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CONTENTS
The damage of video game addiction
How gaming addiction hurts gaming
The signs of video game addiction
The six signs of video game addiction
What causes video game addiction?
Addiction as a disease
The addictive personality
Video games
The decision to escape
Resolving video game addiction
Additional suggestions for loved ones
Additional suggestions for health professionals
What can video game developers do to limit video game addiction?
Introduction
It is likely that some degree of desperation has led you to read this book. You may have found yourself and others driven to distraction by someone else’s unstoppable commitment to their gaming device. Perhaps you yourself feel enslaved to digital gaming and are looking for some guidance out of an increasingly pixelated life. It is my hope and aim that your experience at the other side of this book is one of greater knowledge and confidence in overcoming either addicted or problematic video gaming.
For the loved ones and parents of addicted gamers, I would view this book as a window into the mind of the gamer: one through which you can begin to repair the broken connections within your household. For those of you who recognise that you play games to the detriment of your lives, I would see this book as a companion as you uncover and attend to the thoughts and desires buried beneath the gaming; this is an approach that aims to preserve and value your hobby, whilst preventing it from swallowing your world.
The threat that video gaming poses to our society has more to do with how frequently it occurs than how damaging it can be. With over 30 million people in the U.K. playing video games (Internet Advertising Bureau 2011) and, at a conservative estimate, 3 percent of those people playing to addictive levels (C. Ferguson 2011), the problem is considerably widespread. These somewhat restrained numbers would mean that around a million people in the U.K. alone are potentially playing in an unhealthy way.
The social problems associated with gaming have all come about in roughly the last 30 years and are evolving fast. While much of our healthcare system is beginning to come to terms with the prevalence of video game addiction, the gaming industry itself is morphing rapidly, offering new ways for people to become hooked. If you think that all addicted gamers are teenaged boys, then your perception is perhaps already dated.
To be addicted to gaming is to feel as if any time spent not gaming is somehow redundant. Conversely, all time spent gaming is either wildly exciting or, far more frequently, strangely empty. Life outside of playing recedes into being a background frustration – an obstacle to gaming – having to stop and eat is irritating, getting time off sick is a windfall and having your partner insist that you spend time with them does little other than irritate or enrage you.
The most painful casualties are nearly always the gamer’s immediate, personal relationships. Those who know and love someone who has become addicted will experience an alienation from the gamer; as the devices begin to dominate, the relationship becomes increasingly estranged. Usually someone in the household will try to intervene, attempting to control or limit the gaming. Parents and partners who have done so are often shocked, sometimes even frightened, by the explosive and even violent responses they are suddenly faced with; simply pulling the plug on a games console might send the gamer into an unrecognisable rage. As someone sinks deeper into gaming addiction they drift further and further from those that love them. As one addict described:
“Gaming became more important than my business succeeding. Gaming became more important than my children’s welfare. I had somehow got to the point of not wanting anything out of life other than to play that game. That’s the problem with being addicted to gaming... it becomes the most dominating thing in our lives while everything else falls apart around us.”
During seminars I have run with gamers, the most powerful indicator of there being a problem is the frequency with which they argue with their loved ones about how much they game. If they are unfortunate, they will be left: spouses will file for divorce, children will become estranged and parents will settle for their child being hidden away in their room for years on end.
The good news is that gaming addiction does not, it would seem, last. The evidence for this is, as we will discuss later, thin on the ground, but importantly, there is nothing to tell us that video gaming addiction is a life sentence. However, the nature of gaming is such that it is inherently an experience without intimacy. As a result, the risk for addicted gamers is a great loss of their close relationships before they are able to recover. When the controller is finally brought under control, who will be left?
This text provides a way of understanding the concepts of video game addiction, one which is heavily informed by my work as a psychotherapist as well as my own experiences of playing and designing video games. As a result, I write from a pro-game perspective; I do not want to write off the hobby as being fundamentally negative, but rather want to cherish what it has to offer and allow that to be enjoyed in a healthy way. I avoid describing games as inherently negative or pointless as I believe that this position alienates gamers who need help, forcing them to choose between their
