121 days

         121 days, 18 hours. That's the total amount of time my husband had played his level 70 character in World of Warcraft between November of 2004 and November of 2007. That averages out to about 9 hours a day, not including time spent maintaining his Guild's web site, monitoring Guild chat, and playing his "alt" character, which had 22 days played. In the words of one former player "If you think you don't know anyone who plays World of Warcraft, the odds are greatly in favor of you being wrong." (SS, 2007). World of Warcraft is one of the top 5 MMORPG's - Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games - a type of online game that has 36 million active players when all the games are combined (mmocrunch, 2007). The large numbers of people playing these games combined with the large time investment needed to play them - the average WOW player plays 1023 minutes a week (Nielsen, 2007) -- sparked a growing debate: Is it possible to be addicted to a video game?

        The term "gamer" is used in recent years as a colloquialism to identify people who spend most of their free time playing or reading about video games (Wikipedia, 2008). The average gamer is 33 according to the Entertainment Software Association. Some other interesting things about gamers: sixty-seven percent of American heads of households play videogames, while thirty-five percent of gamers are under 18. Most frequent or heavy use of video games is defined as two or more hours a day and according to the ESA Fifty-one percent of most frequent game players say they play games online. Thirteen percent of gamers play MMORPG's (ESA, 2007). There are more interesting numbers: eighty-one percent of American youth play video games at least once a month, including ninety four percent of all boys (Harris Interactive, 2007). The fastest growing group of gamers is males age fifteen to twenty-five (American Medical Association, 2007) this is college students and colleges and universities around the country have started to notice a problem.

        A 2007 worldwide Harris Interactive poll suggests that gaming addiction is real and on the rise. Its findings suggest that nationally 8.5 percent of gamers between eight and eighteen can be classified as pathologically or clinically "addicted". They surveyed 1,178 U.S. children and based their definition of addiction on how pathological gambling is diagnosed in the DSM-IV-- not merely on playing a lot-- and found that youth gamers showed symptoms of damage to school, family and psychological functioning (Harris Interactive, 2007). According to a 2007 report by the American Medical Association, "Although video game overuse can be associated with any type of video game, it is most commonly seen among MMORPG players," (American Medical Association, 2007). The report goes on to suggest that MMORPG's are particularly addicting because they involve real time interactions. They are at once highly competitive and highly social, and that players can achieve more control and success in their virtual social lives than in their real lives. (AMA, 2007).

        When time spent on a game or in a virtual world reaches a point where it disrupts life in the real world, harming family and social relationships and disrupting school or work life "that person may be caught in a cycle of addiction. Like other addictions, the computer or video game has replaced friends and family as the source of a person's emotional life." (National Institute on Media and the Family, 05).

Some symptoms of addiction in children include:



       

•Most of their non-school hours are spent on the computer or playing video games.

       

•They're falling asleep in school because they've stayed up late playing video games.

       

•They're not keeping up with assignments because they're involved with in-game activities.

       

•Their grades have dropped significantly

       

•They're lying about computer or video game use.

       

•They choose to use the computer or play video games rather than see friends, have friends over.

       

•They drop out of sports teams, choir, theater, etc.

       

•They are irritable, sometimes extremely so, when not playing the computer or video games. (Media and the Family, 05)

         

College students tend to be at particular risk because of free internet access and lack of parental controls. For college students whose lives seem out of control playing provides an alternate reality where success is possible and problems are easily solved. Gaming provides a sense of control in stressful situations and an escape from responsibility and reality (Kem, 2005). An article in the Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources identifies the following as characteristics of gaming addiction, and points out that they are basic to all addictions as well as progressive and cyclic. Lee Kem, the author of the article, says that the "two major indicators of Gamer Addiction are withdrawal and isolation. Individuals are often depressed, lonely, angry, shy,  afraid to go out, in a high family conflict situation, and have low self-esteem." (Kem, 2005).

                                                                           

Symptoms for problem use for adults are similar to those for college students:



       

•Computer or video game use is characterized by intense feelings of pleasure and guilt

       

•Obsessing and pre-occupied about being on the computer, even when not connected.

       

•Hours playing video games or on the computer increasing, seriously disrupting family, social or even work life.

       

•Lying about computer or video game use.

       

•Experiencing feelings of withdrawal, anger, or depression when not on the computer or involved with their video game.

       

•Adults may incur large credit card bills for on-line services or computer purchases.

       

•Can't control computer use and continue to game despite consequences.

       

•Online fantasy life replaces emotional/sexual life with partner.

(Media andthe Family, 2005) (Young, 06).





                    There are even physical symptoms associated with gaming addiction, including:

        •Carpal tunnel syndrome

        •Sleep disturbances

        •Back and neck aches

        •Headaches

        •Failure to eat regularly and/or a neglect of personal hygiene

        •Dry eyes

        A lot of people play these games, and a lot of those people are hooked on them. If you know what to look for you can spot those with a problem at almost any age level. Why do they become addicted? According to Dr. Kimberly Young, of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery and Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack, Coordinator of Computer Addiction Services and a member of the Harvard Medical school faculty, variable ratio reinforcement has a lot to do with how players are drawn in. This is also how slot machines work. When a player logs in, they never know what exactly will happen, who they will meet, what quest they will go on, what gear they will earn, etc., so they just keep playing to see what will happen next. Dr. Orzack points out that "many online games are meant to keep people there" (Orzack, 06), and World of Warcraft's lead designer Rob Pardo describes it as "'easy to play, difficult to master'" (Levy, 07) which I think is a euphemism for the game is endless. Dr. Orzack and Dr. Young both describe patients with underlying disorders including depression, anxiety, ADHD and substance abuse as well as computer addiction (Orzack, 06) (Young, 06) so maybe it as question of co-morbidity in some if not all gaming addicts. SS, the mostly anonymous author of an online essay on World of Warcraft describes it like this: "the game offers something larger, something that cannot be gained by smoking a bowl, drinking a six pack, or zoning out to the tube for endless hour of dull commercialism. Escape is not enough by far to explain the motivation for giving up life in favor of a virtual world, for declining to desire anything that could be defined as material, tangible, or real in any way. What it comes down to, I think, is control." (SS, 2007)

          In this country gaming is a bit of a silent problem. Gamers can hide in their rooms for hours and days and except for maybe the red eyes from lack of sleep no one notices what's going on right away. It's not until a job is lost, a team is quit, a class is failed or a marriage is in trouble, that anyone starts to take notice. Around the world, the Chinese government has instituted time limits due to deaths linked to online game playing (Fehrenbacher, 2005) (BBC, 2005). In Korea, probably the most wired country in the world, the first state sponsored center for gaming addiction opened in 2002 following the death of a 24 year old who died from exhaustion after playing a game for 86 hours straight ( Gluck, 2002).

        Stopping a game addiction before it starts is probably the easiest solution/treatment of all.

It is important for parents to be aware that this issue exists, and to hopefully stop it before it starts. Many of the MMORPG's for the computer come with parental controls, but most are little used. Xbox 360 and the Playstation3, both of which have online capabilities, also have time limit features. According to the National Institute on Media and the Family parents need to:

       

•Beclear about the rules for when and how much time kids spend playingthe computer and video games.

       

•Let your kids know ahead of time what the consequences for not following the rules are. Limiting or eliminating future game play can be effective.

       

•Don't be afraid to unplug the computer, delete the game, and put the PS3 or XBox in the closet if it's a constant battle or if the player's protests are disrespectful (Media and family).

                 

Treatment is difficult. The Harris Interactive people used the pathological gambling criteria to define addiction in their poll, but both Drs. Orzack and Young prefer a comparison to eating disorders. In addictions like alcohol and drugs, as well as gambling, total abstinence is the goal. People need the computer for school and for work, so teaching people how to normalize their behavior toward the computer is a goal of treatment (Orzack, 97). Dr. Young suggests that addicted players need to examine "the emotional motives that prompt them to play a game excessively and look for alternate ways to satisfy those needs" (Young, 06). Both use Cognitive-behavioral therapy extensively in their practices and Dr. Orzack also uses a method called Motivational Interviewing, which focuses on alternatives (Orzack, 06). Every professional I read stated that this is a long process, and that it is important to get to the underlying issues, not just focus on the gaming.



         









References



        American Medical Association. (2007). Featured report: Emotional and behavioral effects of video games and internet overuse. Council on Science and Public Health Report 12. Presented at 2007 AMA annual meeting. Retrieved from http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/17694.html February 18, 2008.

        BBC News. (2005). China imposes online gaming curbs. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4183340.stm February 18, 2008.

        Entertainment Software Association. (2007) Sales, demographic and usage data. Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry. Retrieved from http://www.theesa.com/archives/files/ESA-EF%202007.pdf February 17, 2007.

        Fehrenbacher, K. (2005). Gaming death and nbsp stirs debate. Red Herring. Retrieved from http://www.redherring.com/Home/14613 on February 19, 2008.

        Gluck, C. (2002). South Korea's gaming addicts. BBC News World Edition. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2499957.stm February 19, 2008.

        HarrisInteractive. (2007). Video game addiction: Is it real? Retrieved from http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1196 February 18, 2008.

        Kem, L. (2005). Gamer addiction: A threat to student success! What advisors need to know. Retrieved February 17, 2008 from NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources.

        Levy, S. (2006, September 18). Living a virtual life. Newsweek. Retrieved from Newsweek.com February 17, 2008.

        National Institute on Media and the Family. (2005). Fact sheet: Computer and video game addiction. Retrieved from www. mediafamily.org February 18, 2008.

        MMOCrunch. (2007, October). MMORPG subscription numbers. Retrieved from http://www.mmocrunch.com/2007/10/28/mmorpg-subscription-numbers/ February 17, 2008.