Slashdot Mirror
Fighting the Scourge of Gaming Addiction
speby writes: "With the growing popularity of LAN parties and other such channels to game (which the article at Wired doesn't mention) is it possible that gaming has become a real addiction? How can a person become addicted? And why?"
Maybe it's not the games at all, but rather some substance or situation commonly encountered by gaming.
CRT radiation - maybe this is why nobody wants to play games on LCD screens.
Caffeine - Consumed in great quantities at LAN parties.
It's also possible that the chemicals in a brain without sleep could be addicting.
I'm sure Ive left something out (I've only listed three because I need to get back to Civ3) anyone else with some other thoughts?
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
Did you read the article? A hobby does not cause one to fail to attend school for a semester in order to play EverQuest. A hobby does not lead one to play Civilization for seven straight years. Yes, this is an addiction. A hobby is a healthy way of spending one's free time. When it reaches the point where the hobby begins demanding more than than you have free and you gladly feed it that time, then it is an addiction.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
I've been pretty successful at keeping a Civilization-like-game addiction under control. When I fall off the wagon (Masters of Orion II, Civilization III) I spend a few weeks playing until 1:00 am and obsessing about the game during the day. Then I get embarassed and ashamed at the time I'm wasting on a persuit that leads nowhere. I'm a writer for cripes sake; I've been published in lots of places and I could produce and sell more if I put my mind to it. The time I spend in front of a computer gaming could be productive as well as enjoyable.
Stefan
Of course, there is no problem with letting off steam, as long as nobody is getting hurt. But isn't that the hidden "catch" in most addictions? You aren't hurting anyone else... until the "problem" becomes a problem.
Someone who plays games here and there, to have fun, is not addicted. But someone who thinks all day about playing their favorite game when they get home from work, school, etc. and then spends the majority of their evening playing that game, has a problem.
If nothing else, they are locking themselves out of society, because they choose to stay alone or with a select group of people so often. People who have 16 hour gaming binges are not addicts, but when they have them every weekend, and have 8 hour binges throughout the week, those people are addicted to gaming.
Again, it isn't a big problem for those of us who are not addicted to gaming, but when the number of game-aholics starts increasing, the number of able-minded contributors to society decreases accordingly. Eventually, as with any "popular" addiction (nicotine, alcohol, gambling, sex) once the number of addicts reaches "critical mass" the society as a whole becomes affected.
What's a second? An hour? A day?
It has much more to do with
the Earth's rotation than with cesium.
I've been running Counter-Strike servers for a couple years now. One thing I've always done is provide nightly player statistics for the previous 30 days. I've seen people hit over 14 solid days of gameplay in a given 30-day period!
Assuming that these people sleep every once in a while suggests that they're playing CS nearly every waking minute. Currently, the "worst" player on my biggest server has logged seven days in the last thirty.
One guy's longest single session was 9 hours! Wow.
THANK YOU.
It's not the game that's addicting. It's the enjoyment that the person gets out of it that's the addiction, and that can come from ANYTHING - computer games, video games, role playing, M:TG - anything that gives them enjoyment.
I guess it's that if you find your games the most enjoyable, you get addicted to them. If you find your job the most enjoyable, then you're just being a hard worker. A lawyer that spends 80 hours a week working because she likes it is a good lawyer. A person that spends 40 hours a week gaming because she likes it is "addicted" and has problems. (that's how they try and paint it)
It could be worse - some people turn to alcohol, drugs, or gambling, all much, much, MUCH more destructive than games or work. (except for maybe M:TG - that can do a number on your bank account that can match many drugs)
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Gather round, and let me tell you a tale. I take you way back to the fall of 1999. I was a music major at UMass. I loved the school, hated the department. I scrounged up some cash and picked up a copy of starcraft.
Whoops. I became so enthralled I would ditch my friends, play till 4am, say, 'well, I might as well stay up all night and then go to class', stay up till dawn, and finally crash just as I should have head out of the dorm. I had no social life (I used to leave parties to play) and was flunking out, but because, I reasoned, no one liked me (probably because I hardly ever left my room, if then only to meet the delivery guy)so I might as well sit and play. It's a catch-22 if ever I heard one.
This story doesn't have a fairy-tale ending. I lasted 2 semesters and got kicked out, eventually coming enough out of the hole to apply at the New School in New York City and get a job. It's like being an alcoholic. Yes, I still play games, but spend a good portion of the time trying to avoid sitting in front of my computer. Every once in awhile I regress, stay up all night with Deus Ex or what have you, and seriously regret it in the morning.
I don't have an 'addictive personality,' simply because, as someone said, I don't find everything addictive. Cigarettes and computer games. That's it.
All I'm saying is, this is real. Take my word for it.
Triv
Some people get bored with everything eventually. I went through a stage where I was "addicted" to sex. About 3 times a day with my girlfriend for several months. The novelty wore off and I moved on to other activities. Once you run out of things you want to do in the real world, then all that's left is fantasy worlds. Games provide that. Or they at least provide us with a safe way to perform tasks that we really wouldn't want to do in real life.
The article refers to 1000 EQ Widows. Let me rant for a minute about this. They must be spending too much time online themselves in order to find sites like that. Also, I'm so damn sick of every girl thinking that we need to spend every minute together in order to have a relationship. Hell, the poor guys probably got sick of cuddling for hours on end while watching Titanic.
So why cares about this besides some overprotective soccer mom concerned about how she's going to look in front of her parenting commitees when they find out her kid would rather playing "games" instead of taking part in wholesome activities like football, where the object is to run face first into a member of the opposing team in order to knock him down.
Why must it be that all 6 billion people are expected to be exactly the same when viewed through the eyes of a psychologist. These are people who make their living by judging others by their own standards instead of any scientifically proven formulas. They're the same ones that will contradict themselves by saying that you have a "syndrome" if you aren't the same as other's in your peer group, but turn around and criticize you for doing whatever your friends do. Fuck em.
Wow, I need to go let some steam of in a good game of GTA.
hurmph. I wonder if it could almost be a good thing. Used as a teaching tool. It used to be there were complaints. OH you get 3 lives. That's not realistic. Well with these MMORPG you get that little payoff but you want more and more. Kinda like real life. Ya want to go to college. Then you want to live off campus. Then your own apartment and a job. And your own car. And well ya saved enough, why not a house. Well that's as far as I've gotten in this curve. But I've seen more 'I want a raise.' 'A better car.' etc. So games are doing this more incrementaly. Kids _may_ realize that they'll never be completely satisfied and there's always something better out there. Ok enough rambling.
-cpd
The 3 analogies you mention just don't work, since they all involve people creating something. The people playing Everquest aren't creating anything, they're just playing a game.
And just because it's profitable doesn't mean it isn't an addiction. We've all heard the stories of people losing their wives, friends or their minds through an over-zealous commitment to their work.
...not that the label helps anything. I mean, there's no really clear line between "addiction" and "bad habit."
Multiplayer RPGs are the worst in this way. They give you little rewards every once in a while, for staying on longer, and they tend to be open-ended. In that way, they are designed just like gambling machines: designed to give you random rewards that condition you to want to keep playing. Also, hardcore players, rather than being ridiculed, are respected for the in-game power they develop, so there's social pressure to play more, rather than to play moderately.
I experienced that sort of weirdness when I was developing Beng the Battle Engine, a chat-room RPG battle engine. I thought the sheer repetitiveness of the gameplay (and total lack of graphics, story, or setting) would make it at best a side toy for people to play with when the conversation slowed down, or while waiting for someone they wanted to talk to to show up. Imagine my surprise when a few people basically moved in and spent 8 hours per day or more.
They'd level up past the point I thought anyone would ever get to in just days. I was disturbed. I mean, I was proud they enjoyed it, but I didn't think that much play was healthy. Of course, they didn't continue like that forever. It's just not that good a game, after a hundred hours or so, you've seen everything you could ever see, and then the novelty of being the toughest guy in a game with only a couple dozen players wears off pretty quickly. Some wandered off, and some picked up the source code and started hacking on it, which gave me a lot better feeling about the whole thing.
But it makes me worry about better games. If a cheesy IRC-based micro-MUD can suck away hundreds of hours like that, how far off can the name "EverCrack" be? And there's better stuff coming out all the time!
Now I'm married, with a great job, a great apartment, etc. I got Civ3 and I really love it, but it hasn't killed me, ruined my marriage, etc. My point is that the Substance of Choice is usually not the key problem in addictions. The problem is usually something in the abusers character or circumstances.
"Slashdot is about legos and staplers." -Cmdr. Taco
First it was money, then it was power, then it was sex, then it was alcohol, then drugs, then books, then sports, then MST3k, now games. None of these things are necessarily bad in and of themselves, it's just that people are prone to addiction. My parents are both recovering alcoholics, so genetically, i've got loaded dice. I've noticed many addictive tendancies in myself, and tried EXTREMELY hard to moderate them. I'm doing pretty well. It's the people who don't see their own tendancies that are in danger, with ANY of the above. They start, and can't stop, and feel like the rest of the world is against them when really it's that they've gone in too deep to have any real perspective. Gaming is no different, and no worse. There is no reason games can't be used, even heavily, without any major problems. Like with booze, a major binge every now and again within a pattern of responsible use is fine as long as it doesn't screw up your life or the life of anyone you care about. Offtopic. . .MADD==Mothers Agains Dungeons and Dragons. . .
You are not the customer.
I'm going to go totally off-topic here, but it's nice to see someone else who smokes, but isn't addicted. I tell people that I control when i do and don't smoke. They're always like, "Sure, pal, whatever." But then I don't smoke for a few months, and therefore break what is commonly known as cigarette addiction. Thanks for adding to my theory.
Atually, drugs are a lot cheaper than most people think. A hit of LSD is usually US$3-6, about the same price as a movie ticket. Where a movie usually lasts 90 minutes, your trip will last 6-12 hours, sometimes longer. It's generally a lot more entertaining than the latest crap from Hollywood too. As for video games, they are usually $49.95 plus the cost of a brand new ultra-mega-hyper-voodoo 9000 video card w/10gb of onboard ram, a new Pentium9 666GHz, etc. so the graphics won't suck, making them a lot more expensive than drugs.
Best Slashdot comment ever
Bing bing bing.. we have a winner! Nice post Saige.
The real truth of the matter is that gaming is different from currently acceptable social norms, therefore dedicating your life to gaming is an addiction, which carries negative connotations. Dedicate your life to a social norm and you are just driven to be the best; a real winner!
It's all just a label game at this point.
However, I don't think that dedicating one's life to gaming is the best use of one's life, therefore I don't do it, and refer to over-dedication to gaming as an addiction. However I'm also not addicted to telling other people how to run their lives, which is what articles like this intend to do.
It frustrates me greatly that people try to claim victim status when they are victimized only by their choices.
According to the listed standard, I think I could be described as sleep addicted, food addicted, air addicted, and for that matter addicted to converstations with my wife and playing with my kids!
I enjoy computer games. I know what it's like to drag my butt in to the office and lack productvity all day because I was up until the wee hours of the morning playing video games.
My point is this. We make many choices which reflect a person's values and priorities. When I watch the movie or stay up late playing RTCW, I pay the consequences. As a result, I choose not to do that very often! When I choose to do that, I blame myself, not some psychological condition.
Choosing to value the wrong things is simply a lack of discipline. Lack of discipline is a character problem, not an addiction over which the person has no control.
The problem is a lack of will, and the consequences are simply the results of bad choices.
Take control of your life by taking responsibility for your choices, values and character! Choose to put down the controller, or even to get rid of the console.
Get involved with people. It's harder, and hurts more, but is far more rewarding than having the perfect score in Pitfall!
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Usually, game addiction is most prevelent in people who have no previously existing social context in an area other than thru gaming.
... burning down the house!
One of the reasons I first became a game developer, in the 80s, was that I had become addicted to gaming (RPGs mostly).
So we see it pop up more in people who gain socialization thru LAN parties, and especially when they go to a new High School or College where they have few friends who are not in the gaming community.
However, it's not an addiction that's easy to kick. Usually it can be solved by other more powerful drives (getting into a long-term relationship is one of the best), but in practice you may need to move away and not socialize with other game addicts and take up other interests if you wish to break the cycle.
My favorite view of it is what happens in The Sims at a LAN party
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I was literally stopped in the middle of the street jaywalking by another lawyer who wanted to tell me I was his hero for finding a way out. They want out; they just can't face the pay cut. Grad school was a 90% cut from what I would have made the next year--and worth every penny. (I also had to give up the 35 hour work week . .
I razzed another lawyer, a litigator, about eating the fish rather than the red meat at our 20 year reunion. He can't *digest* it, it makes him ill due to his stress. So why does he continue? He can't give up the money and lifestyle.
A great many lawyers are caught in a living hell. They give up everything to stay in--family, health, sanity (yes, I know at least one who just plain cracked). And for what?
Yes, I am still a lawyer, and have kept my licenses. I'll take antitrust issues and other matters which really want an economist with a law license. But I'll dig ditches before I return to general practice.
hawk, esq.
Your right about EQ, Mt buddy has totaly dropped off the radar becasue of EQ. he has been kicked out of college and is about to loose his job, about he doesn't even know cause he hasn't been out of his house in over four months. now THAT is addiction, baaaaad addiction. hell he won't even stay on the phone for more than 5 minutes, and forget answering the door that would cause him to get up from the comuter. the rest of us are thinking of going over and killing the power at the breaker than beating the crap outta him and taking away his computer. Even forcing him to go back to work and class, maybe we can break his habit.....
geez in the face of all that I guess I am not all that addicted to gaming afterall.
if you want "No More Hiroshimas" then I say "You First. No More Pearl Harbors."
You can find some more relevant articles from the BBC, academia, more academia, the parent report, evilminion.com, and self psychology bboard. Also see the journal of electronic gamblin issues.
So naturally, the best way to break a video game addiction is to withdraw from Hollywood/Viacom/AOLTimeWarner/Disney in every conceivable form. Or at least develop enough of a cynical veneer to be able to look someone in the eye and say, "The Matrix was good...for a Hollywood film."
This being our society, explain how not being a part of the society in which we live is better for us in the long run than being a part of it?
I know that I've been much happier since I decided to break my addiction to rebellion and see just what was so great about all this mass market stuff that people seem to obsess so much about, both fot and against. I discovered that it is actually fun to be part of a group and I felt like I belonged. I began to have things in common with people, which meant that I could actually hold conversations. I could get dates, like all these 'mainstream losers' could.
Why do I feel better? Is it because I'm brainwashed to think that all this stuff is better? No, because I know it's not. In my private life I'm a total iconoclast. There is a fundamental joy in being part of something. It's Maslow Level 2, Safety and Security. I know that because I can communicate as part of American Consumer Society, that I am someone my neighbors can relate to.
This sounds chilling. It sounds like Orwell. But it's not just me, either. Nobody in the USA has a higher purpose anymore. It could be argued that they didn't before, but the freedom to choose not to enter the military/go to church/work at menial labor has taken away our exposure to suffering. I grew up in a very poverty-stricken part of the country. I blow the minds of my upper-middle-class-raised coworkers when I tell them about my friends and relatives that didn't have running water or gas heat. I appreciate what I have, which is belonging.
The intellectual side of me wishes I didn't need this. The emotional side takes whatever it can get.
I've played EverQuest. I spent entire days and nights just trying to "level". Each time I incremented my level, it would become harder to get to the next level, almost on an exponential scale. So the first couple of levels were easy and pretty rewarding. I was able to beat up slightly badder monsters, gain enough money to buy new equipment, and go on quests. Eventually, though, I noticed a drop-off in the rewards. I had to work much harder for a longer time just to attain the next level. After wasting a month doing this, I uninstalled the game and packed it away. I haven't touched it since.
Before and after I was "addicted" to EverQuest, I mostly played FPS's, with some strategy games here and there. Now I'm back to them. Why? Playing games like Counter-Strike and RTCW only had short-term goals: to get as many frags in the current level/map as possible. Once the map time limit or objective was achieved, the game was over and we start anew. The only long-term goal involved is the motor-skill improvement by practice.
Sometimes I play into the late hours playing a multiplayer FPS, but that's only because it was fun for me to continue to play, not because I absolutely had to keep playing to achieve something. For the most part, when a map is over and a new map started, I have the choice to leave or stay, and weigh the consequences. In a game like EverQuest, this is much harder to do, because you know that time away from the game is time lost in trying to attain the next level.
Everyone who is considered socially healthy spends some time in the company of their peers. People with hobbies tend to spend more time with like-minded people, and develop friendships there. Jeezus freaks spend their time in church. Boy Scouts spend it in camps. Pilots spend it in airport bars. And EverCrackHeads spend it in EverCrack.
It's just that the ones who dare do it on-line instead of face-to-face are now called addicts, and have to take Zyban? I don't get it.
They're really no different than car-nuts, airplane-nuts, sports-nuts, gun-nuts or any other person who develops a passion and focuses intently on it. (At least they're interacting with other people which kind of implies that even if they are crazy, they are not completely unstable.)
I imagine that same person 50 years ago would have found himself spending all his waking hours in a bar or under the hood of his car instead of on-line. It's just a society club by another name. And you don't necessarily have to drink while you play EverCrack.
John
John
For instance, I once played an online game (Utopia) and was pretty good (well, really good, false modesty is stupid). However, to be *the best* you had to spend an inordinate amount of time on it- it was time based, so the best thing to do was to log in frequently. (It also helped to be able to spend a long time every few days, but that's beside the point.) Because I was (am) a HS student, this was pretty tough. So I'd get up before school, keep the game open all evening.. you know the drill. Anyway, what finally broke my "addiction" was going on vacation. No access to the game for a couple of weeks. (BTW, that is the best way to break an addiction, just don't do it, cold turkey.) I just decided not to play after that. Anyway, when EQ came out I WANTED to buy, looked cool, type of game I'd enjoy, but after hearing a couple stories of addiction (real, honest to go medical addiction) I figured I better not fuck around with it. Long winded way of saying know yourself... if you have a chance (think you do) of getting addicted don't buy the fucking game.
No sig for you.
My roomate and I have been roommates for 4 months, but friends for 15 years. We are both IT professionals, but have very different lifestyles. We are in our mid twenties and have been working for several years.
We used to have similar interests when we were 11 and 12 (ie video games), but his never changed...mine did. I like people, sports, nature...all the standard "normal" things people enjoy in life. He is still like a 12 year old...
He on the other hand divides all waking time after work AND on weekends/holidays split approximately 70:30 between computer gaming and TV. When I'm not around, the apartment is like a dungeon. Lights off, windows and curtains closed. The only light is the endless flickering of the CRT or TV. It is like a high-tech purgatory. We're talking 8 hours per day weekdays, 16 on weekends...
Garbarge piles up, dishes pile up, instant food wrappers (anything that can go in the oven) pile up, personal hygine and health are given no thought at all..
Unless I cleaned up we wouldn't be able to get into the house. It stinks because he he is too lazy?/busy gaming? to do laundry or clean up his old food.
I on the other hand, have an active social life. I date regularily and play on a number of sports teams. I don't try to judge my friends lives, but its hard not to when you live with someone this different.
This guy hasn't touched a woman in 6 years, has gained 150 pounds and has lost all but vestiges of the social skills he once had. Thus, some serious resentment of my friends and girlfriends has built up...of course he feels like crap when I bring home 2 different woman a month and all he can do is lock himself into his room and pretend that others don't get laid and laugh and enjoy human contact, love and affection...
Because he is my friend, it tears me up to see the guy waste his time...YES waste his limited time on this planet. He has been power gaming for 15 years and counting..
Games might be FUN, but he has no friends, terrible health, and a grim, sarcastic outlook on societs. It is twisted; he'll sit there and curse at Everquest for hours on end, more stressed out than work could ever make him, but will continue to play.
I have tried to invite him out and to get him involved in anything and everything else, but everything seems very threatening...
His idea of socialization is inviting someone over to watch HIM play games!
I have buddies over to watch Hockey (which he likes), but he would rather play Return to Castle Wolfenstein because he's "..almost done this level..."..."this level" of course lasts another 4-5 hours. LOL
He is a very hard person to talk to, and has difficulty dealing with problems head-on...he is very much in denial about the twisted nature of his lifestyle...I have brought it up once and he got super angry and defensive "I thought you were my friend, don't call me a loser and judge me ever again!"
I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO. I want to intervene in some way, to help improve his quality of life, (as well as reduce the impact on mine...living in this environment is DEPRESSING! I can't stand to be at home).
A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. "Excuse me," he said, "may I examine it?"
The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. "I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium and Hard," said the master. "Yet every such device has another level of play, where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the human."
"Pray, great master," implored the novice, "how does one find this mysterious settings?"
The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it under foot. And suddenly the novice was enlightened.
This is exactly what I did after playing Half-Life life non-stop for about 8 hours. I was "master of my domain" and shattered the CD and uninstalled it from my system. Haven't touched a video game since. They just don't go well with my obsessive personality.
That's right, it's called operant conditioning, (let me get my PSY111 notes...) and games like Zelda and hobbies like gambling operate upon the second-most permenant schudule of reward, variable-ratio . That's just Skinner's way of saying the subject doesn't know how many more times it has to perform behavior X, but it knows that a reward will come after an unknown but finite number of tries. Smash Brothers is one of the most addicting games amoung my friends, this is probably due to it's unique knock-out system, which is an almost perfect example of variable ratio , unique in a fighting game.
Incidentally, the most permanant schedule of reward is variable-interval , the basis of human relationships.
Other examples of periodic reinforcement schedules...
fixed-ratio -
Burger Time, make X burgers get next level reward, the number of brugers that need to be made are known.
Duck Hunt, shoot X ducks, progress to next level.
fixed-interval -
All examples elude me.
Incidentally, behaviors learned through continuous reward schedules are supposedly more inclined towards extinction than any other, apparently the subject often quits the bahavior after only a few trials without reward. Zoop was frustrating game probably because you always begin with continuous reward, and then recieve no reinforcement, and no second chances, after you lose in the higher levels. A steady stream of reward just gets suddenly cut off. Ouch.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
Well, a widely used, and fairly good, operational definition of addiction is something like: continuing a behaviour in spite of consequences .
The very important issue here is consequences.
For example, someone may smoke cigarettes every day, and feel very uncomfortable if they can not smoke for some reason. This person is dependent on cigarettes, but as long as they are able to go to work, form meaningfull relationships with other humans, not commit crimes in order to smoke, and otherwise not have their monkey f-up their life, they are not addicted. Doesn't matter if they can stop or not, as long as the rest of their life is working.
Likewise, if someone plays EQ all the time, but the rest of their life is working, then they are not addicted; even if they find it hard to stop playing. They are dependent, but not necessarily addicted.
And yes, a person can become addicted to almost anything: games, alcohol, drugs, shopping, even sex or slashdot.
No matter how enjoyable the activity, if it is disturbing other areas of your life, and despite that you can not stop, then you are an addict.