Video Game Addiction

If you don't think kids get hooked on video games, think again. If you Google "video game addiction," you will find more than a dozen pages of Web sites dealing with this issue. There are also many pages of formal research papers found via search on Google Scholar.

The point at which gaming becomes an actual addiction is hard to define, but some 7-21 criteria can measure the addiction. These criteria include modification of mood, conflict, behavioral problems, and, more tellingly, the same phenomena seen in drug addiction (tolerance and withdrawal symptoms).

So many kids spend nearly every possible moment glued to a game screen that an addiction recovery program known as ReSTART was developed eight years ago in which addicts receive individual and group therapy in a resident campus. The ReSTART therapy program requires patients to take a 45-90 abstention from computer screens. Part of the reason that addiction develops in the first place is the strong positive reinforcement provided by developing game prowess. The young person's self-esteem becomes entangled with gaming.  The therapy program aims at finding other substitute reinforcers for self-identity and self-esteem. Training is provided in the basic life skills that have been neglected from the years of immersion in gaming.

The organization's guiding principle is "Connect with life, not your device." Children who become addicted to video games withdraw from daily living. They are most likely to be male, poorly developed physically, and socially awkward. They often suffer from ill-defined anxiety.

Just how widespread is video game use? Apparently 155 million Americans play video games at least three times a week. Particular concern is the violent nature of many video games, and it is clear that playing such games stimulates the players to be more aggressive.

The Dana Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science recently sponsored a conference on internet gaming. The speaker from ReSTART, co-founder Hilarie Cash, predicted that internet gaming is so addictive that it will probably become listed in newer editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental Disorders.

Another speaker, psychology professor Craig Anderson, summarized the evidence that violent video games promote aggressive behavior in the player. Increases occur in hitting, kicking, punching, biting, fights at school, and juvenile delinquency. Anderson points out that longitudinal studies rule out the possibility that children who are already violent are the ones who become addicted to violent video games. Playing violent games actually makes children more violent.

Video games that are not violent may help develop mental quickness and other cognitive skills. But like much in life, too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

Sources:

Lemmens, Jeroen S. et al. (2009). Development and validation of a game addiction scale for adolescents. Media Psychology. 12(1), 77-95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15213260802669458

https://netaddictionrecovery.com/

Jarvis, Michaela. 2014. Video games: the bad, the ugly, and the (potentially) good. Science. 355, 1385.