Study Claims 8.5% of Young Gamers "Pathologically Addicted"

schnucki brings word of new research which claims roughly one in twelve American children between the ages of eight and 18 are "pathologically addicted" to video games. The study, conducted by Douglas Gentile, director of the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University, says that "pathological status was a significant predictor of poorer school performance even after controlling for sex, age, and weekly amount of video-game play." However, Professor Cheryl Olson, who has conducted her own research into video game use, questioned Gentile's methodology, saying, "The author is repurposing questions used to assess problem gambling in adults; however, lying to your spouse about blowing the rent money on gambling is a very different matter from fibbing to your mom about whether you played video games instead of starting your homework."

Lies, damned lies, and money.

[American Terrorist]

lying to your spouse about blowing the rent money on gambling is a very different matter from fibbing to your mom about whether you played video games instead of starting your homework.

Wrong. Parents and taxpayers sacrifice money, time and effort to pay for education; if students are too addicted to X to learn anything then it's money down the drain just like gambling.

Begging the Question

[drinkypoo]

"The author is repurposing questions used to assess problem gambling in adults; however, lying to your spouse about blowing the rent money on gambling is a very different matter from fibbing to your mom about whether you played video games instead of starting your homework."

I disagree. I would argue that there is no real difference. Both are falsehoods designed to misdirect the most important woman in the subject's life on the subject's activities, which are not only counterproductive but guaranteed to raise the woman's ire when/if discovered. There is a difference in the severity of the consequences but both lies are essentially the same. Lying liars and the lies they tell — souls in need of correction whether young or old. There's times lying might be justified, but neither of these are those times.

And yes, I do remember being a kid and lying about playing video games, and that I knew the difference between lying for a potentially justifiable purpose, and just lying to avoid getting in trouble. Thanks for asking.

Ya, totally impartial....

[Ifandbut]

"The study, conducted by Douglas Gentile, director of the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University, "

Ya, that is a totally impartial source when it comes to video games.

/scarsam_off

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[Opportunist]

I guess the difference is in the psychology instead of economy. After all, it is a psych study, right?

Lying to your spouse that you gambled away the money for the rent and that you'll now face eviction is probably a little further up on the totem pole of big lies than "nah, mom, I did my homework, yeah right...".

C'mon, you never lied to your parents about your homework because Timmy had this really cool new action figure and you wanted to go there to play with it? Does that mean you were (or are?) addicted to action figures?

Re:Pfff

[American Terrorist]

Hey, how about maybe the poor school performance was due to the fact that school is boring ( it is pretty much just memorising facts and figures ) and the more bored the child is, the more likely he is going to do something interesting/exciting like, I don't know, gaming?

School is boring. Work sucks. Life's a bitch and then you die. If we all just played video games and poker (or better yet, online poker!) instead of doing boring things like putting food on the table then we could all just escape from reality and starve to death!

Re:Begging the Question

[cjfs]

Lying liars and the lies they tell — souls in need of correction whether young or old. .

True, and we all know that video game lies are just gateway lies that lead to gambling rent lies.

Put down the controller and stop the dishonesty while you still can!

Awesome.

[Flurf]

So, 91.5% of young gamers are completely fine and video games in no way have altered their academic or social habits? Cool.

Re:Pfff

[cjfs]

School is boring. Work sucks. Life's a bitch and then you die. If we all just played video games and poker (or better yet, online poker!) instead of doing boring things like putting food on the table then we could all just escape from reality and starve to death!

Some people get inspired, find learning enjoyable, get interesting jobs and make good money doing it. Others went to public schools.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

Video games and education

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of this silly polarization of school vs. games, maybe the educators ought to support the positive aspects of gaming instead of turning generations of gamers against them. I personally have benefited from video games with regard to my education. I would never have learned English at such a young age (I am not a native speaker) if not for all those hours spent playing adventure games. Puzzle games have a definite positive influence on a child's logic skills. Even social skills can be developed through multiplayer games - provided that working against others has adverse effects to the player. Sure, most things simply have to be learned from school books, but the point is that games can support the learning process, not just hinder it.

Re:Pfff

[DeadDecoy]

I think the article isn't saying that all poor scholastic performance are the fault of games but that games can be addictive and due to that and their time consuming nature, games are a factor. Kinda like how not all people who drink alcohol are alcoholics, but some are and this causes them to drive poorly or become violent. If this is the case, they might need some kind of social support structure to control their addictions lest they ruin their lives. On that note, I've actually witnessed a few college-mates, even smart ones, nearly flunk out because they had to get some item of power from an Everquest raid. Consequently, they lost sleep, didn't study, failed tests, etc. If they had some kind of support structure, they might be doing cooler things instead of working at the local Gap.

Yes, school work may be dull and difficult but there may be some merit to the argument that games addictive and draw our attention away from topics no matter how interesting or uninteresting they are. I think this study is not about blaming video games but in realizing that people have low self control and need help.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[rolfwind]

Wrong. Parents and taxpayers sacrifice money, time and effort to pay for education; if students are too addicted to X to learn anything then it's money down the drain just like gambling.

People have a voluntary choice whether to gamble or not. Teenage students and school, not so much. Furthermore, they are not face with the bill as a consequence, simply a bad grade.

Everyone pays school taxes, either directly or indirectly via rent, so it's not even like they are saving anyone money by studying. In that instance, they are more like a national investment. Some investments pan out and some don't.

In that POV, the most logical thing to do would be to try strategies to maximize real payoff (not just pushing them out the door with a degree no matter what) which is structuring the system in the best fashion for them to learn something (of value).

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[Draek]

Accidentally dropping ice cream to the ground is also money down the drain, however much like gaming it's various orders of magnitude less money than most forms of gambling.

Re:Begging the Question

[xaxa]

There's a very important difference:

1 hour spent on video gaming is easy to recover -- do the homework tomorrow.
£300 lost in a bet is a week's wages gone.

When I used to lie to my mum and say I'd done my homework when I'd actually been playing games (or reading Discworld books) I knew I'd just have to make up the work later.

A similar lie from a child might be claiming to have gone to school, but in reality drinking cider in the local park.

Makes sense to me

[SpzToid]

Wouldn't a certain percetange of the general population be susceptible to such an addiciton anyway?
 
So now we're trying to measure the impact.

Rubbish

[Karem Lore]

And you can tear my fingers from around my controller from my cold dead hands if you disagree...

Seriously, its up to parents to make sure that this doesn't happen, not Government. The problem is that there are too many lazy parents that prefer to keep their kids quiet with TV and Video Games than actually play together...Eductation doesn't stop at school, parents have an equal, if not more important, role in educating their children.

Re:Ya, totally impartial....

[Poorcku]

please find some faults in the methodology, like range restriction, sampling errors, wrongly applied methods or faulty conclusions. then come back to us and do not act like some leftie with an agenda. Please be a leftie with facts written down. That I can respect and then i'll allow for my ideas to change. I know, there goes my karma....

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[Opportunist]

In all seriousness, what are we comparing now? If I got TFS right, we're comparing little Timmy telling his mom he made his homework so he can play his video games to a husband lying to his wife over the eviction-threatening loss of his income.

I can see your comparison, and it's a lot closer to home than the one in TFS.

There, one is a minor "yeah, go to hell and leave me in peace" lie. You can get that from me any day, as a coworker, when I got something better to do than format your spreadsheet because you're too dumb to do that yourself. Whether what I got to do is "more important" is up for debate (technically, posting here is not really more relevant for the company than formating the sheet, but personally, it certainly fills me with more sense of accomplishment... yeah, my work's THIS dull at times).

The other one is a lie over an existance-threatening problem that, if not resolved, will result in disaster. Family being kicked out of their home. Would you lie about that, knowing the consequence is dire, at best?

Maybe if we compared apples with apples, like in your example, we could find a conclusion that isn't flawed.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[mirshafie]

Certain parts of education are money down the drain anyway. You can't blame the children for not opening up their heads to what adults sometimes perceive to be "their jobs"; kids function and learn differently from how industrial workforce production is designed.

Re:Begging the Question

[clarkkent09]

Lying liars and the lies they tell -- souls in need of correction whether young or old.

Gee, you are being a bit too harsh there. A child lying to parents about what he/she is doing at a given time is often simply a defense mechanism for obtaining some privacy and a degree of control over their own life and therefore making themselves feel more adult, even though the parents might in fact know better. I would say it's a perfectly normal and even sometimes a desirable part of childhood if the parents are more protective and intrusive than appropriate for a child of a given age, as parents often are. In fact I can't think of any child I ever met who didn't do this to some degree, and they still tend to grow up to be responsible adults. It is just not even in the same category as a guy lying to his wife about blowing their rent money on gambling who is a seriously irresponsible and probably an immoral person.

Re:Could be true...but...

[kaaposc]

Addiction as described by TFA is used as a means of escape, it even says so in the body of text, and if games didn't exist then some other medium would fill the void.

One of the other mediums definitely is Slashdot's comments..

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[American Terrorist]

Maybe if we compared apples with apples, like in your example, we could find a conclusion that isn't flawed.

Exactly, I think we can all agree here. The summary quotes the study:

"pathological status was a significant predictor of poorer school performance even after controlling for sex, age, and weekly amount of video-game play."

So basically after controlling for everything, pathological status is a predictor of poor school performance. This should surprise no one, as people with mental problems tend to do worse in school.

My point was that all severe addictions are bad. The study was about video-game addictions, and the summary writer seems to have a pro-video game bias, ignoring the fact that everything, even video games, are bad when done to the extreme.

Re:Begging the Question

[Bakkster]

This hits the nail right on the head. Children acting like kids and lying to spend more time playing is natural. Adults acting like children and lying in order to gamble (or have an affair, do drugs, etc) is pathological. And why compare to gambling addiction? Apples and oranges. They should be comparing to something like "pathological movie addiction".

Let's face it: children and adults are different psychologically. A good question to judge an adult's state of mind will likely not be accurate for children, since children are still learning how to behave appropriately. I wouldn't put too much faith into this number, except as perhaps an upper-bound.

MMOs are the problem

[Becausegodhasmademe]

It isn't surprising that 8.3% of American teens are addicted to video games, especially since some video games such as Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs) require vast amounts of time to be invested in order to progress and compete. In the majority of MMOs you progress by gaining levels, usually by killing X amount of enemies for X amount of experience creating extremely time consuming and repetitive gameplay. As MMOs are by definition massively multiplayer the competitive element means that in order to compete you need to have equal or better equipment/level/skills as other players, which means that the people spending 40 hours a week grinding game content set the bar for the other players. Also there's the social aspect, many tasks in MMOs require players to work in groups, so there's the pressure of playing in order to appease/help out your friends. Combine that with the fact that the game developers are constantly moving the goalposts with every patch/expansion, thus reducing the relative value of your equipment/achievements/money requiring you need to invest even more time to remain competitive, and it's no surprise that hardcore gamers are neglecting work/school/family duties. And the problem compounds itself. Say you get a D on an assignment because you stayed up the night before playing games. Disappointed with your grade, you're likely to go and play the computer game because being successful at a game gives you a sense of achievement and results in increased confidence. However, while you're busy spending hours gaining virtual achievements you're not completing your next assignment, so you fall into a loop of confidence highs and lows. It all comes down to self discipline and good time management. I speak from experience as someone who spent 3 years between the ages of 16 and 19 putting in 35+ hours a week to World of Warcraft and EVE Online, having to retake my A level exams and still ending doing on a foundation year. I don't use games as an excuse of my failure because it's down to lack of self discipline, but I'm sure that the nature of the games I played compounded the situation.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[MBaldelli]

lying to your spouse about blowing the rent money on gambling is a very different matter from fibbing to your mom about whether you played video games instead of starting your homework.

Wrong. Parents and taxpayers sacrifice money, time and effort to pay for education; if students are too addicted to X to learn anything then it's money down the drain just like gambling.

Right.. So show me where an 8 year old understand the value of money when it comes to an education... Hell show me an 8 year old that can demonstrate anything beyond me and what money can buy the 8 year old, and I'll show you an 8 year old that has been trained like a monkey to answer the questions the right way.

Really, all you're doing is being a cranky old crotch that's tired of paying taxes.

Re:Ya, totally impartial....

[jonaskoelker]

"The study, conducted by Douglas Gentile, director of the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University"

Ya, that is a totally impartial source when it comes to video games.

How do you infer bias? Because it has the word "Family" in the name? Suppose they came out with a study showing that watching movies with your kids and discussing them afterwards strengthened their attachment to you and vice versa; or suppose they came out with a study showing that playing computar gamez with your kids does the same thing.

Would you then accuse them of bias? I think the kind of studies that could (potentially) show those conclusions could very well fall under the heading "Media and the Family".

Or am I missing the unwritten rule that "and the Family" means "Think of the children!!1!eleventybang!"? Or do they have a history of misrepresenting facts in their studies (i.e. committing scientific fraud)? Or do they historically have a selection bias in what kind of thing they study (i.e. only "is there a negative effect of [media behavior]")?

Or is it just that you find the conclusion uncomfortable and want to argue against it? You know, even if you're biased you can still be telling the truth.

Re:Begging the Question

[Asic Eng]

Reminds me of a friend's daughter. Once her mother asked her: "Why do you have to act so childish?" Her answer? "Because I'm a child!"

Measuring a child's behaviour with adult criteria is inappropriate. When you bring up children you need to teach them to become responsible adults, they are not born with these skills and it's normal for them not having them yet. Also the parent-child relationship is nothing like being married - it is not and should not be equal. It's a lot more similar to the relationship of an adult to their employer than their relationship to a spouse.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[the4thdimension]

Even if I assume that the study is true (which I don't) lets look at what kids are up against:

Studying, homework, school, and teachers.
vs.
Playing video games on the internet with friends.

Which would you have picked when you were 8-18 years old? I know what choice I would have made (actually, the choice I did make). Kids don't really think out into the future and realize that their choices have long-term effects, especially at the age of 8. You can't expect them to understand the need to study to get good grades to go to school. Furthermore, lulz @ high school... who cares. Just make it out of that shit and you are straight. High school is a joke and colleges know it.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[juiceboxfan]

Old people are pathologically addicted to using the word "addiction" to make anything they don't like sound scary. The brain can adapt to virtually any stimulus and once removed, will not function as well without it. So if you go for long countryside walks every day and enjoy it, then you get injured and can't do it for a few months, you'll miss going for those long countryside walks. That's completely different to chemical addiction you get from heroin or nicotine, but then most people can't tell the difference.

Not sure why you felt the need to make a dig against "old people" but whatever.

An addiction is an addiction. You seem to mostly be talking about withdrawal and, yes, there are differences between chemical and psychological withdrawal.

What we are talking about here, using your analogy, is; you go for long countryside walks every day and enjoy it. You enjoy it so much that you choose to go for a walk instead of going to school or work. Then when asked, you lie about ditching school/work.

Re:Begging the Question

[L4t3r4lu5]

I did both. I sincerely wish I hadn't.

Experience is a bitch.

What is this, bizarro world?

[0xdeadbeef]

Where is the superficial study that links the pathological addiction to sports with low grades? 'Cause I think you'd find more data in that one.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[Shakrai]

At any rate the point I was making is that there is a definite chemical mechanism involved in nicotine addiction or similar, whereas video games are just an enjoyable passtime.

Actually some studies [discovermagazine.com] have said that playing video games releases dopamine [wikipedia.org] into the body. So there may very well be a 'chemical mechanism' involved in video games. Whether or not that makes them physically "addictive" is another matter of course.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[Mendoksou]

I'd say its an issue kind because of the of responsibility difference. As a husband/adult, you are responsible for the money you blow while gambling. To place the same responsibility on a ten-year-old kid for the tax money that pays for his education is just ludicrous. He may be wasting money, but its no different from his wasting money when he daydreams in class.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[Hatta]

Show me an enjoyable activity that does not release dopamine.

Re:Lies, damned lies, and money.

[Opportunist]

Only because there is no inherent stigma associated with sports. If your parents would get upset instead of praise you if you spent your time playing football after school (because, hey, at least he's in fresh air and stays away from drugs...), you'd see quite similar patterns.