How To Stop Video Game Addiction

We Get It You Play A Lot Of Video Games

Quitting video games for a year is a big deal for me.

Ive never stopped playing for this length of time ever since I started playing.

Writing this post makes all of this real. By getting this idea out of my head and onto the internet where 10 people will read it, if Im lucky, commits me to this idea.

Levels Of Gaming Addiction Have Reached All

In fact, out of 10,000 people who took the LevelSkip quiz below, a whopping 26% admitted to spending more than 40 hours a week playing video games.

Yes, 40 hours a week!

Of course, in a normal world, that number would be cause for HUGE concern.

Unfortunately, many of us have been there and done it ourselves. And arent surprised in the slightest.

Seeking Help And Treatment

Video games have had a tremendous impact both positive and negative on the cultural attitudes, psychological development, and lifestyle choices of both children and adults. While these games can be viewed as a risk to players physical or emotional health, they have also been promoted as effective educational tools and have even been used for physical or cognitive rehabilitation in clinical settings. Yet for individuals who have become caught in a cycle of compulsive gaming, video games can become destructive.The growing popularity of video games has created a new awareness of the problem of compulsive gaming, which in turn has led to the development of treatment programs for this addictive process. Treatment for video game addiction focuses on behavioral modification therapies, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy , that guide the client away from the obsessive thought patterns and obsessive habits of addiction. Group therapy is a valuable source of motivation and moral support, especially for individuals who have lost contact with friends or peers as a result of their game addiction. Family or marriage counseling can help educate loved ones about the disorder and create a more stable home environment.

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Video Game Addiction Treatment In California

If playing video games has turned into an addiction, Launch Centers can help. We offer treatment for addictive behaviors and any accompanying mental health issues. We provide educational and career counseling, such as high school and college courses, and life skills management.

Contact Launch Centers at our Los Angeles program now and find out how we can help.

But Heres What You Dont Want To Do

Dont internalize the problem by constantly telling yourself, Im a video game addict and beating yourself up about the ways youve behaved in the past.

Doing this just makes you feel more down .

And taking on addict as a self identity label gives you an out every time the going gets tough

Most addictions in this vein really just come down to a mixture of impulsiveness and low frustration tolerance .

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What Is Video Game Addiction

A video game addiction is simply an addiction to playing video games. Unfortunately, this addiction is spreading at an extremely fast pace. While it may not effect the body directly as alcohol or cigarettes would, it can still devastate lives when people take their gaming habits too far.

Truth be told, I was once addicted to video games. I let it ruin many aspects of my life. I still play them, but I learned how to enjoy in moderation.

Clients And Professionals Share Their Experience

• HO

  Launch provided care on multiple levels. The highly skilled therapist coupled with the focus on purpose and long-term goals refocused my recovery from what previous treatment centers pushed onto me. I went from believing that I needed years of treatment to believing I needed years happiness and success. I began to focus on what I wanted to accomplish with my life. I came to realize all the things my addiction and mental illness had taken from me, and I used my future goals as a reason to never pick up again. Due to the passion that Launch instilled in me, I have pursued my future with excitement and dedication.

• Nicole

  This place changed my life! Ive had good laughs, good cries, shared a lot of heart to heart moments and grew a loving bond with everyone at Launch Centers. I will always be grateful!!! I really do miss it time to time. I highly recommend Launch Centers!

• Joey

  The staff and clinicians are amazing and make you feel right at home from the second you walk in the door. I would absolutely recommend this place for a family member or close friend.

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How To Help Your Teen With Gaming Addiction

All hope isnt lost for a teen whos struggling with gaming addiction. As a parent, the first thing you have to accept is that video games arent so bad as most rival companies paint them theyre not the root cause of addiction.

The major problem with video games is how teens are using them to replace important things in their lives. Essentially, compulsive gaming can replace a persons mind with something else which oftentimes, isnt fulfilling or rewarding in the long run.

When it comes to addiction, were talking about going beyond video games as a form of entertainment. For teens, gaming can act as a coping mechanism which isnt a good thing.

Video gaming can yield addictive behaviors in teens by replacing the worthy coping mechanisms with intolerable behaviors that affect their personal and social lives.

Both adults and teens can become addicted to anything, including eating, exercise, or even beer. Its not the element in question that causes the addiction but the use case.

While helping a teen deal with gaming addiction and even eliminate it, its important to address the signs that come as a result.

Parents have the responsibility of cutting back their teens gaming time by half or even more. If they used to play for 12 hours , reducing it to 4 to 6 hours is a good start.

Dont try to completely stop them from playing video games such mode of withdrawal can aggravate the urge to play even more.

Why I Quit Video Games

Ive been playing video games since the Super Nintendo came out in the early 90s. I vividly remember playing through Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country as a kid. When the Nintendo 64 came out, my dad waited in line outside of Target all night in the freezing cold just to make sure I got one for Christmas.

Id even take the Nintendo on camping trips with me. I famously told my parents one time that I get headaches if I dont play Nintendo.

In the early 2000s, I got into online video games. I was lucky enough to have cable internet at the time which unlocked a whole new world to me. My first game of choice was Tribes 2, a team-based shooter game where you flew around with jetpacks killing the other team. Players tried to shoot each other in mid-air with blue laser discs shot from a gun called the Spinfuzor.

Tribes 2 Box, ign.com

I eventually joined a clan called Warrior Nation, which was just a group of people who played the game together. Warrior Nation was also my first introduction to online voice chat. We used a program called TeamSpeak to talk to each other while we played.

As a prepubescent boy, I was very self-conscious of my high pitched voice. It was scary talking to people with your real voice. Previously I only talked to them over text chat, and I was afraid they would make fun of me and see me differently. They did make fun of me and did see me differently. But I stopped caring about it eventually.

Those are 24 hour days.

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I Would Be Wasting My Time On Reddit Or Youtube Anyway

How is it worse than watching sports or TV?

Its fun, everyone enjoys a hobby, why shouldnt mine be gaming?

The problem with games is that they can suck you in too much. After you watch a game of sports on TV or finish a movie, its over.

Games and especially multiplayer games nowadays are designed to never let you go and ideally want you to log in every day. The games are designed to be never-ending and they are always being updated . They offer daily quests and rewards and competitive leaderboards. The message is clearif you want to be awesome, you need to play every day.

Im not claiming that these other activities are better, but theyre simply less captivating and you can step out of them more easily. Reading jokes or browsing memes eventually becomes less fun over time. You can do it for an hour or so and then youre like nevermind, lets do something else instead. On the other hand, games can make you forget about everything else for a long time.

Ask This One Simple Question To People Who Might Be Addicted To Video Games

Craig was just starting to get a handle on his self-described âobsessiveâ gaming habit when the pandemic hit.

The 31-year-old from California tells Inverse that in 2020, he made the same New Year’s resolution he makes every year: spend less time playing games. On average, he estimates playing every day for as many as 12 hours at a time.

He was doing âokayâ at reducing his gaming hours, he says, but when lockdown hit, âIt was like a gaming Get Out of Jail Free card.â

Like watching TV, playing video games stimulates the reward center of the brain. When we play, our brains experience a surge of dopamine and serotonin, two happy-making neurotransmitters. And while so-called âvideo game addictionâ hysteria often commands headlines, gaming has many mental-health benefits, too.

But anything done to excess can become harmful, and when the touch of a button makes your brain flood with dopamine and serotonin, itâs easy to start overdoing it.

But how do you know whatâs âexcessâ when it comes to video games?

This question is particularly relevant for men. The gender gap among gamers has been closing over the last few decades, but in 2020, 59 percent of gamers identified as male.

Ultimately, experts say, âunhealthyâ gaming isnât about the number of hours you spend in front of a screen. Itâs about how gaming affects your life and relationships.

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Video Game Addiction: A Parents Evidence

Some kids spend long hours playing video games. Do they suffer from video game addiction?

Not necessarily. Kids might play opens in a new windowvideo games with disturbingly violent themes. They might spend too much time on the couch, becoming more sedentary and socially reclusive.

Kids might sometimes neglect their chores or homework, and they might fail to develop the ability to entertain themselves.

But such problems dont mean that a child suffers from an addiction.

Is It Really An Addiction

Most people would agree that video game binges or all-night marathons arent beneficial to your health, either physically or mentally. But is there a time limit that should be observed by gamers? Is there a way to know for sure when video game playing becomes excessiveor even addictive?

The World Health Organization recently evaluated the harmful effects of spending too much time playing video games. Based on scientific evidence, the WHO has classified gaming disorder as a serious addiction. However, the agency claims that the condition only affects 3% of gamers. Although the American Psychiatric Association hasnt labeled excessive gaming as a mental health condition, the organization does admit that the disorder warrants further clinical research.

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How To Stop Game Addiction Simple Tips To Apply:

Game is really important thing that helps you have fun and relax. Nevertheless, what you think you just do for fun can turn into something that control over your whole life, and get into a real addiction. This addiction will be able to interfere with your work and schooling, those things you have to do to earn money and survive.You might find it fun to spend all night leveling up on a game, but a game is never more important than he true meaning of your life, work and school performance. If you are tending to become a game addict, it is really important for you to take a step back and look at what you are doing. In addition, you should follow exactly the tip on how to stop game addiction that I release today.

1. Identify The Triggers:

The first tip on how to stop game addiction that you should apply is to determine what the triggers for this addiction are.

Triggers are physical and mental cues that make you want to indulge in the addiction named playing games. You should try to find out what things make you always want to play video games. It could be a unique website you go to online that starts your video gaming frenzy. It can also be the outside motivation when people around want you to play games with them. You need to do your best to discover what triggers are pulling you into the hold of playing games all the time.

2. Spend More Time Going Out With Your Friends:

3. Replace The Time You Are Cutting From The Computer On More Productive Activities:

15. Stay Positive:

Filling A Hole Of Loneliness With Anything Is A Recipe For Addiction

Instead, maybe its time to fill it with people.

If your relationships with other humans leave something to desire, it may be time to take a few risks and get in the game again.

• Go visit some friends.
• Pick up the phone and catch up with someone you havent talked to in a while.
• Try putting on a weekly dinner party or invite a friend to go out for coffee or a drink.
• Join a club or just attend some special interest events.
• Start practicing the art of striking up conversations with strangers .

If the loneliness has really caught hold and begun to impact your self esteem and quality of life, consider speaking to a counselor or therapist to work through this transition.

Therapists can be invaluable even if all you need is another human to listen.

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Controversy And Alternative Viewpoints

Common challenges involve the reliability of the methodology and validity of the results in some studies. Many rely on self-surveys from university students and also lack time frames making it difficult to study the impact, if any, of addiction on a long term scale. Other concerns also address the definition of addiction and how to measure it, questioning whether or not time is a proper unit to determine how addicted someone is to gaming. Daria Joanna Kuss and Mark D. Griffiths have argued the current scientific knowledge on internet gaming addiction is copious in scope and complexity. They state that instead, a simple framework should be provided to allow all current and future studies to be categorised, as internet gaming addiction lies on a continuum beginning with etiology and risk factors all the way through the development of “full-blown” addiction and ending with ramifications and potential treatment. In addition, they caution the deployment of the label “addiction” since it heavily denotes the use of substances or engagement in certain behaviors. Finally, the researcher promotes other researchers to assess the validity and reliability of existing measures instead of developing additional measurement instruments.

The evidence of video game addiction to create withdrawal symptoms is very limited and thus debated, due to different definitions and low quality trials.

Emotional Symptoms Of Video Game Addiction

Some of the emotional signs or symptoms of video game addiction include:

• Feelings of restlessness and/or irritability when unable to play
• Preoccupation with thoughts of previous online activity or anticipation of the next online session
• Lying to friends or family members regarding the amount of time spent playing
• Isolation from others in order to spend more time gaming

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What To Do After A Video Game Addiction Relapse

Relapsing is a commonplace phenomenon in the area of treatment for video game addiction. A relapse can be considered part of recovery, however, and not an end to it. As soon as the relapse has occurred, its necessary for the video game addict to return to their treatment center or therapist. The faster a relapse is evaluated, the sooner the addict can continue toward complete recovery.

If youre the parent of a child or teen who has undergone treatment for video game addiction, and you suspect a relapse has occurred, do not hesitate to take action. You may feel uncomfortable confronting your child with your suspicions, but its better to have an awkward conversation than to enable them to experience a full-blown video game addiction again.

Or Consider Using Focusmes Blocking Software To Limit Digital Addictions Of All Kinds

FocusMe is our famous productivity app for blocking out distractions and beating procrastination.

A lot of users also turn to it to finally win the battle with addiction to games, porn, or online gambling.

In fact, founder Jon Rumens first created the software to rein in his own out-of-control gaming habits and defeat procrastination so he could save his career and change his life.

So you could say we know where youre coming from on this one

Learn more about the app here:

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How Can I Address A Video Game Addiction

If you know its time to overcome video game addiction or help someone whos struggling with it, there are many resources available to help you get started. There are programs all over the country, as well as in-person and online support groups which are dedicated to helping people break free from addiction to video games.

The first step to ending video game addiction is to put the controller down and step away. This can be difficult, which is why many video game addicts made a successful recovery only when they discard their gaming equipment or go away on a wilderness retreat. A severe problem with video games might require drastic solutions. A video game should not be the center of anyones life, but if it is, there is hope for getting unshackled from the screen.

• About

Destiny Bezrutczyk is a Digital Content Writer from west Iowa. She earned a Bachelors in English Language and Literature from Texas Tech University. After working as a freelance script and blog writer, she began writing content for tech startups. Maintaining a passion for words, she took on a variety of projects where her writing could help people .

Clinically Reviewed:

Theresa Parisi

• About

All of the information on this page has been reviewed and verified by a certified addiction professional.