Video Game Addiction: Does It

Occur? If So, Why?

For many years now, researchers have been trying to prove that video
games are bad. Much of the attention has focused on the violent content of some
of the games, and many dozens of studies have been done in attempts to prove
that playing violent video games causes real-world violence.
"Studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent
video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure
causes minors to act aggressively. Australian government reached a similar
conclusion.They found no relationship at all between exposure to violent video
games and real-world violence committed by these young people.
Video gaming, no matter how "violent" the game, had no effect at all.
Ferguson's study and many others lead to the conclusion that, while real-world
violence causes more real-world violence, pretend violence does not.
cognitive benefits that young people experience from playing video
games. Far from being isolating, video games generally draw young people
together and help them learn to get along with one another. Far from being
cognitively stultifying, video games--especially the newer, online multiplayer
games--are extraordinarily challenging to players' mental powers and promote
cognitive development.
gambling games--are pure games of chance In contrast, video games are
games of skill. They are like chess or any other game in which success depends
on perseverance, intelligence, practice, and learning, not chance. rewards are
not random; they are earned.
the rewards in video games, as in chess, are purely in-game rewards
They are rewarding only because they signal mastery. Winning in these
games doesn't produce real-world riches; and, more to the point, failing in these

games doesn't lead to debt. This is why video games and chess are truly play,
while gambling is not.
functional brain imaging studies have shown that certain so-called
"pleasure pathways" in the brain light up when gamblers hit the jackpot, and
these same pathways also light up when video gamers achieve some goal within
the game. Well, of course they do! If they didn't, that would just mean that hitting
the jackpot or achieving success in a game isn't pleasurable. Everything that is
pleasurable is pleasurable because of activity in pleasure centers of the brain.
I'm sure that if I were hooked up to an fMRI scanner my pleasure centers
would light up every time I played a seven-letter word in Scrabble, or every time I
got a favorable review on something I wrote, or every time I took a bite of
pistachio ice cream, or every time my wife gave me the right kind of kiss. If we
were to define every activity that activates the brain's "pleasure centers" as
addictive, and therefore to be curtailed, we would have to curtail everything that's
fun.
People play games because they are challenging, fun, and conducive to
social interaction with other gamers
culture suggesting that gaming is a sign of laziness, is "addictive," and
leads to all sorts of ill effects, and so they become concerned about their gaming.
The messages themselves, according to Langlois, can produce distress in
gamers.
The stereotype presents the gamer as apathetic and avoidant of any work
or investment.
video gaming is hard fun, not easy fun
"This hard fun would not be possible if gamers were truly lazy or apathetic
the level of detail that many gamers pay attention to is staggering
This is not apathy, this is meticulousness
There is no reason why a dedicated video gamer should feel any worse
about his or her hobby than a dedicated chess player or skier.
people let their dedication to video gaming--or to chess, or to skiing, or to
anything else--interfere with other aspects of their life, and that can be a problem.
Lots of us need to learn time management, especially as we reach adulthood
it is an escape from something painful in their lives or is the only route
available to them to satisfy basic psychological needs. This can occur for adults

as well as children. The activity that seems to become obsessive might be video
gaming, or it might be something else.
For instance, some adults devote far more time to their careers than they
otherwise might, because that allows them to avoid an unpleasant family
environment. Some kids say they play video games at least partly as a means of
escape, and some say they do so because it is the only realm of activity in which
they feel free.[5] In an age in which children are often not allowed to play freely
outdoors, and in which they are more or less constantly directed by adults, the
virtual world of video games is for some the only realm where they are allowed to
roam free and explore. If they were allowed more autonomy in the real world,
many of them would spend less time at video games.
mother became concerned about the huge amounts of time he was
devoting to World of Warcraft and therefore forbade him from playing it or other
video games, which made things only worse for Martin being bullied at school
and hated going to school
The online video game was his only source of free expression and his only
satisfying contact with other people. When this was taken away from him, he was
understandably distraught.
Another example is that of Helen, a 32-year-old MD who worked in a
temporary research position and spent most of her spare time playing the
MMORPG Final Fantasy alone in her apartment. It turned out that Helen had
recently experienced a bad breakup with a long-term partner, was unhappy with
her job, and was severely depressed. Playing Final Fantasy was not cause of her
depression, but was her way of coping with it during this difficult time in her life.
The online game provided social connections and pleasure at a time when
nothing else did.

 weapons magazine capacities, images of Columbine killers Eric Harris and

Dylan Klebold, copies of the violent movies Bloody Wednesday and Rampage,
and a list of ingredients for TNT. And like many teenaged boys, Lanza owned the
typical first-person shooter, fighting and action games: Call of Duty, Dead or
Alive, Grand Theft Auto.
But those weren't the games that possessed Lanza at the movie theater.
The title that so consumed the Sandy Hook shooter? Dance Dance Revolution
The truth is that decades of research have turned up no reliable causal link
between playing violent video games and perpetrating actual violence.
The notion dates at least to the Victorian era, when educators, tastemakers
and clergymen began criticizing what was then a fairly raucous popular culture.
Violent, sex-soaked dime novels and penny-dreadful magazines were immensely
popular, and upstanding publications such as Harper'sand the Atlantic Monthly
took delight in denouncing them.

The Many Benefits, for Kids, of

Playing Video Games
Some kids go through long periods of doing what seems like just one
thing, and then some adults think there's something wrong, because they (the
adults) would not make that choice. But in my experience, if kids are really free to
play and explore in lots of different ways, and they end up playing or exploring in
what seems to be just one way, then they are doing that because they are getting
something really meaningful out of it.

 It is always a mistake, I think, to tell kids what they must or must not do
Whenever we prevent our kids from playing or exploring in the ways they
prefer, we place another brick in a barrier between them and us. We are saying,
in essence, "I don't trust you to control your own life." Children are suffering today
not from too much computer play or too much screen time. They are suffering
from too much adult control over their lives and not enough freedom
Kids who are really free know what is best for them, especially concerning
how they should spend their free time. Every kid is different, just as every adult
is, and we can't get into their heads and find out just what they are getting out of
something that we don't understand.
Why do we worry about a kid's spending maybe 4 or 5 hours a day at a
computer screen, doing what he wants to do, but don't worry about the same kid
sitting at school for 6 hours a day and then doing homework for another couple of
hours--doing what others are forcing him to do? I ask you to consider the
possibility that the kid is learning more valuable lessons at the computer than at
school, in part becausethe computer activity is self-chosen and the school activity
is not.
Why would we want to limit a kid's computer time? The computer is,
without question, the single most important tool of modern society.
Children come into the world designed to look around and figure out what
they need to know in order to make it in the culture into which they are born.
They are much better at that than adults are. That's why they learn language so
quickly and learn about the real world around them so much faster than adults
do.
That's also why, whenever there's a new technological innovation, kids
learn how to use it more quickly than their parents do. They know, instinctively,
what they must learn in order to succeed.
The most common complaints about video games are that they (1) are
socially isolating, (2) reduce opportunities for outdoor activities and thereby lead
to obesity and poor physical health, and (3) promote violence in kids, if the
games have violent content. On the face of it, of course, the first two of these

claims should be truer of book reading than of video gaming. Concerning the
third claim, I don't see any obvious reason why pretend murder of animated
characters in video games should be any more likely to provoke real murder
than, say, reading Shakespeare's account of Hamlet's murder of his stepfather.
Yet we make kids read Hamlet in school.
If you look into the actual research literature, you find very little if any
evidence supporting the fear-mongers claims, and considerable evidence against
those claims. In fact, systematic surveys have shown that regular video-game
players are, if anything, more physically fit, less likely to be obese, more likely to
also enjoy outdoor play, more socially engaged, more socially well-adjusted, and
more civic minded than are their non-gaming peers.
I'm not about to claim that the decline in real-world violence is in any
significant way caused by the rise in violent video games, but, there is some
evidence that playing such games helps people learn how to control their hostility
Quite a few well-controlled research studies have documented positive
effects of video games on mental development. Repeated experiments have
shown that playing fast-paced action video games can quite markedly increase
players' scores on tests of visuospatial ability, including tests that are used as
components of standard IQ tests.
video games can also increase scores on measures of working memory
(the ability to hold several items of information in mind at once), critical thinking,
and problem solving. In addition, there is growing evidence that kids who
previously showed little interest in reading and writing are now acquiring
advanced literacy skills through the text-based communication in on-line video
games.
When kids are asked, in focus groups and surveys, what they like about
video games, they generally talk about freedom, self-direction, and competence.
In the game, they make their own decisions and strive to meet challenges that
they themselves have chosen. At school and in other adult-dominated contexts

they may be treated as idiots who need constant direction, but in the game they
are in charge and can solve difficult problems and exhibit extraordinary skills.

Over time, video games have become increasingly complex and

multifaceted. Perhaps the most interesting games today are the so-called
Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs), such as World
of Warcraft, which are even more social than were previous video games and
offer endless opportunities for creativity and problem solving.[12]
In these online games, players create a character (an avatar), which has
unique physical and psychological traits and assets, and, with that character,
enter a complex and exciting virtual world that is simultaneously occupied by
countless other players, who in their real-life forms may be sitting anywhere on
the planet. Players go on quests within this virtual world, and along the way they
meet other players, who might become friends or foes. Players may start off
playing solo, avoiding others, but to advance to the higher levels they have to
make friends and join with others in mutual quests. Making friends within the
game requires essentially the same skills as making friends in the real world. You
can't be rude. You have to understand the etiquette of the culture you are in and
abide by that etiquette. You have to learn about the goals of a potential friend and
help that individual to achieve those goals. Depending on how you behave,
players may put you on their friendslist or their ignore list, and they may
communicate positive or negative information about you to other players. The
games offer players endless opportunities to experiment with different
personalities and ways of behaving, in a fantasy world where there are no reallife consequences for failing.
Players in these games can also join special-interest groups called guilds.
To join a guild, a player (or, more accurately, the player's avatar) must fill out an
application form, much like a job application, explaining why he or she would be
a valuable member. Guilds generally have structures that are similar to
companies in the real world, with leaders, executive boards, and even

recruitment personnel. Such games are, in many ways, like the imaginative
sociodramatic games of preschool children, but played in a virtual world, with
communication by online text, and raised up many notches in sophistication to fit
the interests and abilities of the older children, teenagers, and adults who play
them. Like all sociodramatic games, they are very much anchored in an
understanding of the real world, and they exercise concepts and social skills that
are quite relevant to that world. In fact, a study commissioned by the IBM
Corporation concluded that the leadership skills exercised within MMORPGs are
essentially the same as those required to run a modern company.[13]

Cognitive Benefits of Playing Video

Games
research demonstrating long-lasting positive effects of video games on
basic mental processes--such as perception, attention, memory, and decisionmaking. Most of the research involves effects of action video gamesthat is,
games that require players to move rapidly, keep track of many items at once,
hold a good deal of information in their mind at once, and make split-second
decisions. Many of the abilities tapped by such games are precisely those that
psychologists consider to be the basic building blocks of intelligence.
The typical finding is that the gamers outperform the non-gamers on
whatever test is used. This suggests that gaming is a cause the better
performance, but doesn't prove it, because it is possible that people who choose

to play video games are those who already have superior perceptual and
cognitive abilities.
Improved visual contrast sensitivity.
Successful treatment of amblyopia.
Improved spatial attention.
Improved ability to track moving objects in a field of distractors.
Reduced impulsiveness.
Overcoming dyslexia.
Improved ability to engage in multiple tasks simultaneously.
Increased mental flexibility.
Reversing mental decline that accompanies aging.
Many studies indicate that video games improve job performance,
especially for jobs that require good eye-hand coordination, attention, excellent
working memory, and quick decision-making. One correlational study, for
example, demonstrated that video gamers were better than non-gamers in ability
to fly and land aerial drones and were essentially as good as trained pilots on this
skill.
Another correlational study revealed that young, inexperienced surgeons
who were also avid video gamers outperformed the most experienced surgeons
in their field
In an experiment, novice surgeons who were provided with experience
with video games improved their performance in laparoscopic surgery compared
with a control group of surgeons who did not have that experience
To cognitive scientists, such research on effects of video games is
fascinating in part because it demonstrates that the brain is far more moldable,
throughout a person's life, than was previously believed. Until fairly recently most
psychologists believed that the basic building blocks of intelligence were rather
rigidly set (hard-wired) by onesgenes. But the research summarized here,
coupled with much other research, indicates that this is not true. It's interesting to
note that video games appear to build these components of intelligence faster
and more efficiently than any other intervention anyone has devised.

Do Violent Video Games Contribute to Youth Violence?

Many studies failed to control for factors that contribute to children
becoming violent, such as family history and mental health, plus most studies do
not follow children over long periods of time.
Katherine Newman, PhD, Dean of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins
University, wrote: "Millions of young people play video games full of fistfights,
blazing guns, and body slams... Yet only a minuscule fraction of the consumers
become violent."
A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found
that children, especially boys, play video games as a means of managing their
emotions: "61.9% of boys played to 'help me relax,' 47.8% because 'it helps me
forget my problems,' and 45.4% because 'it helps me get my anger out."
Research shows that playing violent video games can induce a feeling of
guilt that leads to increased prosocial behavior (positive actions that benefit
others) in the real world.
Patrick M. Markey, PhD, Director of the Interpersonal Research Laboratory
at Villanova University, stated, "90% of young males play video games. Finding
that a young man who committed a violent crime also played a popular video
game, such as Call of Duty, Halo, or Grand Theft Auto, is as pointless as pointing
out that the criminal also wore socks." [84]