Chicken v. Egg?
Which came first the chicken or the egg? I think this question is easily answered since a chicken could have survived without an egg, while an egg would require incubation (aka: a chicken) to survive. Whatever. No; I am not going to talk about the inherent lameness of video games involving chickens in this posting. Go ahead; exhale a grand sigh of relief.
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.
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Comments
janarius,
Thank you for your insightful comment. I’ve stumbled across your blog a couple times and found it very useful. You really seem to care about maintaining academic accuracy, so let’s address those two objections:
1) The Yee and Ng & Wiemer-Hastings studies.
“You’re inflating the addiction because it’s a self-report measure where a lot of people have different ideas of addiction, so a person’s concept of addiction isn’t considered so for another person.”
Yes; this is one of the problems I pointed out with those two studies. (see problem 2) Like I said, THESE STUDIES ARE FOCUSING ON QUANTITY RATHER THAN QUALITY. You need both to prove a point. Interestingly enough, the Charlton and Danforth study you referenced also used self-reporting questionnaires. We should recognize the limitations of these studies, but that doesn’t mean we should throw them out.
2) The definition of addiction.
This is a REALLY slippery topic. If you read my last post, you’ll know that I accept a much more liberal definition of addiction than most of academia. On the other hand, your definition (or lack thereof) represents one of the most restrictive definitions of addiction that I’ve ever seen:
“So if a person has lost his job, has no contact whatsoever with family members or friends outside cyberspace, thinks only his video game, does not care for personal hygiene and suffers withdrawal symptoms. Then, there is a serious consideration that he could be an addict.”
Really? Then we only have a “serious consideration” that he might be addicted?
Now the next thing I want to point out on this topic is:
“As of now, there are no definitive diagnostic criteria to determine video game addiction.”
A diagnostic criteria and the definition of gaming addiction are two very different things. A diagnostic criteria means that psychiatrists can look from the outside, judge someone, and determine beyond a shadow of doubt whether they are addicted. My purpose in making a definition of addiction is not to look at someone else and say “ok, you’re addicted.” It is to allow people to take this definition and look at themselves or their kids.
At any rate, the point of this post really isn’t addiction alone. It doesn’t matter whether we call it problem game play, addiction, dependence, or exploding head syndrome. Once an activity, even a good activity, interferes with more important activities, it’s probably a good time to stop or cut back.
Could you stop using the Yee and Ng and Wiemer-Hastings studies. You’re inflating the addiction because it’s a self-report measure where a lot of people have different ideas of addiction, so a person’s concept of addiction isn’t considered so for another person. Using time as your measurement of addiction, isn’t good enough to relate to addiction. Seriously, most clinicians would consider an addiction if the activity itself notably disrupt the normal social functioning of a person for an extended period of time. So if a person has lost his job, has no contact whatsoever with family members or friends outside cyberspace, thinks only his video game, does not care for personal hygiene and suffers withdrawal symptoms. Then, there is a serious consideration that he could be an addict. Please see the paper by Charlton and Danforth in Computers in Human Behaviors.
As of now, there are no definitive diagnostic criteria to determine video game addiction. There is no definitive percentage of players that can be considered addicted, the latest rate is around 10%. Just ask Dr. Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University.
There are also several things to consider in addiction, is the process of video game addiction and how it is different from other types of addiction. Have you considered the social aspects of MMORPGs?