Opposable Thumbs / Gaming & Entertainment

Pathological gaming: address the child, not just the games

A new study by the director of research of the National Institute for Media …

It's easy to say someone is "addicted" to playing video games, but before behavior can be termed pathological, it has to "damage multiple levels of functioning." Rushing home to play Killzone 2 isn't a sign of addiction, but a decrease in school performance or greater friction among friends and family is an indicator. A new study by Douglas A. Gentile, director of research for the Minneapolis-based National Institute on Media and the Family, shows that one in ten children show signs of pathological behavior when it comes to gameplay, although the cause and effects may not be as cut and dry as they seem.

The study used the criteria for pathological gambling to try to identify children who were displaying signs of addictive behavior. "Using this clinical approach to defining pathological video gaming appears appropriate... as it provides a somewhat clean distinction between being highly engaged in a behavior and doing it in such a way as to incur damage to several areas of one's life," Gentile wrote. Gambling was used as the basis of the questions for several reasons: addiction to both is taken to be a behavioral problem, both are "games," both can create a state of "flow" in the participant, and both are emotionally engaging.

The study involved a survey of nearly 1,200 youth, ages 8 through 18. If a respondent answered "yes" to six of the 11 criteria, they were considered pathological. The questions asked about the need to play more to get the same positive feelings, irritability when play time was cut down, and lying to family and friends about the time spent playing games. More boys than girls answered "yes" to the symptoms, and the good news is that almost no children have resorted to stealing games when cut off from their supply.

If 1 in 10 of the respondents showed pathological behavior, what does that mean? Those gamers had more trouble in school, played longer than the other children, were more likely to have gaming systems in their rooms, and were also more likely to be diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. The problem, and this is a frustrating one for both parents and researchers, is that it's hard to tell whether they're looking at a cause or effect when conducting a study such as this.

"The primary limitation of this study is its correlational nature. It does not provide evidence for the possible causal relations among the variables studied," Gentile explained. "It is certainly possible that pathological gaming causes poor school performance, and so forth, but it is equally likely that children who have trouble at school seek to play games to experience feelings of mastery, or that attention problems cause both poor school performance and an attraction to games." It is also concerning to note that gamers who were found to be pathological by the study were around 12 percent more likely to have been in a physical altercation in the past year.

The study goes to great pains to point out there is no agreed upon definition for pathological gaming, but the results suggest that games should be considered as part of a bigger picture. The best advice to parents is simply to monitor the amount of time their children spend gaming, and to keep an eye on their school work and social activity. While gaming may not cause ADD, fighting, or depression, and these behaviors may not directly lead to more gaming, it's clear that it all can work together to hurt a child's social and school life. Address the child, not just the symptoms, for best results.

Psychological Science, 2009.  DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02340.x

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