Can You Really Be Addicted to Video Games?
The latest research suggests it’s not far-fetched at all — especially when you consider all the societal and cultural factors that make today’s games so attractive.
A substantial body of evidence now demonstrates that although video-game addiction is by no means an epidemic, it is a real phenomenon afflicting a small percentage of gamers. This evidence has emerged from many sources: studies indicating that compulsive game play and addictive drugs alter the brain’s reward circuits in similar ways; psychiatrists visited by young adults whose lives have been profoundly disrupted by an all-consuming fixation with gaming; striking parallels between video games and online gambling; and the gaming industry’s embrace of addictive game design...
Addiction is no longer considered synonymous with physiological dependence on a substance, nor can it be reduced to the activity of neurons in a few regions of the brain. Rather, experts now define addiction as a behavioral disorder of immensely complex origins. Addiction, they say, is compulsive engagement in a rewarding experience despite serious repercussions. And it results from a confluence of biology, psychology, social environment and culture. In this new framework, addictions to certain types of modern experiences — spinning virtual slot machines or completing quests in a mythical realm — are entirely possible...
A typical gamer in the United States spends 12 hours playing each week; 34 million Americans play an average of 22 hours per week. About 60 percent of gamers have neglected sleep to keep playing, and about 40 percent have missed a meal. Somewhere around 20 percent have skipped a shower. In 2018, people around the world spent a collective nine billion hours watching other people play video games on the streaming service Twitch — three billion more hours than the year before. In South Korea, where more than 95 percent of the population has internet access and connection speeds are the fastest in the world, compulsive game play has become a public-health crisis. In 2011, the South Korean government passed the Shutdown Law, which prevents anyone under 16 from playing games online between midnight and 6 a.m.
Video games are not only far more pervasive than they were 30 years ago; they are also immensely more complex. You could easily spend hundreds of hours not only completing quests but also simply exploring the vast fantasy kingdom in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a gorgeously rendered virtual world in which every blade of grass responds to the pressure of a footstep or the rush of a passing breeze. Fortnite attracted a large and diverse audience by blending the thrill of live events with the strategic combat and outrageous weaponry of first-person shooters, airbrushing it all with a playful cartoon aesthetic. In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the choices players make change the state of the world and ultimately steer them toward one of 36 possible endings. All games — whether tabletop, field or electronic — are simulations: They create microcosms of the real world or gesture at imaginary ones. But these simulations have become so expansive, intricate and immersive that they can no longer be labeled mere entertainment, no more engrossing than an in-flight movie or a pop song. They are alternate realities...
The fact that video games are designed to be addictive is an open secret in the gaming industry. With the help of hired scientists, game developers have employed many psychological techniques to make their products as unquittable as possible. Most video games initially entice players with easy and predictable rewards. To keep players interested, many games employ a strategy called intermittent reinforcement, in which players are surprised with rewards at random intervals. Some video games punish players for leaving by refusing to suspend time: In their absence, the game goes on, and they fall behind. Perhaps the most explicit manifestation of manipulative game design is the rising popularity of loot boxes, which are essentially lotteries for coveted items: a player pays real money to buy a virtual treasure box, hoping it contains something valuable within the world of the game...
Rehab taught him that in order to stay sober, he would have to do more than avoid video games — he needed to replace them with something else. In Washington, he started reading more. He broadened his social network, making new friends through work, school and mutual acquaintances. When the weather was nice, he went hiking, took his dog on a long walk or played Frisbee golf. At home, he enjoyed the occasional board game. “I’ve tried to branch myself out into a lot of hobbies that I take shallower dives into, rather than having one that occupies everything,” he told me... nyt
I feel like society throws the word "addiction" around too much. Instead of describing a habit with deadly longterm consequences, people like to use it to describe activities they don't like or don't see the value in. Society loves to push their views of "living correctly" while discounting the values and experiences others get from things like video games.
ReplyDeleteI do like the South Korean Shutdown Law, which prevents anyone under 16 from playing games online between midnight and 6 a.m., but I cringe that it had to become a national law. Makes you wonder how the government would enforce a law like this? Spy on your game usage? Barge in your house and arrest someone for video games at 1am? Scary stuff.
Section 13
I feel addiction is very close to the right word. I think obsessed is a better word. I lot of kids now a days are growing up in the world of video games, in a way that people in the 90's and 20's didn't. Technology has only gotten more advanced so its more common for kids to grow up around video games. As kids we use to go outside and ride bikes but that is slowly going away because more kids want to be inside playing a game. I think this in the long run is going to shelter them from the real world.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O98gUOL03ZE
ReplyDeleteAshton Dennington