend a lot of my time reading through its articles and posts everyday and I feel the need to do it.
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I’ve often wondered if I was addicted to gaming… I think it’s actually more of a computer/internet addiction. Sometimes I just wish I didn’t care about technology and didn’t feel burnded by it but I do. Ah well… when in Rome…
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@Baris: Yes, you’re quite right, most sixteen year olds would choose to have the house to themselves rather than go on holiday with their family. But to use it for things other than just spending all their waking time on one compulsive activity. I’m not talking just every evening playing, the guy played the whole week.
@aoanla: Quite right. What I was saying wasn’t directed at you particularly. You’re right about it being more like a dependency, but what I was saying was similar to TOOTR’s point; further up the discussion there’s a lot of terminological pedantry.
I wasn’t trying to demonise the game itself. Hell, I play tons of games every week.
@Geoff: Yeah, you’re probably right. ‘Normal’ is not really a good word to use in any case like this. But I think neglecting the outside world, your friends and your family for a solid week counts as being a bit abnormal, for want of a better word. Whether he was aware he was ‘harming’ himself this way is another matter entirely.
I think there’s no catchall statement for all gaming-related problems to summarise the discussion, because there will always be individual cases where playing games for an amount of time can be seen as ‘harmful’ where for another person/situation, it would not.
I think stories like wrathfirex’s can illustrate where problems can arise, but the amount of time he spent on GW might be seen as more acceptable for someone with fewer real-life commitments.
All in all this thread leaves me thinking “who is really right to say whether someone is addicted or not?”
It’s very difficult to say and I’m not going to try and answer that. Very good discussion though.
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Please no adding question marks to titles, unless you want the book to be associated with the craptastical Chariots of the Gods???
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Right… because random solitary confinement is exactly the same thing as the experiment I outlined…
The question wasn’t ‘if a person will crack’, it was how long they can last before they do, and which group on average lasts longest before signs of anxiety immerge.
andy: well, it was the closest thing to the experiment you’re describing (which would be interesting indeed) that we’ve got real-world data on. solitary confinement is, at its base, a form of sensory deprivation. and as you can see from the article, there’s no real pattern for how people deal with it. the highly-educated break. the uneducated break. but they do so with little discernible pattern. i’m not sure a tendency to be into electronic gaming would necessarily mean anything one way or the other in that kind of scenario.
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My story shows that moderation is the key to any form of stimuli, both work or pleasure. Too much work can be harmful; even though you get paid well but the stress would mount and your body and mind will suffer.
The same goes for the opposite, play video games for enjoyment alone although very fulfilling, is detrimental to personal health and also creates social problems.
Even if you are a loner, paid to play video games, there will be a time when you would reach a plateau when enough is enough and you need other stimuli to satisfy your needs.
To stay healthy I play badminton, and to keep my desires satisfied I read fantasy novels, watch sports on TV, drive hard in my sports car or watch some birds. Yes there are people who can play more than 48 hours non stop in WoW, but after that they definitely need sleep, nourishment and even some away time to recharge their desire to play. It is that 48 hour non-stop playing or working that is stressful to the body. There are recorded evidence of Korean and Chinese gamers dropping almost dead in cyber cafes. Moderation is key.
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@Andy
“@Catastrophe: People don’t go cold turkey on gaming, they just find something else less stimulating to do; a book to a gaming addict is the equivalent of methadone to a heroin/morphine addict
Gaming and TV addiction really should be called Hyperstimulus Disorder, and if we were to do an experiment to test if cold turkying gaming addition does or doesn’t have physical effects we would have to do a test where all stimulus is removed.
So if we had a sample of 100 people, 50 hard core gamers and 50 average joes, and we stuck them in empty rooms consisting of only white floors, walls, and ceilings, and a bench to sit on – which group do you think will go batshit first?
Saying excessive gaming doesn’t lead to addiction is like saying that excessive alcohol consumption doesn’t lead to alcoholism, or that excessive eating doesn’t lead to eating disorders.”
I’m sorry but this is aload of crap.
If you are addicted to something you CANNOT just “find something less stimulating to do”… you get PHYSICALLY ill.
I am a gamer who plays quite a few hours a week, yet can go on holiday and not even consider the fact I’m not gaming… an alcoholic or drug addict CANNOT PHYSICALLY do this.
Everything I quoted from you there is just drivel… what you said was equal to “Give a cycling addict a skateboard – its like methodone to a cocain addict”… I can’t even find words to how drivel filled your comment was… I’m sorry, but its true.
There was no evidence, no real opinions in your comments it wasn’t even proper hyberbole is was just pure crap.
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By cocain I meant heroine ¬_¬
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@Catastrophe
To start with, I’m not going to say you’re wrong about your comments directed to Andy. That’s your brawl, not mine.
I know plenty of people who have been physically addicted to cigarettes and a quite a few that have been addicted to alcohol. Don’t look at me like that, I’m Irish! Also, I use the past tense loosely, as if you’re an addict, either using or not, you’re still an addict. I know many who have quit these habits. None of them got ill. Physical addiction and the withdrawal from the substance can take on many symptoms. Giving your mind something to do is sometimes enough to get you through the physical cravings, especially for someone with a strong will.
Rather than reiterate my previous points on there being physical and psychological addictions, I’ll just point up and hope people will wade through the mass of comments above to see them if they’re interested.
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Online gaming addiction is an addiction to online video games, role-playing games, or any interactive gaming environment available through the Internet. Online games such EverQuest, and the “World of Warcraft”, can pose much more complex problems. Let me share an article.
http://searchwarp.com/swa511090-Kicking-The-Habit.htm
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@del
Stopping an addiction does cause negative physical effects on your body, whether the people find coping mechanisms to get around the negative physical effects is another matter.
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@catastrophe
Sorry man, I was pointing out that withdrawal doesn’t have to make you physically ill. You’ll note that I mentioned physical cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Coping mechanisms are generally for the psychological aspect of the addiction, drug therapy for the physical imbalance.
You comparing going on holiday and not thinking about your minor habit, as someone who games a bit, to an alcoholic or drug addict in a similar scenario was just really off track. Think instead about a WoW veteran, regular raider, on every evening and most of the weekend. Then compare them with the alcoholic. Think a break from their broadband isn’t going to be noticed?
Anyway, as Neils mentioned, this probably isn’t the best forum to be going into this in depth. I don’t even know why I’m pointing all this out.
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Dear RPS,
You should get one of those fancy Amazon links where you get paid when we click it and buy the book.
I say this because I am buying this book, so you would get paid, and I love it when you get paid!
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