Tag: video games

Addictive behavior

Image adapted from JTR on Wikipedia Commons

In talking about video game addiction it was suggested that I also look at the parallels with other types of addictive behavior. Mrs. P. sent me a list of links that I’ve been carefully going through. What’s important here is that, no matter what the subject, be it video games, psychoactive substances or even food, many of the symptoms of addiction are the same. Ruth Eng (2003) from the Applied Health Science department at Indiana University has a nice website about addictive behavior. She points out some common characteristics:

  1. The person becomes obsessed (constantly thinks of) the object, activity, or substance.
  2. They will seek it out, or engage in the behaivor even though it is causing harm (physical problems, poor work or study performance, problems with friends, family, fellow workers).
  3. The person will compulsively engage in the activity, that is, do the activity over and over even if he/she does not want to and find it difficult to stop.
  4. Upon cessation of the activity, withdrawal symptoms often occur. These can include irritability, craving, restlessness or depression.
  5. The person does not appear to have control as to when, how long, or how much he or she will continue the behavior (loss of control). (They drink 6 beers when they only wanted one, buy 8 pairs of shoes when they only needed a belt, ate the whole box of cookies, etc).
  6. He/she often denies problems resulting from his/her engagement in the behavior, even though others can see the negative effects.
  7. Person hides the behavior after family or close friends have mentioned their concern. (hides food under beds, alcohol bottles in closets, doesn’t show spouse credit card bills, etc).
  8. Many individuals with addictive behaviors report a blackout for the time they were engaging in the behavior (don’t remember how much or what they bought, how much the lost gambling, how many miles they ran on a sore foot, what they did at the party when drinking)
  9. Depression is common in individuals with addictive behaviors. That is why it is important to make an appointment with a physician to find out what is going on.
  10. Individuals with addictive behaviors often have low self esteem, feel anxious if the do not have control over their environment, and come from psychologically or physically abusive families.

For additional reference, the American Council for Drug Education has a good list of symptoms of substance abuse for a number of psychoactive drugs, while psychcentral.com has a much simpler list titled “Symptoms of Substance Abuse“. WebMD has a similar site that addresses food addiction.

War games and aggression

In terms of general use, girls utilized computers to connect with others, and boys used computers to compete with others. – Christie (2005)

There are clear gender differences in the way adolescents use computers and play computer/console games. Boys tend toward the violent, competitive games. This is not just my own experience as the above quote from a large study of middle schoolers in South Carolina shows.

Furthermore, and more worrisome, the violence in the games may spill over into real life. In 2004, Gentile et al. found that:

Adolescents who expose themselves to greater amounts of video game violence were more hostile, reported getting into arguments with teachers more frequently, were more likely to be involved in physical fights, and performed more poorly in school. –

They reference a 2001 study by Anderson and Bushman that integrated a lot of the previous work and showed that:

… across 54 independent tests of the relation between video game violence and aggression, involving 4262 participants, there appear to be five consistent results of playing games with violent content. Playing violent games increases aggressive behaviors, increases aggressive cognitions, increases aggressive emotions, increases physiological arousal, and decreases prosocial behaviors. These effects are robust; they have been found in children and adults, in males and females, and in experimental and non- experimental studies

In graphical form it looks like this:

How video games lead to violence
How video games lead to aggression. (From Anderson and Bushman, 2001)

I can’t say I’ve observed this myself, but it is certainly cause for concern. In fact, a later study by the same authors and Nicholas Carnagey (Carnagey et al., 2007) found that people who played violent video games were actually physically desensitized to violence (though the method used in this study is not nearly as convincing as the previous work).

Finally, the degree you can personalize characters in video games is improving rapidly. Some very recent research from Fischer et al. (2010) found that:

playing a violent video game with a personalized game character … increased aggressive responses.

I have to say that I find the evidence from this albeit quick survey of the science to be both disturbing and damning. Of course these scientific studies are statistical averages, and each individual is different and is affected by a larger environment than is just in the violent video games. Indeed, I have played these games myself, I know intensive gamers, and have students who regularly play these games and can’t say that I’ve observed much correlation with the games and aggressive behavior. But then again it is sometimes hard to see the forest from beneath the trees.

I guess I’m going to have to be more strict about violent video games. We don’t allow them in the classroom (in general), but I think I’m going to have to stress the issue a bit more when I talk to students and their parents. Of particular concern is when violent games overlap with video game addiction. As with everything in life, moderation is important, and in a time when students are going through large changes and discovering themselves it is essential to help them with self-regulation.

Video Game Addiction

Boys tent to have more problems with games (From Hauge, Marney R., Gentile, Douglas A., (2003, April)).

While the American Psychiatric Association does not yet include it as a diagnosis (as of 2009) video game and internet addictions are problems I’ve seen first hand, and, given my own plugged-in-idess, are topics I personally think about when I reflect on my own computer use. The web is a powerful tool so it’s not so unusual that we’d spend a lot of time using it. There is a point however when it becomes compulsive and takes so much time that it becomes a detriment to our other work.

There are any number of website and online resources about the topic and even a few commercial sites that offer treatment. For anecdotal descriptions there is the Berkley Parents Network website. which has a few examples from parents dealing with the problem. The National Institute on Media and the Family has a good page describing video game addiction. For adolescents they describe the symptoms as;

  • Most of non-school hours are spent on the computer or playing video games.Falling asleep in school.
  • Not keeping up with assignments.
  • Worsening grades.
  • Not telling the truth about computer or video game use.
  • Choosing to use the computer or play video games, rather than see friends.
  • Dropping out of other social groups (clubs or sports).
  • Irritable when not playing a video game or on the computer.

Interestingly, this tends to be more of a problem for boys. And one solution recommended is wilderness therapy. I think that may be a bit extreme. Another suggestion was:

… the experts … said the best way to cure kids’ video game addiction is to set strict limits. They suggested not allowing kids to have computers, PlayStations, TVs, etc. in their bedrooms if monitoring their behavior is a problem.

The Montessori classroom is a closely knit community and, especially in a small classroom, falling asleep in class and being irritable (especially more so than normal teens) can be very disruptive to the entire class. It is, therefore, essential that the problem be addressed as soon and as quickly as possible.

C.O.D.: Call of “Duty”

The Call of Duty video games are pretty popular among the boys in my class (the gender stereotypes hold up very well with this one). Last week they tried to convince me that there was enough educational value in the games to allow them to bring it in for their overnight at school. They even created a PowerPoint presentation to convince me. Unfortunately, for them, it was not particularly effective. While there was a lot of information about the missions and the types of weapons there was not so much in the way of facts or concepts they learned (Subsequently, however, one student mentioned that he learned about favellas in the game. Though I don’t want to think about what they were doing in the flavellas).

I would really have liked to have had them talk about “Duty”, as in the title, and moral responsibility. I dropped a lot of hints but too no avail. They were not successful in their petition, but we did have a good discussion about the purpose of warfare (if any), and how to make a convincing presentation (consider your audience). I may let them try again next time.

As a side note, The Onion, has a great video on the next version of the game which will be even more realistic (you spend most of the time in the game sitting around and then you get shot in the back unexpectedly and the game is over.) The video may not be appropriate for middle schoolers however, because there is a scene where the soldiers are sitting around bored and talking about what soldiers often talk about.