“The bottom line is it doesn’t really matter what it’s labeled, because the reality is that people have problems and many times these problems aren’t labeled or classified, but we in our offices see these problems every day.”

I’ve said this before and I’m just going to say it again: It is irrelevant whether we call it digital dependence, video game addiction, or bug-eye syndrome. Many people have problems with digital games that need to be addressed. Period.

On another note: Thomas just finished speaking at the CHEACT book fair where he addressed home schoolers on the dangers created by digital gaming. You can view last year’s workshop by clicking the “video” tab above.

Instead, I am going to talk about what is often (very academically) termed a “chicken and egg dilemma:” Are compulsive, addiction-prone people just drawn to video games or do the video games themselves actually promote addiction?

To answer this question, we’re going to trek down a road often fraught with boredom; we’re going to look at research. But, if you’re willing to stick with it and at least read the major parts of this post, you just might even get some great information and maybe even a fresh perspective. What do you have to loose? Two minutes?

Empirical?

Now using that word sure makes me feel scientific. No; we’re probably not going to conclusively prove that gaming is an addiction any time soon. But then again, we probably can’t conclusively probe that gravity exists, either.

The fact of the matter is that there is enough evidence to say that playing games often leads to playing more games, and ultimately addiction.

Making the link.

Nicholas Yee is now one of the foremost experts on MMORPG games (Isn’t that a weird acronym? See my endnote.). In the early days of his massive online surveys from the Daedalus Project, he performed studies relating to addiction. His report “Adiadne” on the subject revealed a very telling relationship. I referenced the study in my last post, but here’s some of the major points:

• 65% of these gamers (ages 12-17) would label themselves as addicted to the game. (Yee 2002, 3)
• 60% of gamers have played 10 hours non-stop.
• About half of young MMORPG players (ages 12-22) admit to loosing sleep in order to play the game. (Yee 2002, 2)

Another study was released in ‘05 which confirmed these findings. Ng and Wiemer-Hastings, from DePaul University’s Computer Science Department, performed a study showing that:

• MMORPG players play significantly longer. (see graph)
• 80% of MMORPG players have played 8 hours straight, while only 46% of Non-MMORPG gamers have. (Ng and Wiemer-Hastings 2005, 112)
• 35% of MMORPG gamers find it easier to talk to people in the game than those in real life. (Ng and Wiemer-Hastings 2005, 113)

These number are great; they point us to a specific conclusion: people who play certain games (MMORPGs in specific) tend to be more addicted to them. If you’re really attentive, then you’ve also noticed several problems. Let’s play Blue’s Clues! Can you spot them? No; I’m just kidding. It’s just fine if you didn’t notice any problems, I’ll go into them in just a second!

Problem 1: Date

Yep. These studies are a little… well, old. Yee’s study was done six years ago, which means that some of the high schoolers he polled now have Master’s degrees. The Ng and Wiemer-Hastings study, on the other hand, is only about three years old, so it’s good for verifying that Yee’s studies still hold true. However, there is another problem that plagues Ng’s results.

Problem 2: Quantity

Both of these studies are surveys, which means they rely on quantity rather than quality. Yee did an exceptional job of getting a large number of respondents. That’s one of the reasons he’s a top expert. Yee consistently has about three to four thousand participants in his surveys.

Ng and Wiemer-Hastings are computer scientists, not psychiatrists. They only got 91 respondents. Now that’s a problem. Both studies, however, share a flaw that is more fundamental than any of these minute details…

Problem 3 (the big one): Correlation is not Causality!

Yes! The chicken or egg dilemma. You knew it would be coming back! The truth of the matter is that all surveys share this same weakness. Surveys, often academically termed “cross-sectional studies,” can tell us who is doing what but not why. Jeffery Goldstein, in testimony before congress, stated the fundamental problem with cross-sectional surveys: “Correlation is not causality, no matter how tempted one may be to argue otherwise.” (Goldstein 2000, 4)

Here’s the problem: we have no idea whether people who have addictive personalities just tend to be drawn to MMORPGs or if MMORPGs themselves are addictive. How can we resolve this?

A solution?

When Dr. Jeffery Goldstein, of University of Utrecht, testified before the US Senate, he focused around whether virtual violence was likely to result in real world violence. His conclusion was that there is not near enough evidence to support this claim. Five years later, Douglas Gentile prepared a literature review for the National Institute on Media and the Family. His report, once again, focusing around violence, but also addressed study methodology. His insights are very useful.

According to Gentile, there are three major types of studies (Gentile 2005, 7) which I believe can be narrowed down to just two. The first type of study is cross sectional surveys, which attempt to get answers from as many people as possible. The second type is a laboratory study that takes a few participants and carefully observes them.

A survey is able to get quantitative results. It can show correlation but not causality. On the other hand, a lab study is able to prove (at least somewhat) that one thing caused another in these cases. Therefore, in order to solve the Chicken and Egg dilemma, I need to find an experimental study.

Breakthrough!

I was researching at the Life Sciences Library at the University of Texas (go Horns!) when I stumbled upon a study from Joshuah M. Smyth, who is in the Department of Psychology at Syracuse University. His study was entitled “Beyond Self-Selection in Video Game Play.” Basically, his laboratory design was made to rule out pre-existing conditions that could cause addiction to the game.

Imagine your one of the hundred participants that were selected to be in Smyth’s study. You’re 18-20 years old. When you sign the liability waver form, you think that you just might become the next Incredible Hulk when they inject you with green radioactive goo. You breath a sigh of relief as you are informed that this is an experiment being run by the psychology, not the nuclear, department. You exhale with joy as you’re informed that you will get to play video games and be monitored for a month! But here’s the hitch: you have to play the type of game that you’re assigned. And it had to be an unfamiliar type of game.

This was what made Smyth stick out to me. His study assigned participants to play a type of video game that they had no previous experience with. This rules out the possibility that they had a pre-existing “addictive personality” that lead them to choose to play MMOs. So what did they find regarding video game play and addiction?

The results of the Smyth’s inquiry where published in October of last year. He said that the MMORPG players where significantly different from other players. They enjoyed the game more, but that enjoyment came at a price:

“The MMORPG group differed significantly from other groups after 1 month, reporting more hours spent playing, worse health, worse sleep quality, and greater interference in “real-life” socializing and academic work. … MMORPGs represent a different gaming experience with different consequences than other types of video games and appear to pose both unique risks and benefits from their use.” (Smyth 2007, 717)

And thereby the results of the cross-sectional studies mentioned above were verified by experimental testing. Smyth’s study helps us to say with more confidence that we have answered the “chicken and egg” dilemma regarding video games.

Conclusion

So what? Why should anyone who doesn’t have a Ph.D. care about these studies? Here’s the point that I want to make by showing you all this evidence. While some people certainly are more addiction prone, games can also be designed to be addiction prone. We cannot completely blame the player as many gaming companies contend, because games can be, and are, designed to be addictive.

If you think this may be the case for you or a loved one, please take our free addiction test.

Resources

Endnote: When I refer to “literature,” I’m not talking about that subject in school. I mean the body of written works on the subject of gaming. When I talk about MMOs, I mean Massive Multiplayer Online games. Finally, MMORPG (now that’s a horrible acronym, hu?) stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.

Goldstein, Jeffrey. “Effects of Electronic Games on Children.” Testimonial Statement to US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Mar. 2000. commerce.senate.gov (no longer available).

Gentile, Douglas A. “Examining the Effects of Video Games from a Psychological Perspective.” National Institute on Media and the Family Nov. 2005. http://www.mediafamily.org/research/Gentile_NIMF_Review_2005.pdf.

Ng, Brian D. and Peter Wiemer-Hastings. “Addiction to the Internet and Online Gaming.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 8.2 (2005): 110-113. (accessed via Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Publishers).

Smyth, Joshua M. “Beyond Self-Selection in Video Game Play: An Experimental Examination of the Consequences of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Play.” Cyberpsychology & Behavior 10.5 (2007): 717-721. (accessed via Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers)

Yee, Nicholas. “Ariadne.” Oct. 2002. NickYee.com. http://www.nickyee.com/hub/addiction/addiction.pdf.

Cyberspace must be running in its own time zone. What starts as “just a few more minutes to finish this level” soon becomes an hour. When Olivia and Kurt Bruner kept hearing this from their son while he was playing games, they set out to discover the problem. They concluded that video games are like “the digital drug” (Bruner and Bruner xxi).

Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) games are especially similar to drugs; not in their chemical makeup, but in the way they affect the young brain. MMO may as well stand for a Minor’s Massive Obsession because of the addiction it can become for many minors who find virtual reality more fulfilling than modern reality. In a way gaming also resembles alcohol. It isn’t evil, and actually can be beneficial, but can easily be overdone.

Contents

Definitions:
• Addictive or Not Addictive… That is the Question
• A Nasty Acronym with a Nasty Side

The Problem of Addiction:

• Pixels… or People?
• Tossing Schoolwork for the Game?
• Why Work Out when I can be a Digital Athlete in Seconds?
• Am I Ruining Reality for Virtual Reality?

Why Games are Addictive:

• The Digital Drug?
• Fast Food Fulfillment
• Risky Playtime

References

Addictive or Not Addictive… That is the Question

The pillar upon which the case for gaming addiction rests is the definition of addiction. Addiction is an overused word in modern language. Its meaning has become ambiguous at best.

The modern mind immediately thinks of some homeless looser who can’t hold a job because he is hooked on drugs. This mind is certain that a person who plays video games fourteen hours per day is addicted but isn’t sure where to draw the line in cases that aren’t as severe. At the same time, gamers often use “addictive” as a synonym of fun.”

Nicholas Yee, one of the foremost psychological experts on online games, provides a more objective, though not perfect, definition: “a recurring behavior that is unhealthy or selfdestructive which the individual has difficulty ending” (Yee 1). The only problem is that it lacks any definition of what is “destructive” and contains no specific median through which addiction may be measured.

For the purposes of this paper, addiction will be defined in terms of time. If an individual habitually spends time on an activity such that it interferes with time that is necessary for other more important activities, it’s safe to say that this individual is addicted. Therefore, the test for online video game addiction becomes whether time spent playing MMOs or MMORPGs interferes with other more important activities such as schoolwork or sleep.

A Nasty Acronym with a Nasty Side

MMORPG (how’s that for a nasty acronym?) spells out Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Some examples of these games are Dungeons and Dragons, EverQuest, which is sometimes jokingly called “NeverRest” because of its addictive nature, and Second Life. These games literally give players a “second life” and another role. They become problematic when the fantasy role becomes the player’s main role.

Even though only about one in ten gamers play an MMORPG, they’re the most likely to become addicted (Khan 4). A survey performed by Yee found that 65% of these gamers (ages 12-17) would label themselves as addicted to the game (Yee 3). The next question would be whether they truly are addicted by this paper’s definition.

Pixels… or People?

The first stop in testing for adolescent addiction was the subject of a 2004 editorial by Brent Staples, who holds a doctorate in behavioral sciences. Does online play interfere with the interactions players have with other people?

Yee’s study on the subject, which relied on the participant’s honesty, showed that the majority of MMORPG players don’t think their habits interfere with their social lives, academic performance, or health (Yee 6). There is quite a bit of reason to doubt their word. According to Staples, studies have shown that the amount of time spent with family was halved for every hour spent online (Staples 71).

Not everyone is negatively affected by online gaming, just like not everyone is affected by alcohol. Most of the scientific literature, however, has concluded that quite a significant number of adolescents not only grow anti-social, but also neglect school and even their health to play the game.

Tossing Schoolwork for the Game?

Many studies have negatively correlated performance in school to time spent gaming (Gentile 17-19). There is no wonder because when students spend time gaming, they can’t spend that time on homework. The recent study from Hope Cummings and Elizabeth Vandewater found that male gamers spent 30% less time reading than their non-gaming counterparts and that female gamers spent 34% less time doing homework (Cummings and Vandewater 688).

This is not to say that school and technology should never be mixed. According to Douglas Gentile’s literature review, studies have found that students who use computers actually have greater academic success, but those who use the computer for gaming purposes lost that success (Gentile 18).

These studies specifically dealt with younger students, but it’s clear that gaming habits also translate into problems in college. A survey from the Pew Research Center questioned students of higher education regarding gaming and schoolwork. The results were startling. Ten percent of the survey’s respondents admitted to playing specifically to avoid schoolwork. Even more disturbing were the unintended consequences. Almost half of the respondents to this study said that playing games kept them from studying (Jones et al. 1).

Why Work Out when I can be a Digital Athlete in Seconds?

By the definition in this paper, gaming could be called an addiction if it significantly interferes with an adolescent’s health. This is because health takes time, time many obsessed gamers don’t have. Sleep is a great example. About half of young MMORPG players (ages 12-22) admit to loosing sleep in order to play the game (Yee 2).

The American Medical Association has also expressed concern regarding the overuse of video games in general and its effects on health. According to the twelfth report at their 2007 meeting, excessive gaming has been linked to epileptic seizures, obesity, and musculoskeletal diseases (Khan 3). “Indeed, there is even a form of tendinitis named ‘Nintendinitis,’ caused by repeatedly pressing game-controller buttons with one’s thumb” (Gentile 20). All of these health problems are directly related to the time spent playing video games. Addicted MMO gamers will invariably game even at the cost of their health.

Am I Ruining Reality for Virtual Reality?

Ignoring one’s social life, schoolwork, and health in order to play with a flashing screen clearly isn’t logical. Digital games certainly have their place, but they have stepped out of it in the lives of many modern adolescents. That would actually include mine. I wasn’t a “hard-core” gamer, but I certainly have let games get in the way of more important jobs. This experience left me with a question: what is so addictive about moving lights? I found two answers. Gaming, especially online, is both chemically stimulating and emotionally fulfilling.

The Digital Drug?

Most adults have no idea what is going on when they see their adolescents being lost in the online game. Often puzzled parents simply dismiss it as “just a game.” Yet, for many addicted teens, it’s more than just a game. It’s “life” in the same chemical way that cocaine is “life” to a drug addict.

Video games actually release many of the same chemicals in the brain that drug addicts thrive on. The first study to track a neurological chemical known as dopamine in the human brain using a PET scan was conducted in 1998 by British scientists who used video games as their experimental variable. The results they found indicated that the amount of surplus dopamine, the same chemical stimulated by cocaine, doubled when their subjects played a video game (Koepp et al. 267). This evidence led Dan Costa, an editor at the pro-gaming publication PC Magazine, to conclude:

“Video games are not like cocaine, your brain thinks they are cocaine. And if you doubt that, try to take the controller out of [my son’s] hands before he reaches a save point.” (Costa)

Fast Food Fulfillment

Addiction to online video games is not only a chemical phenomenon; it can also be an emotional attraction. In a very real sense, MMOs artificially fulfill the basic goal of adolescents: to grow up.

Take, for example, the situation of the Bruners provided at the beginning of this paper. The Bruners finally wrote a book for parents on the gaming experience. They state that the “role playing elements of video games tend to draw a child back repeatedly, in part because the child has adopted a temporary replacement identity” (Bruner and Bruner 51). For adolescents specifically, the identities they play in many MMOs give them a thrill of adulthood without the risks of adulthood.

Risky Playtime

While playing an MMO certainly isn’t evil, this seemingly innocent pass time can put reality at risk. Role playing games are super-sized versions of what we think reality should be. Compared to the glittering world of Second Life, “real life” is rather dull. Compared to the dopamine rush of EverQuest, schoolwork is boring. MMO addiction often throws adolescent lives by the wayside, promising to replace them with the lives of digital heroes. It certainly can be like a digital drug.

References

Bruner, Olivia, and Kurt Bruner. Playstation Nation. New York: Center Street, 2006.

Costa, Dan. “Turn It Off, Kids!” Editorial. PCMag.com 4 April 2007. 8 Mar. 2008 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2109568,00.asp.

Cummings, Hope M., and Elizabeth A. Vandewater. “Relation of Adolescent Video Game Play to Time Spent in Other Activities.” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 161.7 (2007): 684-689. 8 Mar. 2008 http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/161/7/684.

Gentile, Douglas A. “Examining the Effects of Video Games from a Psychological Perspective.” National Institute on Media and the Family Nov. 2005. 7 Mar. 2008 http://www.mediafamily.org/research/Gentile_NIMF_Review_2005.pdf.

Jones, Steve, et al. “Let the Games Begin.” Pew Internet and American Life Project 6 Jul. 2003. 7 Mar. 2008 http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_College_Gaming_Reporta.pdf.

Khan, Mohamed K. “Emotional and Behavioral Effects of Video Games and Internet Overuse.” 2007 AMA Annual Meeting. Council on Science and Public Health, June 2007. 8 Mar. 2008 http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/467/csaph12a07.doc.

Koepp, M. J., et al. “Evidence for Striatal Dopamine Release During a Video Game.” Nature 393.6682 (1998): 266-268.

Staples, Brent. “What Adolescents Miss When we Let Them Grow up in Cyberspace.” The McGraw-Hill Reader. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. 9th Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 70-71.

Yee, Nicholas. “Ariadne.” Oct. 2002. NickYee.com. 7 Mar. 2008 http://www.nickyee.com/hub/addiction/addiction.pdf.

“Come on, Mom. … Just a few more minutes; I’m almost done with this level.” Parents have all heard it: a child’s pleading to get just a little more time to play. I know. I was that child.

When I lived in a college dorm, my room was across the hall from a gamer, whom I will call “Dominique.”He played the computer game World of Warcraft for sixteen hours or more each day. He stopped going to class and eating at the cafeteria, and he withdrew from anyone outside of the game. He took only brief breaks to pick up fast food to eat while playing. The artificial greatness of gaining Level 70 replaced the adventure of following Christ in his life. How could someone become so consumed by a mere game?

The Problem
Unfortunately, Dominique’s story is not an isolated occurrence. Nearly 2.8 million gamers play for thirty hours a week or more. Some of those gamers play for as many as sixty, or even eighty, hours a week. Oh, and gaming is not just for kids anymore. According to the Entertainment Software Association, gamers are thirty-three-years-old, on average, and sixty-nine percent of American heads of households play digital games.

It gets worse. Imagine those hard-core gamers as parents and spouses. The resulting impact on their families is similar to any addition: neglect, abandonment, and divorce. There are online groups, such as EverQuest Widows and World of Warcraft Widows, which together have over 10,000 members. Many of these women believe that they have lost their husbands to gaming addiction. While some have filed for divorce, others feel separated by a digital chasm that they cannot cross, and they do not know what to do. They are bitter, hurt, and angry. Their stories would break your heart.

One woman posted the story of how her husband quit work so he could have more time to play. After a while, he hardly talked to her as he spent his entire day in the digital world. When she went through a difficult pregnancy, her husband was so glued to his game that her parents had to move in to care for her. Now her son is two years old and has spent maybe twelve hours of quality time with his father—ever. Her grief is palpable as she describes feeling abandoned, a single mom in the presence of her husband.

What appears to be an innocent pastime can easily become a slippery slope into a life-devouring addiction. But what makes games so addictive?

Your Brain on Games
You have probably heard long, scientific words like endorphins, adrenaline, and dopamine in connection with drugs like cocaine. You might be familiar with how they can cause addictive reactions. You probably have educated your children about the dangers of addiction and warned them to stay away—far away—from drugs. What you may not know is that a gaming addiction involves the same biochemicals as cocaine.

Several British researchers did a study on the brain in which their test subjects played a game while a PET scanner monitored their brain activity. They found a “two-fold increase in levels of extracellular dopamine” while the gamers were playing. Dopamine is what gives a high similar to that of cocaine. And for good reason: it is the same chemical released when you take cocaine. Dopamine, adrenaline, and endorphins unite to form a powerfully addictive combination. This is why it is so hard to get your son to stop playing and go to bed.

Longing for Significance
However, the draw of computer games goes much deeper than just biochemicals. Gaming also artificially satisfies our longing for significance. In digital games, players do not compete for a regional high school match. They play for the Super Bowl. They do not save a cat out of a tree; the save the world. Video gaming offers an easy path to artificial greatness, without the responsibility and hard work required for true success.

I think it is this need for significance, more than the biochemicals, that entices people like Dominique. The more he played, the more significant he became in the game, and the less significant he became in the real world. This draw for significance sucked him into a virtual world as much as physically possible.

Shepherding Your Gamer’s Heart
What do you do if you have a child who is into digital gaming? There is no simple answer. Taking the PlayStation out of the living room is much easier than taking it out of your child’s heart. Your gamer may have a chemical and emotional addiction to the gaming experience, and removing the Xbox may be as effective as getting all the beer out of the house of an alcoholic.

The best thing to do depends on the age of your gamer. Removing the games or game system is more effective for younger children. If your gamer is older, he will need to understand the problem so that he can say “no” himself. I have watched many teens either count the days until graduation or just play at a friend’s house because their parents threw away the console. The PlayStation may have been out of the house, but it lingered in the heart of the gamer like a cancer.

Some gamers need nothing less than spiritual surgery, and this can only be done by the hand of the Great Physician. God did this to me by refocusing my priorities on Christ. My Web site, Cgames.com, has a test for gamers to use to examine their hearts to see if gaming has become a problem. You may find it helpful when discussing this issue. The site contains many other resources to help you deal with this difficult problem.

Thomas Umstattd, a former gamer, directs Cgames.com, a Web site and podcast dedicated to providing a Christian perspective on digital games. He graduated from twelve years of home schooling in 2004 and is currently writing a book on the dangers of digital gaming, offering a plan for action.

This is an interview between Rick Green with Wall Builders Live and Thomas Umstattd Jr. about the dangers of digital gaming. Wall Builders is an organization that educates Christians about their godly heritage and how to be active in culture.
Links

• Wall Builders Live
• World of Warcraft Widows
• Everquest Widows

Transcript

Rick Green: Welcome to the interception of Faith and Politics Walbuilders Live with David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more at our website: wallbuilderslive.com, where you can get all the archives of our previous programs, catch interviews with Congressmen, Senators, activists, attorneys, all types of folks out there on the front lines of the cultural wars.Our goal here is to help equip you and inspire you, get you involved in whats going on in our nation. Being salt and light in every area of our nation. It might be the arts, it might be entertainment, it might be politics, it might be business, it might be the pulpit.

Where ever it is we can each have an impact on what’s happening in this cultural. We have a duty and a responsibility to do that. So hopefully you’ll tune into the program and also look at our articles and previous programs and go to our website and get the videos and DVDs and audios and everything where David has done phenomenal research on the founding fathers and their takes on the issues. We really try to take two approaches to every issue….both a Biblical and a historical approach.

What did the founding fathers say about this? What did God say about this in His Word? And what are the lessons we can glean from there?

Today topic, at first may seem a little bit different from what we typically talk about but it certainly ties into preparing and thinking about the next generation and preparing for the next generation of leadership and raising of young people and understanding the times and knowing what to do.

So we have asked our good friend and Patriot Academy graduate and also former speaker of the House for Patriot Academy, Thomas Umstattd, to come on and talk to us about his lecture that he does and also his efforts to warn folks about the dangers of digital gaming.
Thomas, welcome to the program.

Thomas Umstattd: Thanks for having me on today, Rick.

Rick Green: Mr. Speaker, as I used to call you at Patriot Academy, I appreciate you coming on and talking to us about this. I want you to know that I have tried or at least tried to implement a lot of what I learned from you by listening to your lecture on-line there at your web-site. So I have some things to share with you there. But let’s start off by talking about what got you interested in this and what are the dangers of Digital Gaming.

Thomas Umstattd: Well, I grew up as a gamer, I’m still a pretty young person, I’m 22. So growing up I played computer games and video games quiet a bit and my family and my perspective at that point and what most families look at it as is the content issue. So, kind of if the content of the games was O.K. then other than that they were harmless fun.

Rick Green: And that is probably what most people are thinking as soon as we say “Dangers of Digital gaming” they’re thinking that we’re fixing to do a show on the content of gaming and the violence and all the different things that are potentially out there in a lot of the games. That’s not where you are headed, right?

Thomas Umstattd: That’s right. I mean, games are violent and they have sexual content and cussing and all of that but the true danger, the hidden danger is a lot more dangerous. That is the addiction that can come with playing games.

Rick Green: Now, some people are going to say if they haven’t grown up playing them, you’re what? 14 or 15 years younger then me but I grew up playing games back when it was the old letarie and the little joystick thing with the one little red button and what you might consider to be quiet primitive in at your age but (laughs) at any rate my generation grew up playing games as well but the generation before us did not.

Certainly not electronic games and they did not most likely were not addicted. What do you mean by addicted? I understand being addicted to alcohol and other things but what do you mean being addicted to games?

Thomas Umstattd: Well, it’s fascinating. They have just started doing quiet a bit of research about this and what they’ve noticed and I’ve noticed in my research of this is that large amounts of people will play video and computer games for 60 hours a week or 80 hours a week or 100 hours a week…….

Rick Green: Who! Who! Sixty, eighty, a hundred hours a week? What are they doing for a job? When do they sleep?

Thomas Umstattd: Well, there is a guy that has lived across from me at school at a university and he didn’t. He hardly slept. He played probably 16 hours a day. He would wake up and he would start playing. He stopped going to class, he stopped going to the cafeteria. He would take quick breaks to go and grab some fast food and he would eat it while he was playing.

It pretty much destroyed his life. He quit going to work and he had to drop out of school. The effect of his gaming addiction was just as destructive on his life as that of an acohol addiction or a drug addiction. He is not at all an isolated case. There are hundreds of thousands of people all though at the United States and all though out the world that have similar stories.

We don’t see them because they are hidden. They are hidden in their rooms, in a dark playing so unlike the drug addict whose on the street and doing crime or something like that the gaming addict is invisible. So for a long time we’ve missed the problem.

Rick Green: Well, you know, and for those out there who might be listening and saying “this is off the wall and there is no way this could be true…” let me say to those of you who are Thomas’ age and have had any experience with this you are sitting there saying; “I know exactly what you are talking about.

I’ve been there, done that.” Guys, out there that are my age. You know you’ve stayed up until 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 o’clock in the morning playing that game whatever it was, James Bond, or whatever the particular game was that had you….”I just have to get to that next level!” you know you’ve done it and you know how you felt the next day.

Tired. Worn out and not able to be the leader of your house and your business and everything else that you needed to be so this hits home to so many people out there. I hope some of you out there will be willing to say; “Look, I’ve been there. I don’t want my kids going though the same thing.”

I’ve been there, man. I can remember getting the, I can’t remember what it was now. It’s been a few years ago now but it was probably the first Nintendo game video for the kids, right?

Then I see this really cool, James Bond, kind of game thing and then I get to go be a secret agent! I find myself playing this game until, literally, until 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 o’clock in the morning. Not just one night but two, three, four, five nights in a row. I’m wiped out by the end of the week but I’ve just got to get to that next level. It’s real!

Thomas Umstattd: It is. People are like, “why does that happen?” researchers have been asking that same question, too. What they’ve been finding is that when someone is playing a video game or a computer game certain chemicals are being released in their brains. One of those is adrenaline and you probably already knew that.

The “Fighter Flights” the “Life or Death” situations puts our bodies, it kind of tricks our bodies into releasing adrenaline because we feel like death is on the line because in the game it is. People are trying to kill each other, you’re trying to kill others or you’re playing for a big sporting event or something like that.

But it’s actually the other chemicals that are more then adrenaline. One of those is endorphins. Endorphins are released when, it’s like what we call the “runners’ high” it’s a pain killer. You can get addicted to it. Those are released when you win or accomplish something in the game. It’s kind of like when you’re playing to get to the next level.

Each time you get to that next level you’re brain is kind of pinging out endorphins. You want more and more and more and you need to be able to accomplish more in the game to get those endorphins. But the big Grandaddy of the bio chemicals that your brain releases is dopamine.

Dopamine is the same chemical that is released when you take crack cocaine. In one publication that I read said “you don’t think that games or crack. You’re brain thinks they are because of the chemicals that are being released. So for some people that play and it’s not every one just like gambling doesn’t do it for everyone. They put one quarter in the slot machine and they crank it, they lose, and they are like “this is stupid, I’m never going to play again!” Other people put one quarter in the slot machine, the lose and they are like “let me do one more quarter.”

Rick Green: “It’s those positive thinkers like me! I know I can win! I know I can!”

Thomas Umstattd: That’s right! They are like “oh, just a little bit more.” That’s kind of like how it is with gaming actually. “Just a little more! Just one more level! Just five more minutes!” I think many parents know what that is like when their children are playing. “Oh, Mom! I’m almost done! Please let me stay on!” It’s really hard as a parent to say; “No, you have to get off now!” when the game kind of has the child in bondage.

Rick Green: You said something in your lecture that was so true that I have experienced with my own kids. That was if you don’t that this is like a drug then try to try taking the controller away before they’ve been able to save the game. It’s like you just blew up some body’s house! It’s a big deal!

Thomas Umstattd: Right! Because their whole body is waiting for that and as soon as they get to an accomplishment point that is when the bio chemicals are released. It’s like taking a cigarette out of some body’s mouth half smoked. They’re like “UH!” or right before they smoke it. Their bodies are anticipating it and their whole body is getting ready. But even more then the chemical addiction there is also an emotional addiction that can happen with some games. The worst additive wise are called “Massive Multi Player On line Games.”

These are, like, “World to War Craft” and “Ever Quest” and Room Scape. In these games it has everything that the other games have and it has the com-potent of being on line with a whole bunch of people where you can take on this role as being an elf or a wizard or something like that and you are competing and playing with real people. When you are not playing the game still plays with out you.

So what happens is we have this longing for significance and for greatness. Especially men. We want to go and conquer the world. We want to make a change and a difference. What these games do is offer an artificial substitute for that.

You can become great in the game and the other people playing the game will respect you because of your powers and they will go to you for help and when you fight you are beating real people so I think that is what really sucks people in because the more time you spend the playing the game the less time and energy you have to invest in becoming great in real life.

So the greater you become in the game the less great you become in real life and it sucks you in and before to long you’re living like the guy who lived across the hall from me. And you are spending as little of your life as possible in this virtual world.

Rick Green: So it is another world and it’s a real escape. I’ve talked to people who whatever they were doing for they’re day job was quiet boring so they felt like they weren’t really contributing and they needed that escape. They got that escape into the game and, man, once you get there and it feels good and you’re enjoying it. It is very addictive for all the reasons that you mentioned.
So how should we deal with this? Should our kids just go off cold turkey?

Thomas, before we get into how to deal with it and what are the alternatives and how do you feel the void talk to me about how just generational. How different is it for your generation? And the type of people that we are losing to this world of digital gaming. When you say 60, 70, 80 hours a week is that a one person situation or do you see that over and over again?

Frankly, 20 hours a week or 10 hours a week someone your age who is going to become a leader, what all could they do with those extra hours? You would have an extra 10, 30, or even 60 hours to prepare and train yourself for leadership.

Thomas Umstattd: When I start my talks I ask the question: “What is the average age for gamers?” Everyone is, like, um… maybe 8 or maybe 12 years old so they are thinking young but according to Electronic Software Association the common age is 33 years old.
Rick Green: You’re kidding me!

Thomas Umstattd: I’m not kidding. That is the organization that kind of knows everything there is to know about entertainment and software. They are the experts. What they have found is that it’s not just a young person thing. It is “younger” then people who were baby boomers who don’t play as much as generation X and generation Y.

Rick Green: I mean 33! You’re talking about the age where your family ought to be your number one priority. What are you doing for the Kingdom? You know, what are you doing in your career? What are you doing to impact the cultural. And instead you’re playing whatever you call those games. You are spending your time in a fake world.

Thomas Umstattd: That’s right. There is an organization on line, and I laughed when I first started doing research, I was, like, this can’t be real. But then I joined and it broke my heart. The call themselves “Gamer Widows” there are also “World to War Widows” “Ever Quest Widows”, we’re talking thousands upon thousands of women who feel like they have lost their husbands or their wives, because it is men, too, though gaming. They have gotten divorces. Their families have been broken or where it’s like they are divorced but they actually aren’t. Their husbands no longer talk to them. He only goes to work, comes home and plays the game and doesn’t interact with the children.

I have read stories that just break my heart. There was one woman who went though a very difficult pregnancy and her husband basically wasn’t there at all during the pregnancy to help her and her parents had to come in from out of town to help because she was on bed rest while her husband was with his game. She said that now her son was 2 years old and he has spent maybe 10 hours of quality time with his father….ever.

The dad isn’t even working because he lost his job because he couldn’t stop playing so the mom is having to support the child and the husband and herself just like she is a single mom. It just breaks my heart. What do you do when you’re in that situation?

Rick Green: I have no doubt. You have told me enough stories on here to know that it is real to that extreme and not just a few isolated cases but that it is actually an epidemic out there but that it is also real for the guys that aren’t spending 80 hours a week just 2 or 3 or 4 hours a night which is still going to add up to be 10, 12, 15 hours a week. Think of the things that you could be doing with that time not to mention what it is doing to your schedule.
I’m saying this because I have been there. That is why I think that this is so real and why it is so important to me. I had to make a decision. Let’s just go to what we should be doing and how to solve this.

Probably about 5 years ago I had to make a decision that I could not spend that much time playing these games and I, frankly, could not play for even 1 hour a week because I wanted to complete the game and it takes longer then that to do that.

So I had to decide. Was I going to spend time with my kids and raise them and be the best dad that I could be and try to be effective out there in effecting the cultural and in order to do that I gave up something that most guys my age enjoy doing. I had to go cold turkey. Thomas, I couldn’t just say I’m just going to play a little bit. I had to get rid of the games. I had to say “no, more!” Is that the best way to do it?

Thomas Umstattd: It can be. That’s how it was for me. I was pretty addicted before God kind of got my attention. I finally had to say, because for me I didn’t really have a family in the way that you did but it was coming between me and my relationship with the Lord. He deserves to be #1 in our affection. We are told to “Love the Lord God with all of thy heart and with all of thy soul and with all of thy strength.”

God wasn’t getting all of that. He was getting the portion that wasn’t going to gaming. He was getting the portion of my strength that wasn’t going to gaming and the portion of my soul that wasn’t going to gaming. What I thought about when I wasn’t gaming was gaming. What I talked to my friends about was gaming. It really started to consume my life. I was, like, man, Jesus gave everything for me. He deserves everything that I have to give back to Him. God really convicted me that it was a sin.

Rick Green: It sounds to me that you are saying that just like football or anything else can become it became a god. You were putting something before Him.

Thomas Umstattd: It did. That is one of the things that is difficult about idolatry. Things that aren’t bad, inherently, can still become gods. Like church activities. Those are good but for some people that is their entire life. It completely distracts them from the actual God, Jesus Christ, who they had given their life too. Work and food, all of these things can be the same way.

So, it depends. Some people can play in moderation and some people can’t. One of the challenges is is say you’re a parent and you have two children. One is totally into gaming. It’s all they wanted to do. If you let them play as much as they wanted to they would probably play until they fell asleep every night. That would be their life.

Then you have another child who would rather play outside. He might play a little bit here and there but it’s not really their passion. So the one child could probably play more than the first child but the challenge is is that you let the one who doesn’t have the struggle play and the other one is, like, “why does he get to play?” you know?

Paul talked about this when he was talking about eating meat turning into an idol. You know, if you’re eating causes your brother to stumble don’t eat meat. Be a vegetarian. If that is what it takes to keep from leading your brother into sin.

Rick Green: Well, what do you recommend to families. Here I am I have 4 kids. I have an 11 year old, an 8 year old, and on down and for me it became obvious to me that my oldest son was just like me in terms of wanting to play all of the time. Frankly, I listened to your lecture several weeks ago in anticipation of this interview and for about a month now we’ve shut it down, cold turkey. No games. We’ve cut all of that stuff out. In fact, all that we are doing for media is movie night one night a week. And, man, we’ve been blessed. It has been, on so many levels, a huge blessing.

Is that the best way to go? or is that to extreme? I know some people would say that that is to much but what do you recommend?

Thomas Umstattd: Well, I think that the treatment needs to fit the addiction or what the problem is. I think, that in many cases that can be very very fruitful to really cut it off. I know, one of my fondest memories as a family, because we had the same struggles with the television so every once in a while we would get rid of the TV and just read as a family. Looking back at my childhood, I loved that! We read all of these great books and so I think that can be very helpful but what is really important and this is a principle that I emphasize in my talk is that it is a lot easier to get the PlayStation out of the house then out of your child’s heart.

So one of the things that I did was put a one hour talk that goes though all of the dangers of digital gaming up on my web-site for free for people to watch and that they can have their children watch so that they can understand that mom is not being this mean ogre that is trying to take away their fun. It’s allot easier for a parent to say; “here is an Xbox don’t bother me.”

It’s loving to say; “this is destroying your life I can see the symptoms.” So one thing that I would encourage parents to do is to cgames.com, my web-site and to watch that video with their children and then discuss it and ask them what they think. I found in my family after I started giving this talk my youngest brother is basically scared to death of games now. They play a little bit but they are, like, “AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

Rick Green: (laughs) I agree with you 100% and I think that that is the best thing to do. So, Thomas, what do you feel the void with?

Thomas Umstattd: That is a great question because we need an adventure. That void, God gave us the desire for risk and for danger so that we would advance His Kingdom. Doing great things for the Kingdom is risky and it’s dangerous and it takes a lot of work and a lot of those same things that we were made to do and that we enjoy doing and in the game we are simply doing that in an artificial way. Really working with your child to help him or her find their calling. For me it was pretty generic of sharing the gospel.

I quit gaming and a couple of weeks later I heard this guy called Mark Cahill talk about sharing the gospel and I was, like, “I have gotta do this!” So me and a friend started just going to the mall, talking to complete strangers about Jesus and their need for repentance. That was scary! It was hard! My adrenaline was rushing and it forced my to pray more and it totally reorientated my life and my way of making myself happy to pleasing God. That is really, I think, the key thing with gaming. With a lot of these idols we want to make ourselves happy first, that is the #1 goal in our life instead of glorifying God first.

Rick Green: Yeah, and the other thing that you told me before is that you got very involved with Speech and Debate, the thrill and the adventure of that. I mean, it’s a challenge and it gave you the competition and a place to make a difference. I’ve seen you perform at Patriot Academy and you’re ability to influence issues and things and to me that is the cultural difference. I know that there are allot of guys out there like you who have the talent that you have and that God has blessed with ability to do these things and we’re losing them to this gaming thing because instead of them spending that time preparing influence on the cultural they are just lost in this gaming world.

That is why I wanted to do this show today because I know that there are parents out there who see that in their kids. There are young people in college and even people my age right now who are dealing with this. Take that 10 hours a week you’ve been using to game and take that time to develop a skill and influence the cultural. Imagine, Thomas, if everyone did that, spent that 10 hours a week sharing the gospel like you’re doing, campaigning for candidates that stand for righteousness, what a difference we’d make!

Thomas Umstattd: That’s right. That’s my dream. That is why I’m advocating this. My goal is to see thousands of young men risen up off the virtual battle field and thrust into the real battle field of advancing the Kingdom of Jesus Christ into every culture.

Rick Green: Oh, man! I love it! That is the perfect closing!

Links

• Online Gamers Anonymous
• cgames.com

Transcript

Welcome, in this episode we are going to be listening to a talk that I gave at the West Austin Rotary Club on September 5th, 2007. This will provide a good overview of many of the dangers of digital gaming. Unfortunately I didn’t start my recorder right at the beginning of the talk so we have to catch it part way though. Alright, let’s get started!

He had been playing games all day. Basically he would wake up and he would play in the morning and the afternoon. He started playing this game called War to World Craft and he stopped going to class. He stopped going to work. He stopped going to the cafeteria. In fact, he stopped doing anything but playing the game.

After a while he just disappeared from school because he knew that he was failing all of his classes. Unfortunately, Danial, is not at all an isolated instance. There are organizations on line called “World to War Craft Widows.” When I saw these organizations I didn’t take them seriously. I was like, “what on earth?”

But together they have over 10,000 members. These are who feel like they have lost their husbands because their husbands are horribly addicted to video gaming or computer gaming. The stories that they share break my heart. They get married. They’re happily married and then say, their husbands go off to war and he starts playing. He comes back a different person. He’s playing the game 80 hours a week. He doesn’t want to talk with her. He doesn’t want to have any sort of conversations. These marriages are crumbling and these women are getting divorced. It’s a tragic story.

We’re like; “Where are these people? Why haven’t I seen them?” The thing is is when someone is playing for 80 hours a week they are invisible to society. They might work or they may not but we don’t see them. It’s not like gambling where there’s a foreclosure sign in the front yard and we can detect it economically. Still it’s destroying families in a very similar way that gambling is. Many parents and grandparents don’t feel equipped to help their children though this issue.

Who here is more technically savvy than their children. We have a handful. That’s normally about what I get. For me growing up, I was the IT guy. I was the one who fixed the computer. I was the one who built the computers and tried to convince my parents that it really was time to get another computer. My parents had no idea what gaming had become in my life because I was able to mask it from them. I was able to make it look like I was doing things that where productive.

My goal today is to inform you of some of the dangers of video gaming so that you as parents and grandparents can know more about the issue and make correct and informed decisions with your children.

Now, quickly, I’m going to start on the groundwork. Pretty much what we all agree on. So far most of the discussion on gaming has been on content. One of those content issues is that games objectify women. You don’t have to play a video game for very long to know that women, in the game, are kind of turned into objects of lust. They wear very little clothing and they are very much so disproportional.

It’s amazing when you have 20 year old guys that have the ability to create their own woman and put her in the game. She doesn’t look like most average women. Also gaming tends to glamorize crime. There is this game called “Thief” where the players are often children. These children take on the role of a thief and the goal of the game is to rob nobles, to rob tombs, to rob whatever.

So we’re glamorizing crime as well and also violence.

I’m sure I don’t need to convince you that games are violent. I’m sure you’ve heard it on the media because that’s what we’ve been talking about. Here is a picture of Jeanette Loise Clairmont she’s French and she’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the oldest person on record. She lived to be a 120 years old. Until she was a 119 she smoked everyday of her life. I use this example because it’s often portrayed in the media that everybody that smokes gets lung cancer and dies, especially if they smoke for a long time. But that’s not true. She’s just one example of someone who died with a perfectly good set of lungs in the grave.

But just because lung cancer doesn’t kill everyone doesn’t mean it doesn’t kill anyone. This is true with gaming as well. Just because some people don’t get addicted doesn’t mean that no one gets addicted. Another thing about games is when you play them on line the content gets worse. You may of purchased a game for your child. You checked it out and read the reviews on line. It looked like a pretty good game so you got if for him.

The problem is is when you take that game on line other players introduce new lines of content and advertisements for sexually explicit websites or sexually explicit encounters. There is a lot of cussing. They try to put filters on the games but as a gamer I know that gamers are more clever then the filters and able to get around them.

Another thing with content is something called an “Easter Egg. and a “mod.” An “Easter Egg” is a part of the game that is hidden from the radars and the parents and usually only gamers can find them. Sometimes that is something hidden by the programmers like a picture of the programmers and their names. Other times it is something that is very sexually explicit and very graphic. There have been games that have lost their rankings because these “Easter Eggs” where revealed and someone took it to the media.

These are the rankings that the have for games right now. When they started when the Electronic Rating Board was started they wanted to use the Hollywood system because everyone knows it but Holly Wood said absolutely “No!” So they said that’s fine. We’ll just change the letters. Instead of “G” for General it was “E” for “Everyone.” Instead of “R” for “Restricted” it’s “M” for “Mature.”

When you’re picking out games based on content these are somethings to look at. But that is not what I’m here to talk to you about. Most of you are already familiar with content. You’ve heard it in the media, you’ve heard it in the press.

The thing that is a more dangerous problem is the addiction. That is what I’m going to be talking about. One of the things that makes gaming addictive is the chemicals that are released by the brain. Researchers have just recently began to study what goes on in the brain when people are playing. They had people play while they where plugged into an EGI and they found out that the human mind lights up like a Christmas tree when they’re playing games. They are just beginning to understand what all goes on in there.

One of the thing that happens is adrenaline is released. Adrenaline, especially for young guys like me is really addictive. We will do just about anything to get an adrenaline rush. In fact so much adrenaline is released that the American Medical Society does not consider it a sedentary activity like watching TV. They did studies that show that you heart is beating 20% faster. You’re breathing like 15% faster. You’re taking in more breath because the game is putting you physiologically in an arena where it’s like life of death. Winning or losing. That adrenaline is flooding though your body even though you’re just sitting at a computer.

This is why you can’t understand why your young people are playing for so long and why they love it so much. For me as a gamer one of the things we used to do was compare the adrenaline with a whole bunch of caffeine that amplifies that buzz that we get from adrenaline. Caffeine gets the heart beating even faster. This alone is pretty addictive but it is not the only chemical released. Another chemical released is endorphins.

If you ever go running and you have a good feeling after you go running, it’s called the “runners high” it’s because your body is releasing endorphins. They trigger the same parts of your brain that opium does. Opium is a pain killer and it’s addictive. It’s good because we get it when ever we achieve something. In the game you get to go higher up and higher up and your brain is releasing constantly releasing endorphins.

They did a study where they took some children that had just had sugary. They gave them game boys right after surgery to play while they where recovering. Then they took another group of children and did not give them game boys. They found that the children with no game boys needed half as much pain killer and that they asked for half as much pain killer as the ones who did not have the game boys. Because they had painkilling endorphins flooding though their bodies.

But the most addictive chemical by far is dopamine.

Dopamine is the chemical released when you’re having sex. It’s the chemical released when you’re taking cocaine. It is extremely addictive. To show you how addictive it is let me read you a quote from PC magazine which is a pro-gaming, they say; “It turns out that playing video games activates the Bengali portion of the brain. The region that releases dopamine. This is the region of the brain that is affected by cocaine. The problem is is that this means that there is less dopamine available when the child needs to perform other less enjoyable task such as homework. Video games are not like cocaine but you’re brain thinks that they are cocaine. If you doubt that try to take the controllers out of my son’s hands before he reaches the safe point.”

Can any of you relate to that. You try to get them to stop playing but they just will not release the controller? The problem is is when they’re playing video games it releases the chemicals so that they have less chemicals to function in real life. Our body where created to release dopamine as a thing to encourage us to achieve greatness, to go on and to take risks and accomplish things. What happens is that it gets drained out of our bodies so we have a generation of young people who are performing poorly academically. SAT scores are lower this year than they have been in 10 years and every one is trying to figure out why?

There are many reasons why. I’m not going to say that gaming is the only reason but I will say that gaming is contributing because I see the effects as a student and as a young person I see effects on wanting to study hard and to work hard amongst my peers.

However, that is not the only way that gaming can be addictive. They can also be emotionally addictive. Dale Carnegie in his book “How To Win Friends and Influence People.” It’s a great book. It’s been out for 70 years. It talks about how we are all motivated by the desire to be significant. That feeling of significance comes from different places.

In a video came you become significant. You aren’t playing for a high school football game you’re playing for the Super Bowl. You’re not trying to rescue a cat out of a tree you’re saving the world. Or if you’re playing Star Wars the Galaxy you in a matter of moments can become a master general or a warrior. You become significant. The most addictive types of games. The games you play on line. The ones that never stop you’re not only significant in the game but you’re also significant before other humans with whom you’re competing with. They say; “Oh, wow! You’re level 50 wizard. You are very powerful! We respect you.”

This may sound silly to us but this is why people like my friend were playing for 80 hours a week. The thing is is that the more time we invest in becoming great and significant in the game the less time we have to invest life and passion in real life. You have all walked the path of greatness and you know that getting there is not an easy path.

You have to work, you have to struggle, you have to face real difficulties, and real struggles and you have to overcome that. Gaming allows you to shortcut that. In gaming you get to skip the difficult path to greatness. All you have to do is turn on the computer or the Xbox and BOOM! You are great! You are powerful! You are respected! This is why they become so addictive.

Another problem with gaming is that inherently nepotistic. The reason we play is to make ourselves happy and to give ourselves pleasure. That’s not a bad thing but what happens when someone really gets into gaming it becomes the only thing that they shoot for. Their whole life is consumed for living for their own pleasure, their own happiness. Of all the great and wonderful things they could shoot for they are really just shooting their arrows and putting them back into their quivers. They are choosing to not try at all.

This is a tragedy that is plaguing my generation. I’m seeing it on the ground floor. When we come before parent’s or grandparents we rattle off all of these things that we are wanting to do but very often we are not doing anything to make those dreams come about into a reality.

Now this is not to say that happiness is not a bad thing, far from it. Happiness is the natural by product of a life well lived but there is so much more to life than happiness. It’s like living our lives to eat. Is food important? Yes! But there is so much more to life than just living to feed ourselves.

One of the major frustrations it that gaming does not fill that hunger. You are not actually significant, you are just artificially significant. What that means is that, the people I see that are gamers are not happy. They are entertained and they are amused but they aren’t actually happy because they aren’t actually accomplishing anything. They aren’t actually a powerful warlock or a powerful elf. Instead he is really just a guy sitting at his computer playing.

They laugh, no one understood it when I was in it. They would say “it’s just a TV screen or it’s just a computer game. How on earth could you become so involved?” But once you are inside it is your entire life. It tends to consume your motivations and your longings.

So now what? Is the answer to just shoot the TV and get rid of the Xbox? From my experience it is much easier to get the Xbox out of your house than to get the Xbox out of your child’s heart. You see if they really are addicted. If they actually do have a chemical addiction it’s like taking all of the alcohol out of the house of the alcoholic’s. It might be helpful but if they haven’t chosen themselves to go to Alcoholic’s Anonymous and to get sober they are not going to get sober. It’s the same way with gaming.

That’s why I’m here to help parents. I have a book, it’s called “PlayStation Nation” it was written by some parents who walked with their children though it and it had all of their struggles outlined in it. I also have a DVD of this talk that you can show your gamers if that is what they need. It is also available on line.

I’m also writing a book about this as well because I’m wanting people to realize that gaming is not harmless fun. It’s like drinking alcohol, it can be healthy in small doses but it can also be very harmful. So my suggestion for you is to help your children or the gamer if your life because many of them are much older, help them say “yes” to something else.

For me something that really helped was I got rid of my PC. I got a Mac. Macs don’t do games very well. They don’t! But they do just about everything else. If you want to do a pod cast or a movie or graphic art or a website, Macs, which also run Microsoft allows you to your homework and to do creative productive things on your computer without all of the destructive things.

So in conclusion, are all games bad? They aren’t necessarily evil but they are dangerous. They are a lot like alcohol. If any of you have been in and gone though Alcoholic’s Anonymous you know that often times people don’t understand what a bondage it can have. People are like, “it’ just a glass of wine.” You’re like, “no, this is not just a glass of wine! This is my life! This is what I’m living for.”

Actually the reason many people drink is the same reason that many people game. Moderation. Take wine, in moderation it can be very good for you. It has a whole long list of health benefits but if it isn’t taken in moderation it can destroy your whole entire life and gaming is that same way.
So does any one have some questions?

Audience: “The man that played for 80 hours a week; was he married?”

Thomas: “The answer is sometimes. Sometimes the people that do play for 80 hours a week are married. It’s just tragic. Sometimes they’ll even quit their jobs so that they can play more. Then their wife is working and actually supporting their habit. Sometimes the wife will get a divorce or their girl friend will break up with them. It’s very detrimental.

I read a story on line about a man who had stopped his job to play and his wife went though this horrible pregnancy with all of these complications and he was so glued to his computer that he wouldn’t help her. She was on bed rest so her parents had to come in from out of town to help her. When this woman wrote the story she said: “My son is now 2 years old and he has spent maybe 10 hours of quality with his father.” So, yes, sometimes they are married, sometimes they get divorced but it’s just tragic when it gets to that point.”

Audience: “So someone is often times the enabler?”

Thomas: “Yes. We really need to start viewing this as we would alcohol and we need to deal with it with the same amount of tact and diplomacy as we would acohol.”

Audience: “When did you ever see the your problem?”

Thomas: “It really was a journey. God really brought a lot of conviction

because it was coming between my relationship with Him. So that He really triggered my conscience. I really struggled with a verse that said: “When I was a child I spoke as a child and acted like a child but when I became a man I put away childish things.” That got all of the gears in my head turning. I was like; “Wow! I want to be a man. I have this longing to be a man of God and this is totally keeping me in the realm of childishness.

Also doing things such as Speech and Debate, that was very challenging and very difficult and very scary and it required a lot of time so it pulled me away from gaming because I didn’t have time. I was doing this other thing now so I had a bigger “yes” in my life. Now for a younger person that might be difficult. It might even be something as simple as Little League baseball. You know you get them playing Little League and suddenly they’re outside, they’re active, they’re making friends and if they are good at it they will really catch on to it and pursue something besides video games.”

Audience: “What is a healthy amount of time to play on the computer?

Thomas: “Some people they can only drink one glass of wine and they are having trouble finding the door, others can knock down a whole bottle of wine and they are just fine (or at least they say they are) so it really just depends on the child. You want to look for triggers or clues. Are they choosing gaming before they do anything else? When ever they have free time is it their number one choice all of the time? That is a give away that it might be a problem.

Another thing is what are they wanting to talk to their friends about? Are they a balanced child? Are they wanting to talk about all sorts of things? or is it pretty much games all of the time? For me as a gamer it was games all of the time. I looked for friends who were gamers too so that I could talk to them about games. Our conversations would be telling each other stories of the games we had played. I’m not kidding! This is what we would talk about how we couldn’t wait till the next newest game would come out. But as parents you are the one that gets to make that decision.”

Audience: “Is there a Gamers Anonymous?”

Thomas: “I’ve actually started a website cgames.com that will provide that resource to gamers. There is also an on line gamers anonymous that provides that. We don’t have local chapters yet. Because this is so much a part of our society it’s not viewed as a problem. Who has ever heard someone talk about the dangers of digital gaming before? Right, because pretty much no one is talking about it. We as a society have not yet enacted programs such as AA for gamers. I really would like to help with that. I know I really would of liked to have that when I was a gamer.

Audience: “When do games get bad? When do you differentiate between games and digital interactive programs that help with say math?”

Thomas: “When I played educational games there were two types of educational games. There were the games that were made by actually game companies that hired a couple of teachers to get it by the parents and you didn’t actually really learn anything. And then there were the games made by teachers that hired a couple of game designers to get it by the kids. So you either had the fun games or the educational games.

Now I don’t really know, I haven’t played any math video games for quiet a while. Some games such as typing games have gaming elements but they are still very good. My experience is, and I’ve played a lot of educational games, my parents kept trying to get me to play the educational ones instead of the regular ones but I didn’t learn very much and they weren’t as fun as the other ones. My point of view, from a gamers perspective was that they were sold to the parents more that they were the actually gamers.”

Thomas: “You can there are a couple of games such as the one that he is talking about such as World to War Craft and 2nd Life where you will do things in the game to make money and then you could go on eBay and sell the game money for real money. There are a lot of things that you can make money and not help humanity improve. I’m not going to say that everyone who plays games is harming society. There are a lot of people that do that and it takes a lot of commitment and but it’s still not like working a real job as far as the amount of money that you will get back for most people.”

Audience: “What is the breakdown between male vs female?”

Thomas: “There is a breakdown. It’s a lot like alcohol but even more so. Men play a lot more than women and they play longer than women. If you look at people who play games it’s about even but then if you see how long they play the men play a lot more. Women might play solitaire for 30 minutes while many of the guys will play for hours upon hours. Now that is not totally true. There are many stories of women who get sucked in as well. On the Widows or Widowers groups there are many men who are “widowed” as well. But for the most part the worst cases are normally men. I have many theorys as to why that is. It might just be because we are geekier then the ladies or something like that.

This is Thomas Umstattd Junior and thank you for listening.