John He

Professor Creaney

English 21002

12 May 2020

Research Paper: Video Game Addiction

As the gaming industry continues to grow each year, more and more people turn towards video games as an attractive source of entertainment. The advancement of technology makes gaming popular to many individuals, with research from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) showing that 9 out of 10 teens play video games and 65% of adults play video games in the United States. In most cases, gaming may be seen as a form of leisure activity, where only a couple of hours are put into it each day. However, it becomes an issue when it causes “gaming disorder”, defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences”. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to gather information and gain insight on causes and effects of video game addiction with the ultimate aim of finding solutions that are effective and plausible to its prevention or reduction.

Video game addiction has always been a hot topic for research as many try to tackle the issue. While doing my research, I came upon a topic that has not crossed my mind; video games are designed to be addicting. An article from the Washington Post  mentions that “These games are deliberately designed, with the help of psychology consultants, to make players want to keep playing, and they are available on every platform – gaming consoles, computers, smartphones”. This provides insight on a core part of the issue which stems from the game developers. Video game developers design games in a way that is supposed to be attractive to consumers because the goal of the company is to make money. As an inevitable result, consumers who are victim to video game addiction cannot help but to spend their time gaming. In addition, studies from the article “Are Video Games Designed to Be Addictive” by James Good mentions that “… you could control behavior through the use of a stimulus and a reward”. With this in mind, companies develop their games to trigger certain responses from the brain in order to ensure that individuals are consistently playing their games. To support this, Good highlights their multitude of strategies and tactics to get you to play their games and to spend money. 

Aside from the causes of excessive gaming, the issue holds many adverse effects. Some of the commonly known issues are related to physical health when it comes to unrestricted playtime. According to the article “ Gaming Disorder and Effects of Gaming on Health: An Overview” written by Israel Oluwasegun Atenigbara, a researcher who specializes in the field, there are a plethora of physical health symptoms related to video game addiction. Generally, immoderate usage of video games is deleterious because sitting in front of a screen for hours at a time causes physical strains as well as obesity. Because playing video games is not a form of physical exercise (in most cases), research has shown information supporting the rise in bmi of people who spend many hours on video games compared to those who have moderate or no hours spent playing. Furthermore, gaming addiction is also involved in many risks in mental health. Many of life’s responsibilities are neglected when one is consumed by video games. “By spending a predominant part of the day gaming, excessive video gamers are at risk of showing lower educational and career attainment, problems with peers, and lower social skills”, according to an article from Frontiers in Psychology. This provides insight on some of the mental health risks that arise from gaming too much. While this states that these issues are the results of excessive gaming, I believe that the opposite is also true, where people engage in excessive gaming in order to avoid life issues and reality. Although this may provide short term stress relief, it is also important to tackle real life issues head on instead of running away because video games do not solve the issue. 

As there are cons with excessive gaming, there are also pros that result from gaming. While I make the claim that video gaming addiction is bad, the topic is controversial, as engaging in gaming at a moderate level is not dangerous, but can in fact positively influence an individual. An article from the ESA reveals “Several medical studies have shown that regular playtime can substantially improve both physical and mental well being”. This directly opposes the aforementioned points that mentioned the physical and health risks involved in gaming. From here, you may ask why there is such a controversy on the topic? The answer is simple – there is no “real” controversy. While there are controversial pros and cons on the subject, we draw the line at the amount of playtime invested. In the end, when a certain threshold of time spent on video games is exceeded, the pros start to convert into cons. How the threshold is defined is still unclear as there are many questions that need to be answered. For instance, what is the difference between someone who is addicted to gaming and someone who is not addicted but spends a lot of time gaming because they simply enjoy it? This is hard to answer but, a commonality is that they both involve the person spending a lot of time playing video games. From this, we can move on in search of solutions to the issues caused from excessive gaming. 

Since the topic has already been studied variously by many others, there are many solutions proposed. Because the root cause of gaming addiction is from games being developed that way, the most simple solution is to avoid gaming in general to prevent it from happening in the first place because there is always a risk of addiction. At the same time, studies have shown that gaming with self-restraint provides multiple benefits so cutting out gaming entirely may not be the best solution. The WebMD corporation suggests that a person who is a victim of gaming addiction can get help from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). According to them, CBT “teaches you how to replace thoughts about gaming to help change behavior”. I can agree with this method because as stated earlier, video games are designed to manipulate the brain in a way that causes addiction and if therapy can help to reverse engineer the thought process that causes addiction, then it may be effective. An idea for a solution that I think might work if it is an adolescent or teen that is addicted is for a parent to stimulate the brain’s reward system by rewarding their child for doing things other than gaming. This would hopefully turn the child’s attention elsewhere. All in all, there are probably many resources and solutions that exist that can help treat the disorder. 

In conclusion, it is clear that gaming is an activity that needs to be managed carefully. Results from this research show the detrimental effects of video game addiction on many aspects of an individual’s health, causing physical and mental problems as well as impairment of daily functioning. On the other hand, when gaming is played in moderation, it is a practical source of stress relief, entertainment, and can even enhance several sectors of cognitive acuity. To summarize the aforementioned points, players should be aware of the dangers that gaming may foster, and take steps that prevent and limit the dangers. 

Works Cited

Ayenigbara, Israel Oluwasegun. “Gaming Disorder and Effects of Gaming on Health: An Overview.” Journal of Addiction Medicine and Therapeutic Science, 10 Oct. 2017, www.peertechz.com/articles/doi10.17352-2455-3484.000025-jamts.php.

“Gaming Disorder.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, www.who.int/features/qa/gaming-disorder/en/.

Good, James. “Are Video Games Designed to Be Addictive?” Game Quitters, 18 Feb. 2020, gamequitters.com/are-video-games-addictive/#punishment-for-not-playing.

Nordby, Kent, et al. “Playing a Video Game Is More than Mere Procrastination.” BMC Psychology, BioMed Central, 13 June 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6567407/.

Ratini, Melinda. “Video Game Addiction: Symptoms, Treatment, and Prevention.” WebMD, WebMD, 19 Mar. 2019, www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/video-game-addiction#1.

“Video Games Are More Addictive than Ever. This Is What Happens When Kids Can’t Turn Them off.” The Washington Post, WP Company, www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2016/12/07/video-games-are-more-addictive-than-ever-this-is-what-happens-when-kids-cant-turn-them-off/?utm_term=.8f4bc87c4ecb.

von der Heiden, Juliane M, et al. “The Association Between Video Gaming and Psychological Functioning.” Frontiers in Psychology, Frontiers Media S.A., 26 July 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6676913/.

“We Are The Video Game Industry.” Entertainment Software Association, 1 Jan. 1970, www.theesa.com/.