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Apr 20, 2009 06:27 PM | 16
Are video games as addictive and damaging to children as gambling is to adults? In a word—yes, according to a new study of nearly 1,200 children aged eight to 18 in the U.S.
This is the first study, according to study lead author Douglas Gentile, a director of research for the Minneapolis-based National Institute on Media and the Family, to quantify ways in which gaming may damage kids' ability to function socially. Gentile, an assistant psychology professor at Iowa State University, analyzed data collected in a January 2007 Harris Poll survey and compared respondents' video game play habits to the symptoms established in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for pathological gambling.
The gamers (who said they played video games at least 24 hours per week) were classified as "pathological" if they exhibited at least six of 11 symptoms: salience (the activity dominates the person's life), euphoria or relief (the activity provides a "high" or the relief of unpleasant feelings), tolerance (over time, a greater amount of activity is needed to achieve the same "high"), withdrawal symptoms (the person experiences unpleasant physical effects or negative emotions when unable to engage in the activity), conflict (the activity leads to clashes with other people, work, obligations, or oneself), and relapse and reinstatement (the person continues the activity despite attempts to abstain from it).
The results of the survey, published today in the online edition of Psychological Science: that 88 percent of American kids between the ages of eight and 18 play video games occasionally or more and that four times as many boys as girls in the study were considered "pathological gamers."
Gentile concedes in his study that the results yield more questions than answers.
"We do not know who is most at risk for developing pathological patterns of play," he writes, "what the time course of developing pathological patterns is, how long the problems persist, what percentage of pathological gamers need help, what types of help might be most effective, or even whether pathological video-game use is a distinct problem or part of a broader spectrum of disorders."
Image ©iStockphoto.com/ Mike Sonnenberg
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pathological,
addiction,
video game,
gambling
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16 Comments
Add CommentSo what your saying is that this is like video masturbation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo what they're saying is that their results were skewed by parenting more than likely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen parents use video games (or TV or candy or anything else for that matter) to silence an upset child, that child learns through positive feedback that acting badly lets you get something "fun". So some of these results (relief, euphoria, tolerance, withdrawal, and reinstatement) can be a direct result of the child being conditioned by misguided parenting to act in that way.
While I don't necessarily disagree with your point saihenjin, I didn't see the article stating it, at least not as you do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe games are designed to be all the things described. Teams of very smart people spend a lot of time and money making the games as engaging and additictive as possible, and they play directly into powerful natural human tendencies.
Of course similar things could be said of books over the last centuries... plenty of people turned to them for similar amounts of time and used them to escape the real world and became much less socially or physically active as a result, but I don't hear people screaming about the evils of reading. While not a direct comparision, there are vast similarities, but cultural programming and bias will cause people to jump up in arms and screech at me at the comparision. And what about TV? When that came out, and for a long time afterwards, people were squawking about it in the exact same way.
Certainly reading books has a greater chance to be educational or uplifting then playing Doom or WoW, but let's be honest, much of the reading going on is cheap romance, bad sci-fi/fantasy, or other drivel. It is just accepted by our culture. And TV, which used to be the bad-boy on the block, is now much more accepted, so a new bad-boy has been promoted.
My main point is not that computer games are the modern addiction similar to the role of books, then tv, etc. (although a case could be made for similarities) but that the underlying behavior has been around for a long time, we are just expressing it in a different medium, that is perhaps more focused than the more haphazard ones of the past. And this medium is the new "devil" just like TV was before that.
We also don't know how this relates to people who engage in a different specific hobby for 24 hours a week. Therefore, I don't have a baseline except an imaginary "normal" person. Perhaps video gamers already had the pathology and video games are one of the few things they enjoy. Perhaps, we all have habits that we go through withdrawal without.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was addicted to video games when I was a child, but now I'm not anymore, I suppose I have been cured by video games of quality such as fallout 2. On the other hand, I think online games are more addictive because they involve some repetitive endless missions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we are all honest with ourselves, we can admit that people nowadays are making up medical conditions. ADD is basically a child whose parents never taught them to focus. In the same way, a "video game addicted" child is just a kid whose parents never set boundaries for them. Everything is not as serious as the names suggests. For that matter we could say kids in the seventies were addicted to roller skating, but they seem to be running the world today. In fact, I do believe one of them wrote this very article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting, but according to this classification, more than one activity, not only video games, could be considered as pathological to many people. I spend more than 24 hours per week working, maybe I'm addicted to work (and of course to video games). :).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisisaacsolo:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisADD is still up in the air... I was misdiagnosed with ADHD as a child... turns out I'm bipolar and my parents didn't really ever notice my depressive introverted phases because it was a relief for them from my manic hyper phases. So it's also possible that ADD is a collective of other disorders which are misdiagnosed because of parents who don't want to hear that their child has a psychological disorder and by physicians pressured by the medicine industry to push the ADD drugs through ADD diagnosis...
it could be a lot of things, but to say it's from parents who didn't teach their kids focus... yes that may be true, but I think that's overlooking other very possible causes for the behavior.
The Center for Media Literacy has much to say about the addictive nature of media especially as it relates to media violence. The seriousness of the addictive tendencies would depend upon the video game. Many of the games are extremely violent and put the user in a power role of killing humans, sometimes in self defense, sometime outright murder. Of course, these games offer no time to reflect upon consequences or moral options. Just kill and kill quickly and move on within graphical interfaces that blur the lines of reality. We are awash in blood.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI must say, i play video games most of the day. Alot of the week, and though I find this article interesting, it is not true in every case. I play on average between computer and console games 60-75 hours a week, yet without them I do not suffer any from any withdrawl symptoms. Does this still make me a pathological gamer?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just want to know if Jack Thompson is hiding in the bushes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, I know some people with similar addiction-style attachments to fishing. I don't see articles about fishing addiction.
It's not bad to play video game, read, or watch tv but every thing needs moderation. Too much of anything is bad. Im on this site cause my step son went to his moms this weekend and played WOW for like 16 hours sat and sunday. Thats fuckin sick. No self control. then he came home sunday all grumpy and feelin sick and it was nuts. he has computer time limits here and goes to mixed martial 4 days a week and has a well balacned week.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs an adult who has an ADHD brain, I can tell you that ADD-ADHD are not made up diagnosis to cover up bad parenting. It is an organic brain disorder. It gives me benefits in some ways, such as I can multi-task without compromising competency in many areas, and I can focus and be calm in emotionally intenss situations. As a mental health provider for severely mentally ill clients, it helps me out in many ways. It also means I have to compensate in other areas and also have to know my strengths and weaknesses so I can get what I need done considering how my brain functions. ADD is very real and also very treat-able and manage-able. That is unless you deny it exists... then you have a problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was addicted to video games for 2 years(grade 8 to 10). I was addicted to Counter Strike 1.6. I averaged over 60 hours a week. I remember days when I would play 20 hours straight days, day after day after day after day. I just wanted to be the best. When i accepted that i was addicted i still couldn't stop playing. When i wasn't playing i was always bored of life, just out of it. Not a care in the world for anything other than playing Counter Strike. I am still not completely better. When i have nothing to do but just think about things, my mind wanders back to video games. The rush it gave me. A video that takes a quick look at professional video gaming is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN5Tz4u8Hcw. The whole time i was writing this comment i was contemplating on starting up my Counter Strike career again. But i finally have enough self-control.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGames are addictive and predominantly full of violence. Here are some tips how to keep children safe while they play games - http://www.gameskids.eu/how-to-keep-kids-safe-while-they-play-online-games
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt can be addicted.I had my nephew who has been addicted to video games.It comes to the point that he cannot control it and not paying attention to his studies.But now of his parents continuous guide,he can manage his time.Maybe parents have the role to this topic.
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