Sunday, November 9, 2008

Video Game Addiction First Draft

Video Game Addiction Draft One
Video games are more popular than they have ever been before. Vivid imagery, cool power-ups, and a sense of control and power are parts of the game that make them enjoyable. Unfortunately, these enjoyable parts are also abused by those prone to forming a psychological addiction. When people begins ignoring their real world communities and families in favor of virtual ones, games can become a threat to an individual’s well-being. The American Medical Association needs to address video game addiction by researching more into games’ addictive potential and classifying video game addiction as an illness in the DSM-IV.
Many people simply attribute video game addiction to a lack of self-control. These individuals don’t realize the extent of which gaming actually affects real-world relationships. One mother admits, "Today our son was five days old. The sad truth is my husband spent 11 hours today playing his Warcraft game. He did not interact with our sweet tiny baby because there were important quests waiting online" (Waters). Clearly under normal circumstances, a new father would not ignore an event as significant as being around his new born child. According to Maressa Hecht, founder and coordinator of computer addiction services at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., neglecting family, friends and social activities and being unable to stop playing the game are signs of computer addiction (Marriot). Video games addiction actually has many similarities to pathological gambling, a disorder formally recognized by the AMA in the DSM-IV.
Video games have several structural features in common with slot machines. The provision of aural and visual rewards for a winning move, incremental rewards such as points or cash reinforcing correct behavior, and the requirement of the player to respond to predictable stimuli that are controlled by a software loop are all features they share. An obsessed gamer will not seek monetary rewards, but rather is driven by power-ups that give them an edge on competition. A technique called partial reinforcement effect or PRE is used by software developers to make appealing games. PRE is a critical factor in video game addiction; people keep responding in the absence of reinforcement, hoping that another reward is just around the corner (Griffiths and Wood).
PRE is particularly dangerous in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) such as Warcraft, which are seemingly endless. Gamers strive to level up in order to gain new abilities and powers. The higher levels you obtain, the more experience you need to level up. This requires more and more time commitment from the gamer as you move up levels to acquire the game’s most devastating powers and weapons. Accompanying addictive forces such as PRE are social factors that keep certain gamers glued to their chairs.
Research has shown that social norms have a direct impact in online games. Users may actually feel obligated to play because they want to belong to a community (Hsu and Lu). This means that individuals who have weak interpersonal relationships are particularly vulnerable to the addictive nature of MMORPGs. These individuals have more success establishing successful relationships in virtual reality than in reality (AMA Weighing Addictive Nature of Video Gaming). Competing in a real-time virtual world allows these individuals to control relationships successfully online, even though they may fail miserably at managing them on a day to day basis. One middle-aged man says about his problem, ''It was easier to stay in with the game than to go out and look for a girlfriend” (Marriott). This can obviously create serious mental health issues if individuals begin favoring their life in a fantasy world over reality. It is important to understand where the medical field stands on actually classifying video game addiction as an illness.
Dr. James Scully, director of the American Psychiatric Association, says about adding video game addiction to the DSM-IV, "We want to make sure that there is enough science; we want to make sure there is scientific usefulness and clinical usefulness." The earliest he recommends adding it is 2012. Scully is uncertain whether video games produce withdrawal symptoms when they are taken away. One woman, Mary, says about her Warcraft addiction, “I obsess about it. I can't quit. If I don't have it, I think about it. I want it." Many doctors already believe video game addiction is a serious problem that requires professional treatment. Jeff Georgi, clinical director of Duke Addictions Program at Duke University, says he has already seen video game abuse lead patients down the same path as alcohol and drug addicts (Brownstein).
One argument that is against video game addiction being considered a serious illness, says games have no external influence impacting them. Drugs can create obsessive behaviors because of chemical imbalances and gambling directly affects an individual’s finances. Video games overuse in this case is simply a time waster. Gamers need to be treated not as addicts of a game, but as people who have underlying issues that result in them wasting time.
I believe this assessment is wrong because video game addicts show symptoms similar to many other addicts. It is likely video games are capable of creating a chemical addiction to dopamine, which controls the brains pleasure and reward centers. For video game addicts who have begun to favor fantasy world over reality, getting them to first admit they have a problem is difficult. Proceeding then to threaten them by taking away their pleasure source makes them extremely irritable. When you take away this pleasure, a video game addict will be preoccupied fantasizing about playing the game, just as a heroin addict would fantasize about injecting some heroin.
Many gamers have a psychological dependency on their games that cannot be cured without therapy and treatment from professional physicians. The AMA needs to be consistent with the way they classify disorders. Allowing for certain impulse control disorders, such as pathological gambling to be included in the DSM-IV, and not allowing for others such as video game addiction is not fair and requires research to back an explanation. Just because all impulse control disorders may not follow the same criteria for diagnosis, doesn’t mean there aren’t serious behavioral problems that require medical attention.

1 comment:

Joseph Kwon said...

In Sean’s argument, he uses a resemblance argument to strengthen and make the argument even more convincing. Sean uses gambling addicts and the issues they face to draw a parallel to online gaming addiction. We discussed in class that a good resemblance article gives a reader an easy way to understand a complex issue. Many people know the difference between a drug addiction and a gambling addiction. Sean tries to link all these together to prove that online gaming addicts should be classified as a real addiction. Many people that are not familiar with online gaming addiction do not believe it is a real addiction when compared to a drug addiction or a gambling addiction. The parallel he draws with these different addictions promotes critical thinking, helping to the reader understand the characteristics that all these addictions share. It helps identify key aspects of addiction that online gaming addicts share, with other types to addiction, for those people that do not believe online gaming addiction is a real issue. There is a fine line between an addiction and obsession and with the resemblance argument it helps identify the key differences. When drawing a parallel to a specific issue, the reader should instantly understand why the writer chose that parallel. This is a characteristic of a good resemblance argument and Sean achieves this goal in his paper. Online gaming addiction is not classified as an addiction by medical standards, but by showing the multiple characteristics that online gaming addicts share with other serious addictions, it helps prove that online gaming addicts should be classified as a real medical addiction, that needs serious attention.