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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?"
but I have to get back to unreal tournament...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Before it was called an "addiction" is was called a "hobby".
As a 'pusher' (game developer), I hope they never find a cure. :)
I only have 5 game consoles, and I only upgrade my computer once every 6 months! I mean, it's not like I have more games than books or anything...
I'm in control, I can quit whenever I want! Y.. You don't think I have a problem, right?
...
/Right?/
People with 'addictive personalities' can become addicted to ANYTHING.
Period. End of story.
"And like that
The last game I played was Metal Gear Solid 2. Nice game, but my wife got addicted to watching it because of the stupid long movies. When I finished it, she asked me to play it on a higher difficulty level so she can watch it again. :-/
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.
In the final analysis, almost anything can be called an addiction if it routinely interrupts life's basic components, including school, work and relationships, he said. The important thing is balance.
I doubt very much that gaming is physically addicting. But I don't doubt at all that -- for some people, in some contexts -- it can be psychologically addicting. That's not unique to gaming, of course, but it's certainly worth being aware of.
I didn't know what to do with all the time on my hands. So I picked up a copy of Diablo. I don't remember exactly when she left me, but I know I had at least 3 battle.net characters that could fucking own on hell level!
After I got bored with Diablo, I thought it was over, but things only got worse. My next girlfriend became an ICQ whore. Chatting with all types all over the world until god only knows how early in the morning. I found this great thing called EverQuest and I haven't really seen her, or my shoes, since.
The downhill slide having begun, I was hooked. My CS skills are feared far and wide at LAN parties and my tollerance is so high that I can stare at a CRT for hours without blinking. Even those old ones with the 72 mHz refresh rates.
These days, it's just get up, stumble to the fridge in the morning. The whole time I'm thinking about what the proper Civ3 build order is for a city on my cultural boundry. I lay awake at night thinking about optimal artillary placement in Empire Earth.
If only Betty Ford had a program that suited me ... with phat net access and flat screens.
-- RLJ
When I was in college, I "lost" several of my friends for a few weeks because they discovered a MUD (Multi User Dungeon for the uniformed). They spent every waking hour down in the computer labs, only coming up for food when the delivery boy came. They neglected class, sleep, and basic hygeine, all so they could power up these non-existant characters which they would eventually no longer use years down the road. It was a pretty pathetic scene, and a couple of them actually dropped out of school because of it.
There's a difference between playing a game all night once in a while and completely cutting off friends and family. In terms of mental disorders, it becomes a problem when you cause distress to yourself and those around you. I learned early on to walk away from the computer once in a while, and I completely avoid MUDs and MMORPGs because of their potential to addict. It's fun to escape once in a while, but when the escape becomes your life you need help.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
From the article:
;)
The "EQ Wids" commiserate over tales of woe (one husband insisted on playing the game in the delivery room while his wife gave birth) and offer each other encouragement and company.
In my honest opinion, if you can't stop playing a video game to assist/be with your wife during labor, then chances are you have several other problems that are much deeper-rooted than your addiction to video games!!
Seriously though, as much as I love video games, they don't come before my family, friends, or my health. If you can't pull yourself away from a game for the things that really matter in life, then you do need to get help.
No no no. To quote William Blake, "The path of excess leads to the palace of wisdom".
That's what is interesting about this question. Most games have some sort of "payoff" device that is implicit when you play it. When you get that payoff, whether it is the final goal or some sort of intermediary plateau, you take a breather and appreciate your accomplishment. If a game defers that payoff and continues to promise it, it will become more and more of a time-sink. THis fairly much appeals to the natural structure of human motivation - it's *designed* to generate obsessive behavior.
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
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.
It's like The Sims, only someone is playing you...
"It's really destroyed a lot of marriages," said Tony, whose wife had an affair with her make-believe husband.
Man, this is a sentence I wouldn't expect to see anywhere but The Onion.
Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
This is all so true. I have found myself regularly addicted to various pursuits since I was a kid. I have found that the games to avoid are the ones with more long-term goals/payoffs. For instance, I'm not really addicted to UT or Q3. On some particular night, I may find it hard to tear myself away from "just one more" deathmatch, but that's it. Eventually I go to bed and I may not play again for 2 months.
But then there are games where that's not possible. We all know the examples (usually RPGs, quest style, or puzzle games in general).
Basically, here's what to avoid (I'm not a shrink, but this works!): Any game or activity with a non-determinate payoff pattern. In other words, avoid random (or semi-random) reward systems. UT doesn't fit in this category because I generally know how long a match will play and I usually have a good idea of who's going to school who. Zelda? Forget it. You never know when you're going to find the very next quest item.
This is basically the same problem as an addiction to gambling. Don't subject yourself to the overall patterns, and you should be ok.
Oh, and to everyone who thinks this isn't a real problem, good for you. It just means you haven't been bit yet. Good luck ignoring the problem though.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
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
While I didn't play on many arcade machines when I was younger, I spent countless hours on my C=64, and then on my XT, playing games. True, my case was mild as I wasn't able to monopolise either the TV or the computer, but I am sure there were others who had problems with severe addiction.
One of my favourite episodes of News Radio is when a "Stargate Defender" arcade machine is brought in to the office and Dave recalls the time when his SAT scores suffered because he stayed up all night playing that game. It's funny because it's true.
ian.
ian
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.
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!
July 1, 2024
Republican Presidential candidate Jenna Bush finally responded to the controversy surrounding her supposed gaming habit in the early 2000's. Unnamed sources, all claiming to be former college friends, have stated that Ms. Bush was an all-night gamer, playing Quake III, Tribes, and other games popular among the youth at the time. Since then, gaming has become strictly prohibited and all users, manufacturers, and distributors of these games have faced enormous fines and prison sentences.
While not explicitly confessing to game use during her college years, Bush said "when I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible".
Miguel Jesus deNaranja, currently serving a 75-year sentence for game distribution at Microsoft Maximum Security Detention Center near Austin, expressed outrage towards this statement by the President--his former classmate and supposed gaming partner. "I can't believe she is being such a hypocrite about this. She used to frag my brown ass all night long back in the day." Bush denies deNaranja's statements and claims to have never met him.
--"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
The truth is, the world is pretty fucked up. And we get into our little inward worlds to try and ignore that. Some of us are workaholics, others watch TV incessantly, etc. Every different thing has it's angle. Video games are addictive especially to the technophile crowd because face it, we geeks like flashy stuff (no rhyme intended). We want feedback, interactivity (another "duh"), eye-candy, excitement, etc. But when it comes down to it, these are just desires that get filled the same way as anyone else fulfills them: abuse. I would argue that 70% of Americans are television addicts.
The point I'm getting at here is that we are a nation of hedonists because we don't need to worry about the consequences of our consumerism, apathy, etc. (bear with me as I get a bit political) Not to induce a guilt trip here, but I don't think anyone in Somalia has a problem with buying too much crap, watching too much TV, or spending too much time jerking their thumbs in front of CRT's. But they have all their own problems to worry about: AIDS, drug warlords, starvation, etc. What do you do in a situation devoid of all pleasure? It probably would involve heavy, heavy drugs. I, for one, would not be able to sit through 6 hours of Metal Gear Solid while two gangs have a firefight next door.
My point is, people find outlets for their frustrated desires everywhere. Very seldomly do they have the courage to actually seek out the root causes of those desires. Here in the States, I think most of people's anxieties are caused by:
- working too much and taking it too seriously (ie. "miserable-ism" as termed by the Situationists)
- depending on others to make decisions for them ("pathological fascism" as called by Deleuze & Guattari)
- rampant commercialism driving down our self-esteem (and driving up demand)
To relieve this we watch: movies/shows about cops, criminals, rich people, sexy people, futuristic people, fantastic people, etc. (I'm talking mainstream, here, not "Clerks"-style stuff). All these movies/shows whatever romanticize these roles that only a few of us get to ever do. Since we're NOT those people, we feel more like a piece of shit, thus leaving us vulnerable to subconsicious suggestions that Diet Coke will instantly bestow us the sex appeal of Victoria Secret models.
So of course we want to feel like heroes, or drive ultrafast cars, or be the super-killer-soldier with the most frags: video games fulfill those vicarious pleasures because the media industry has successfully planted all those desires in us already!
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."
[pink beam of light]
Unless when you stopped playing the game(s), you could think of nothing else for days on end, but the game, and you lost sleep, paced endlessly, and basically had your entire life ruined for weeks, not able to perform normal functions, in a pain that lasted to some degree at least 6 months or more, if not for ever, then you weren't addicted.
Just because you could stop doesn't mean others can.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
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?
Yes, gaming addiction is real. So is information addiction. It's pathetic the amount of time I spent sucking down worthless piles of information on the net.
/., k5, Drudge, Shack, .5e, x-e, penny arcade, SA, POTD, Filthy, The Atlantic, TNR, HowStuffWorks, Ars, Onion, Blogdex, CNN, check e-mail, rinse, repeat until dead.
Fark,
The 2 hour morning web surf through my first two classes and before the shower is probably the most depressing after its over.
The only thing worse than having a day go by in front of the computer is having that day go by with the end result being that you got farther in a game or read a bunch of meaningless drivel by some web admin or forum-goers. See, I'm doing it right now!
The only way I feel like I'm using the computer effectively is when I'm doing homework or coding a personal project. Everything else is worthless, except maybe a regular check of the daily news (since I have no TV.)
I spend days, hell, weeks sometimes, away from the web and realize how stupid it is and what a waste of time it is. Too bad I never learn.
Don't even ask about what happened when Quake 3 fit itself into this routine two years ago. I finally got over that one this semester when my cable provider decided to suck. I should be thankful.
--
But because it's "normal" doesn't mean it's good. Someone else posted that somebody who spends all their time working as a lawyer would be praised as a "hard worker". Well, (disregarding the obvious jokes about the value of lawyering) anything that takes you over and locks you into a specific set of behaviours is bad. The great thing about being alive and human is the potential for doing new things. Doing the same exact thing for hours, days, months, years... that doesn't just make you an addict, it makes you uninteresting.
Whether you're an alcoholic, a crackhead, an obsessive EQ'er, or Bill Gates, it just isn't healthy to devote every waking moment to something that diminishes your capacity to be an interesting human. Obviously, whatever behaviours these types of people engage in give them some short-lived boost to their self-esteem, but at the expense of their lovability.
Do you want to be loved? Stop being so damn boring then, and take a fscking walk. Read a book. Hell, write a book... just do something different! Try to find a little balance in your life.
That goes for you, too, Gates.
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
I think the term addiction is being misused in this case. Addiction used to be a meaningful medical term. Some substances are addictive because they build a physiological tolerance, requiring greater use for the same effect, and which, if use is stopped, turns around into physiological withdrawal symptoms. What you're calling an addictive personality is really an obsessive-compulsive personality. The obsession is the inability to get away from the whatever mentally, the compulsion is to engage in the behavior the obsession leads to. It's significant because addiction means bad and it is used to vilify all sorts of things that are really value neutral. Plenty of OCD types clean obsessively but you don't see anyone talking about "Cleaning Addiction" or suggesting that cleaning is intrinsically bad. No functional difference between that behavior and playing Everquest all night.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
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.
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
Its just the games that have changed. Everquest is no more addictive than Quake, which is no more addictive than Civilization, which is no more addictive than Nethack, which is nore more addictive than Zork, which is no more addictive than TinyMud, which is no more addictive than pac man, which is no more addictive than space invaders, which is no more addictive than combat, which is no more addictive than pong. Each had their addicts that had the journals, the "Wired"s of their day, all claiming we'd all end up "game-heads" by the end of the century...
well, the century is over, the games are still around, and so is society. Unfortunately, so is Wired.
And its not so much a psychological "mystery" as so many have tried to paint it as. If it was, then Psychology Today would still be arguing about it like they did over the Pac Man fascination.
Yes, a gamer can be in a "zone" where nothing but the game matters during that time, but that "zone" as an ASC is the same kind of zone that anybody gets when concentration on a single topic is at a high (literally and figuratively). Its the same zone that hackers get (see "Peopleware"), its the same zone a musician gets when the music takes over his body and spirit, its the same zone an author gets. Sometimes the zone is productive, sometimes its an escape. But the zone is the same.
Basically its like this. Reality sucks. Its hard. Its painful. Its a fucking bitch at times. For geek guys, its full of bitches. Games are fun. Games have rules that don't change. Games have NPCs whose behaviour can be relied on.
So play games 'cause its easier than reality. People suck 'cause they and their expectations are always different from one day to the next. Games don't change. 'til you download a new update. when YOU want to, not when "they" do it.
And you keep playing games because games stay fun and reality never improves. (now mind you, the fact that you never do anything to change your reality because your always playing games doesn't help, of course, but when you're playing games, you can't see that).
And they knew this 25 years ago when Pong hit the streets. Hell, you think Thompson and Ritchie would have gone to so much fucking trouble making an O/S for an empty computer to play Space War was done for the "intellectual excercise of it"? Hell no. They were addicts who needed a fix. They just managed to get better and keep up with reality as well, as most of us do. Usually its because you finally get bored with games, and you keep thinking "the new games suck...they aren't nearly as good as the games I used to play".
Irrellevant Postscript: Back in "the day", I was a moria addict...'til i got a D in English 102. I saved the graveyard scene (you could do that, at least on vax-moria), and modified it so that it said "Rest In Peace : My English Grade" in the tombstone.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
The psychology that motivates gamers has been thoroughly studied, as basically the more addicitive a game is, the more successful it is. Gamasutra has an a related article on Behavioral Game Design which is a high level overview of how to think in order to effectively lure in your audience.
I've wasted a good half a year on an old school text based MUD, and as such stay completely away from EverCrack et al. as I just can't afford to devote my time to virtual characters.