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The majority of young people play video games, with the likelihood of addiction also increasing, researchers warn

Around one in 10 children and teenagers in the United States who are avid video game players may be addicted to gaming, a recent research study reported.

Research was done by Iowa State University (ISU) researchers along with the National Institute on Media and the Family surveyed 1,179 U.S. kids and teenagers ranging in age from eight through 18 across the United States in 2007.  

Around 90 percent of all kids in the United States play video games.  Boys averaged 16.4 hours of gaming per week, while girls played 9.2 hours.

“Although the general public uses the word 'addiction,' clinicians often report it as pathological use,” according to ISU Assistant Professor of Psychology Douglas Gentile.  “This is the first study to tell us the national prevalence of pathological play among youth gamers, and it is almost 1 in 10.”

Surveyed gamers exhibited a number of symptoms listed by researchers, including such behavior as a decline in grades, increased inattention in the class room, and theft of money.  Researchers described pathological gamers as young people who played games as least 24 hours per week.

“While the medical community currently does not recognized video game addiction as a mental disorder, hopefully this study will be one of many that allow us to have an educated conversation on the positive and negative effects of video games,” Gentile added.

The actual number of participants who showed numerous symptoms was small – boys normally showed two symptoms, while most of the girls showed less than two.  However, boys were likely more to exhibit six or more of the symptoms – with 12 percent of the male participants showing six or more – while only three percent of girls had six or more.

The findings will be published in the May edition of the journal Psychological Science.

Researchers have grown increasingly concerned over possible links between young gamers and game addiction or violent tendencies.  China recently made Internet addiction an official disorder, while other researchers are still not sure what to make of internet and video game addiction.

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Symptoms?
By Savatar on 4/21/2009 9:49:44 AM , Rating: 1
Does anyone know where we can we find a list of the symptoms that they describe as components of 'video game addiction' in the article?




RE: Symptoms?
By omnicronx on 4/21/2009 9:56:22 AM , Rating: 1
Its called being high!

You get an endorphin rush from playing video games.

Best way to stop this addiction? Keep your kids active!
Who would have thought letting your kids do anything (let alone playing video games) 24/7 could lead to addiction??


RE: Symptoms?
By Savatar on 4/21/2009 9:58:21 AM , Rating: 2
..the article implied there were several symptoms, though. I'd be very surprised if all of them were related to 'being high'.

"12 percent of the male participants showing six or more – while only three percent of girls had six or more."

So we know there's more than six symptoms. I just haven't been able to find what they are.


RE: Symptoms?
By rdeegvainl on 4/21/2009 10:28:01 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
The survey included several scales, including the previously mentioned 11-item pathological-gaming scale based on the DSM–IV criteria for pathological gambling.

http://www.drdouglas.org/drdpdfs/Gentile_Pathologi...

So where as I stated in a below post, they used "Lying to family and friends about X" it would certainly be valid when X is about adults and gambling, but not so much with children and playing games.


RE: Symptoms?
By bighairycamel on 4/21/2009 3:45:02 PM , Rating: 2
I have to disagree with that notion. Assuming video game addiction is real, I can see pathologists asking questions like "Have you ever lied about finishing your homework or doing chores to play video games?" If video game addiction is real, I could see the kids characteristically lieing like that.


RE: Symptoms?
By rdeegvainl on 4/21/2009 7:27:23 PM , Rating: 2
i have to disagree with the logic behind your disagreement. first you are assuming that what they are trying to push is real, and that secondly children wouldn't lie about games and homework if they weren't addicted. Even if game addiction is real, you can't use a common behavior in children as a metric to diagnose.


RE: Symptoms?
By nvalhalla on 4/21/2009 10:41:39 PM , Rating: 2
I agree. I would lie to my parents when I was a kid so that I could go play at a friends house, or just because I didn't feel like doing the homework. It wasn't a symptom of addiction, just something kids do.


RE: Symptoms?
By bighairycamel on 4/22/2009 10:57:13 AM , Rating: 2
First, I was only giving the "addiction" the benefit of the doubt for the sake of the argument. You should have picked up on that when I italicized the word if later in the post.

Second, you're forgetting one important piece. The researchers were saying that some of the children that were showing signs of addiction were exhibiting 6 or more markers. Sure, lying about homework and chores is common for children, but if they are doing this PLUS 5 other things just to get some play time in, then the argument becomes stronger.

I am agreeing that lying is not a sole indicator of addiction, but like I said, if (did you pick that word up this time) video game addiction is real, lying could easily be just one of many characteristic habits.


RE: Symptoms?
By rdeegvainl on 4/22/2009 3:39:58 PM , Rating: 2
did you even look at the other markers?


RE: Symptoms?
By bighairycamel on 4/22/2009 5:10:14 PM , Rating: 2
I don't care about the other markers, I was only defending the one. I am only trying to say that in my unprofessional opinion, lying would be a legitimate marker (though not by itself) if a child is indeed addicted to video games.


RE: Symptoms?
By omnicronx on 4/21/2009 10:46:16 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
..the article implied there were several symptoms, though. I'd be very surprised if all of them were related to 'being high'.
He compared the 11 symptoms of a pathological gambler, but related them to video games.

Amazingly you can also match many of these symptoms with that of a drug user (half of which would be during the withdrawal phase).

Personally I find these studies to be quite useless, as there are so many external variables that they do not take into account. (such as kids with ADD and ADHD are going to exhibit much of this behavior regardless)

If you want to read the real study (DT did not really make it clear that those with 6 or more 'syptoms' are 'addicted to video games' according to the study)

http://www.drdouglas.org/page_resources_articles_2...


RE: Symptoms?
By omnicronx on 4/21/2009 10:53:40 AM , Rating: 4
quote:
The tests of divergent validity showed that, as predicted, pathological use of video games was not systematically related to age, frequency of using the Internet to do homework, having a TV in the bedroom, or type of school attended.
I also like this quote from the study, that all news sources seemed to have left out..
and..
quote:
The amount of time spent playing is not a criterion for pathological video-game use, just as how much one drinks is not a criterion for alcohol dependence.

Kind of like how drinking more does not make you more likely to be an alcoholic.
quote:
However, because the amount of time spent playing video games is a consistent negative predictor of school performance (Anderson et al., 2007; Gentile et al., 2004), and because pathological gamers spend twice as much time playing games each week as nonpathological gamers do (Table 3), it would be stronger evidence for pathological gaming if the classification were a significant predictor of school performance after controlling for amount of time playing video games.
hmm.. once again, does this sound familiar?

This study is inconclusive at best.. and I can see why pretty much every article on the subject left these parts out, wouldn't want to contradict the title of their stories...


RE: Symptoms?
By clovell on 4/21/2009 11:04:05 AM , Rating: 3
So very true. The study seems to have a keen awareness of its own limitations. Ironic how, in attemtping to raise awareness and provoke an intelligent discussion on a subject that is as serious as any other addiction, and may exonerate the gaming community of much of its ill repute, the 'intelligence' is diluted in the media (though, for the record, I think Michael did a decent job for the word count).

Doubly ironic is that some folks will read through all the hype, find the source material, and have an intelligent discussion about it.


RE: Symptoms?
By Phlargo on 4/21/2009 11:34:30 AM , Rating: 2
Even more clever: some people will discuss the irony of having an intelligent conversation about reading through the hype and source material. ;)


RE: Symptoms?
By rdeegvainl on 4/21/2009 10:08:31 AM , Rating: 2
http://www.drdouglas.org/page_resources_articles_2...

They used such metrics as
• Lying to family and friends about video game usage
• Using video games to escape from problems or bad feelings
• Becoming restless or irritable when attempting to stop playing video games
• Skipping homework in order to play video games
• Doing poorly on a school assignment or test because they spent too much time on games.

You know, normal kid stuff.


RE: Symptoms?
By murphyslabrat on 4/21/2009 12:08:31 PM , Rating: 5
Obviously, this is a severe problem. Think of all the things these kids could be doing instead: Lying to parents about drug usage, using television to escape from bad feelings, skipping homework to go to the mall, or doing poorly on a test because they didn't feel like doing it.


RE: Symptoms?
By Major HooHaa on 4/21/2009 2:37:41 PM , Rating: 2
Lol! I have been gaming for years (my introduction to gaming was with the Atari VCS\2600 console and my own first computer was a Commodore 64) and it has never made me want to steal money!

Note to self... Play more Grand Theft Auto to test this theory.


This just in
By Kefner on 4/21/2009 11:01:49 AM , Rating: 5
100% of the World is addicted to breathing air. Breathing air is a well known gateway addiction, and can led to addictions of eating food, drinking fluids, and sleeping 7 to 8 hours a day. We must pull all our resources to fight these deadly addictions!




RE: This just in
By murphyslabrat on 4/21/2009 12:10:11 PM , Rating: 3
I know I lie to my folks about my oxygen usage. I would feel horrible if they found out how little I actually inhale. They'd call me names, like "lazy" or "time-waster."


RE: This just in
By borowki2 on 4/22/2009 8:47:02 PM , Rating: 2
Another study shows that 9 in 10 adults are addicted to alarmism.

...and a preliminary survey shows that fully 100% of DT writers are addicted to sensationalism.


By Boze on 4/21/2009 1:32:14 PM , Rating: 5
Almost everyone I know is "addicted" to something. People like to use the word "addicted" when someone spends their time pursuing something they enjoy.

We never say the neurological researcher who's working 80 hours a week to discover and develop cures for mental illnesses is "addicted" to research. But what else would you call it? Most of us have heard about it, if not know ourselves, someone who puts one thing above all others and the rest of their life suffers for it.

Strangely, for people who spend inordinate amounts of time pursuing religion, we don't claim that they are "addicted" to religion; we don't send them to a religious help program. We call those people zealots, don't we?

What was it 30 years ago? Weren't "young people" "addicted" to television? Or was that just mostly everyone in America? :)




Why Video Games?
By DarthKaos on 4/22/2009 11:51:31 AM , Rating: 2
How many hours per week does a person need to listen to music to be addicted to music? How many hours per week does a person need to watch TV to be addicted to TV? How many hours per week does a person need to read to be addicted to reading?

Anyone who overdose any form of media entertainment will show signs of decreased grades and a lack of attention in school. They will be too busy thinking about the music, TV, or books they have been experiencing.

According to http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051227/n... in the United States people spend and average of 19 hours per week watching TV. If that is the average, I bet more than 1 and 10 are watching at least 24 hours per week.

My point is Video Games are this generations Rock N' Roll. There always needs to be a reason that kids are acting out or doing things wrong. Parents don't like to look in the mirror and say "maybe I am not doing my job" so they blame the things they don't understand. 10 years from now most parents of kids and teenagers will have grown up with video games and this won't even be worth talking about anymore.




Doogh!
By unclesharkey on 4/24/2009 10:22:58 PM , Rating: 2
One in ten idiots are addicted to posting on DailyTech.

;-P




By frozentundra123456 on 4/25/2009 2:32:22 AM , Rating: 2
Why do video games always seem to get the bad rap?? I agree that too much of anything is not good. Up to a point, games help kids learn reading skills, co-ordination, etc., but after a point they detract from learing and become a problem. I don't know whether defining addiction is useful, but if video games are interfering with school and social interaction, they are a problem.
However, what about kids that play 2 or 3 different sports up to 20 or 30 or 40 hours per week? Are they addicted?? How about someone that spends similar amounts of time on YouTube or Twitter or Facebook-- are they addicted??
How about someone that reads books similar amounts of time, are they addicted??
I am just saying, anything which takes over one's life to the exclusion of other things is harmful, and there are many other things besides video games that can do this.




Yeah, Yeah, Yeah . . .
By blueboy09 on 4/26/2009 2:55:53 AM , Rating: 2
But watching television doesn't seem to affect any of us does it? I mean come on!! Another thing for those scientists and so-called experts to sink their teeth into. Just give me a decent first-person shooter and you'll see the time melt away in a hurry. :) - BLUEBOY




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