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Content of Video game addiction last modified 3/13
The Growing Problem Of Video Game Addiction
A constantly developing world means constantly developing new medications, sciences, and technologies. Unfortunately, as new inventions are discovered, built, and sold to the public, that leaves a gap of what they could do to people in the long term. Today, men and women are addicted to new drugs that didnt exist twenty years ago, and experimental medical procedures are creating more problems than they are treating. The advances, however, dont just have to deal with advances in health, there is also new issues in consumer technology. We, as a people, are constantly having new smartphones, computers, and gadgets thrown at us. While the potential downfall of this new technology is often debated, it is another disorder that has been hooking children and adults for the past 20 years video game addiction.
Factors That Lead To Gambling Addiction
specialists state that compulsive gambling may be a reason for biological, genetic, and environmental factors Gambling addiction: Symptoms, triggers, and treatment, such as:
- age and sex
- family or friends impact
- drugs with rare side-effects .
Other studies add the following triggers to the mentioned above Gambling:
- traumatic conditions
- solitude
- other addictions
If not interfered, the problem gambling may cause very serious and lasting effects for individuals’ life Compulsive gambling – Symptoms and causes:
- relationship related issues
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What Makes A Video Game Addictive
Most adolescents like to spend at least part of their free time playing video games. But for some, what starts out as innocent recreation can become an addiction.
Soon, friends, family, school, and even personal hygiene are neglected as nearly every spare moment is spent playing the game.
We Dont Fully Understand Why But Some People Are More Susceptible To Addiction Than Others
So what makes the minority of people with addiction problems different than the majority? Researchers dont have a conclusive answer to the question, but they say its likely a whole host of factors.
Some of it may be other mental health issues. Scott pointed out that his addiction flared up when he felt despair. When he was at his worst with his gaming, he said, I was feeling really down about life, not sure what to do with myself. Video games gave him an out, letting him set aside his despair for a little while. Other mental health problems, like anxiety, could play a role too.
It also could be genetic. Some people just experience fewer temptations, or have more willpower, than others. Scientists dont totally know why.
A persons environment could play a role too. Maybe video games, particularly free-to-play online games, are the only affordable release at the end of a long workday that a low-income person can find, making it easier for him to get trapped in it. Perhaps someone will be forced to move to a place where she doesnt have friends, family, or previous hobbies, so games will quickly become the only thing that gives her joy, and soon enough its all she does. It could be that, for some people, games are uniquely accessible, making them easy to play too much as was true in Scotts case, working from home.
And it could be all of these things combined or something else entirely. No one knows for sure, whether for gaming addiction or other forms of addiction.
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Symptoms Of Video Game Addiction
If you suspect that someone you care about suffers from an addictive gaming disorder, there are some important signs to watch out for. If youre trying to tell if someone has a serious video game problem, consider these questions:
- Are they becoming isolated from family and friends?
- Are they lying to others about how often they play video games, and do they often play in secret?
- Do they become upset and irritable when theyre not playing video games?
- Are they neglecting work or school to play video games?
- Are they avoiding activities they once enjoyed?
- Are they skipping meals to focus on gaming?
- Are they often tired because theyre not getting enough sleep?
- Do they have physical problems from gaming too much, like carpal tunnel syndrome, migraines, and eye strain?
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Effects Of Video Game Addiction
Gaming addiction is a compulsive mental health disorder that can cause severe damage to ones life. Its common for a video game addict to spend over 10 hours a day gaming, usually well into the night, and many suffer from sleep deprivation 22.Massively multiplayer online role-playing games: comparing characteristics of addict vs non-addict online recruited gamers in a French adult population×. Immersed in their experience, gamers are known to have poor diets consisting mainly of energy drinks full of caffeine and sugar. Many are dehydrated and malnourished.
In more severe cases, gaming addicts report agoraphobia a type of anxiety disorder in which they fear leaving the house and others identify with hikikomori a term popularized in Japan as reclusive adolescents or adults who withdraw from social life 33.A preliminary cross-cultural study of Hikikomori and Internet Gaming Disorder: The moderating effects of game-playing time and living with parents×.
Gaming addicts tend to be moody and irritable, depressed, physically aggressive, and refuse to go to school or work due to gaming. To be addicted to games is to experience functional impairment in multiple areas of your life, and the long-term effects can be devastating. Gaming addicts fail out of college. They get divorced. And they struggle with unemployment.
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Negative Effects Of Video Game Addiction
Gaming addiction is considered a psychological disorder that results in heavy psychological damage. Playing for a minimum of 10 hours a day, for some reaching for up to 15 hours of gaming is common among addicts. Normally during the day, many gaming addicts are sleep deprived. Some gamers may have agoraphobia, a phobia, or a type of anxiety disorder wherein they do not leave the house.
Gaming addicts tend to be irritable, moody, cranky, depressed, and refuse to do schoolwork or do jobs due to their games. Sometimes, our habits can turn into an addiction. When will we consider it as an addiction already? The answer is simple if it affects your academics, professional success, physical health, mental health, and our relationship to others.
Video game addicts are facing a different problem, their academics can be affected because video games are prioritized over doing school stuff. When it comes to professional success, you cannot focus properly on your work because you are always in the idea of playing a video game.
Even having a lack of sleep and not eating on time can cause some physical disorders. Mentally you are exhausted because you do not know when and how to stop. Our relationships with other people will be affected, as you do not know how to interact with the community or how to deal with other people.
Essay On Video Game Addiction 1
Video game addiction is also known by the term gaming disorder. It is known as an irresistible use of video games that promotes significant imbalance in the various life realms over a long period of time. Too much indulgence into anything or work leads to addiction. Addiction can ruin the life of any human being, because in this man becomes crazy about the things he is addicted to.
Any kind of addiction causes loss of health, money, relationship and respect for human beings. World Health Organization has described video gaming addiction as a mental disorder.
The common children will enjoy this most, but the truth is that gaming could lead to a level where one can feel lonely and becomes an introvert personality. Instead of playing outside the children have preferred playing games on their electronic gadgets at home.
This makes them physically unfit and it can also cause problems in the eyes. Children who play games tend to talk less to the people around them and in this way they get lonely because they spend most of their time at home with their gadgets.
Children become flabby with this habit and this also causes problems in their careers in future. Many researchers have also revealed that men are more addicted to gaming than women.
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Some Are Unable To Pull Themselves Away From Games
Yes, video games can be an addiction. Just like someone can be addicted to alcohol and drugs because they fulfill a need, the video game may fulfill a need in the individual. A person may be addicted to being able to live a certain life through the game. Some people are addicted to substances and shopping, I don’t see why video games could be any different.
Debates On The Classification
A meta-analytic review of pathological gaming studies concluded that about 3% of gamers may experience some symptoms of pathological gaming. The report noted problems in the field with defining and measuring pathological gaming and concluded that pathological gaming behaviors were more likely the product of underlying mental health problems rather than the inverse.
Barnett and Coulson expressed concern that much of the debate on the issue of addiction may be a knee jerk response stimulated by poor understanding of games and game players. Such issues may lead both society and scholars to exaggerate the prevalence and nature of problematic gaming, and over-focus on games specifically, while ignoring underlying mental health issues.
Other scholars have cautioned that comparing the symptoms of problematic gaming with problematic gambling is flawed, and that such comparisons may introduce research artifacts and artificially inflate prevalence estimates. For instance, Richard Wood has observed that behaviors which are problematic in regards to gambling may not be as problematic when put into the context of other behaviors that are rewarding such as gaming. Similarly, Barnett and Coulson have cautioned that discussions of problematic gaming have moved forward prematurely without proper understanding of the symptoms, proper assessment and consequences.
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Modern Video Games Are Enormous And Dense
Today’s technology enables video games on a scale that we couldn’t have imagined 20 years ago. From open-world games with hundreds of square miles to explore to RPGs that can take hundreds of hours to beat, there’s a staggering amount of content in modern games.
Most early video games had a set ending. Once you saved the princess in Super Mario Bros., you’d seen pretty much everything the game had to offer. Some games had a “hard mode” with a few variations, but it was simply a loop of what you’d already experienced.
Nowadays, series like Fallout, Just Cause, Far Cry, and Grand Theft Auto have densely packed maps with tons of missions to take on. Games like Civilization, FTL, and Spelunky have near-infinite replay value thanks to their randomized scenarios every time you play. And we’ve already discussed massive multiplayer games like League of Legends, Fornite, and Overwatch that receive regular updates and have millions of active players.
It’s easier to get addicted to games when there’s a seemingly endless amount of content to enjoy. Games of the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 eras didn’t offer such vast experiences, which lessened their potential to addict gamers.
The takeaway: Today’s mega-games have more potential to addict because of their sheer wealth of content. Players who want to experience everything a game has to offer are in for a long haul.
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.
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Similarity To Other Addictions
Video game addictions are similar to other addictions in terms of the amount of time spent playing, the strong emotional attachment to the activity, and the patterns of social difficulties experienced by gaming addicts.
As with other addictions, gaming addicts become preoccupied with game-playing, and it disrupts family and other areas of life, such as school.
The younger that children begin playing video games, the more likely they are to develop dependence-like behaviors.
As with other addictive behaviors, there is a range of different responses to the activity. While some gamers feel unable to reduce the time they spend playing, others do not experience cravings if they are unable to play.
Changing The Rate Of Reinforcement
Reinforcement in video games is usually fast and frequent when you start playing.
You levelled up! here is a reward!
Receiving a reward every time you level up is known as a fixed reinforcement ratio of one.
This is manipulated a huge number of ways to keep you playing, such as:
- Extending the time it takes to level up, therefore, increasing play time for the same reward.
- Changing the reward rate from fixed to variable this means you no longer get a reward every time you level up, or win a game, but at random intervals.
Studies 3have shown that using variable reinforcement is by far the most effective .
Unsurprisingly, it is also the one most commonly used in video games.
However, this isnt to say that variable reinforcement is the only method used in how video games are designed to be addictive.
A number of developers combine variable rewards with constant rewards, to keep you coming back for more.
For example, in World of Warcraft , you can always see your progress towards your next level. That way youre still being rewarded for your effort, although you havent achieved that next level yet.
Then, when you eventually level up youre given a new reward each time. This is usually a new skill improvement, items, or unlocked quest. Its this combination of the two systems that keeps you really hooked on playing every day.
Just watch this PhD Researcher from Epic Games describe how video games are designed to be addictive:
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Video Games Are More Addictive Than Ever This Is What Happens When Kids Cant Turn Them Off
It was nearing midnight when she slipped out of bed, padded across the wood floors and peered into the room across the hall. Her 15-year-old son was still awake, like she knew he would be, sitting in his bed, staring at his laptop screen. This had long been his nightly ritual: After hours spent playing video games riveted by a world of guns and gore, adrenaline pumping he would unwind by watching videos of other gamers playing.
Turn it off, she said.
I need to finish, he said.
No, she said.
Their voices got louder. She doesnt remember exactly what made him reach for the glass on his bedside table. He threw it with such force that it spun across the room and shattered against his closet door, carving a two-inch gash in the white painted wood. Tiny shards glinted on the striped rug.
By then, the familys stately home in New York was riddled with such scars nicks in the walls, scratches in the floor, a divot in the marble countertop lining the kitchen sink. All remnants of the boys outbursts, which had intensified over the years, almost always triggered by a simple request from his parents:
His parents knew it was their last option. If this new plan couldnt save their son, maybe nothing could.
I dont think we know exactly how many are suffering from this, but we know its a big problem, said psychologist Kimberly Young, founder of the Center for Internet Addiction. A modest estimate might be 5 percent. But 5 percent of American kids is a lot.
Talking To A Loved One About Video Game Addiction
Thankfully, video game addiction is easy to spot. Given that video games are not illegal, people are very open about their use of them. Checking for symptoms of video game addiction can help you or a loved one turn their life around. Signs of video game addiction include:
- Playing video games for more than three hours a day
- Prioritizing video games over other commitments
- Forgoing sleep to play video games
- Being unable to talk to a friend or family member without video games
- Spending more money in games despite financial hardship
- Falling into trouble at work or with a partner due to playing video games
If this describes you or a loved one, consider talking to someone about it. While a person cant die as a direct result of a video game addiction, they can permanently damage their social life, finances, and their relationship.
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