Listen to the Episode.

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!

According to the New York Times , Churches all over the country are using video games such as Halo 3 to attract young people. Is this a good idea? What about young people struggling with video game addiction? How should churches reach video gamers? In this episode we talk to former youth leader Ray Wilson about these questions and more.
Links

• Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church (NY Times Article)
• Ray Wilson’s Blog

In this episode we talk with Kimberly S. Young the director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery about the nature of online addiction.

Here are some of questions we discuss:

• What are the symptoms of gaming addiction?
• How do you know if you are addicted?
• How do you help a loved one who is addicted.

Links

• Center for Internet Addiction Recovery
• Breaking the Denial: Confronting a Loved One Addicted to the Internet

Transcript

Welcome to cgames.com podcast. My name is Thomas Umstattd Jr. We’re on the line with Dr. Kimberly Young an internationally known expert on internet addiction and on-line behavior. She is currently the director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery. She is also the author of Breaking Free of the Web, Catholics, and Internet Addictions.

Thomas Umstattd: Dr. Young as a physiologist what is gaming addiction?

Dr. Kimberly Young: Well, one of the things that we’ve been seeing here in the last few years is the growth of gaming addiction which really seems to be people who are staying on line longer than intended, they are people that are very pre occupied with gaming, they are people who will jeopardize relationships, careers, or even sleep to stay on line.
One of the strange things that we’ve seen is that it’s not just young people but also a lot of older adults as well. It seems that the warning signs need to be looked at both for the kids that are doing this and the adults.

Thomas Umstattd: What are some of those effects on those older gamers; like their families and such?

Dr. Kimberly Young: I think that is the thing is that these older gamers or adult gamers are people that are neglecting; you know like parents not spending any time with their children or their doing this at work and maybe getting fired from their jobs. You really start seeing some real cost to this behavior that says this is more than just a hobby or a passing interest. It’s becoming a real problem.

Thomas Umstattd: So why do you think people get addicted to gaming? What are some of the causes would you say?

Dr. Kimberly Young: For a lot of people the games themselves are role playing games. So people can go online and take on another role. That can vary from a very quiet and shy person becoming a dominant warrior in the game. I worked with one sophomore in college. He was really someone who was never seen as a strong guy. His brother was a baseball star. His brother had great grades. His brother was just kind of the all rounded type of guy where as he was kind of the misfit of the family, the one who didn’t fit in but in the game he had a very powerful character. He was very good at it. He led groups, he was in a guild. He led maybe 70 other gamers though these fields. So there is a lot of mental or psychological rewards that come though these games so people can invent part of themselves online and maybe that character that they are playing on line, they like better or that person is just more accomplished at the kind of things that they haven’t been able to achieve in their real life.

Thomas Umstattd: That’s amazing! So people are able to find a significance in the virtual world that they aren’t able to find in the real world.

Dr. Kimberly Young: Yeah, they really can. These characters normally have a lot of symbolic of physiological meaning. People with low self-esteem would be more likely to gravitate towards these games because it feels something that is missing. As I said before, there is that idea of being recognized because it’s not just like a video game where you are enhancing your eye/hand coordination and the game itself like what you would see in an arcade, but you are playing with other people in real time and you have a lot to accomplish and strategize.
It causes simulation as well. It’s a very intellectual process. So you do see wind up seeing people that are very smart but they don’t have fulfillment in their everyday lives so they can go online and fulfill that.

Thomas Umstattd: So what are some of the signs of addictions, if you’re a gamer how can you know when you’re gaming is starting to get out of hand?

Dr. Kimberly Young: Well, pretty much as I was saying. You’re staying online for excessive hours and you become very preoccupied, meaning that when ever you’re off line you’re thinking about the games. Some people will dream about game. I know some college students skip classes just to game or they stay up to all hours of the night and they’re just to tired to go to school the next day or workers will just be to tired to go to work the next day. I mean, there are even some people that are so afraid to leave the games, that they eat at the computer, they don’t bathe, don’t shower, and they just sit there and won’t leave it because they’re afraid something will happen.
And again, we’re talking about something that has gone beyond; “Well, I like playing this for a few hours.” It’s where they’re playing for hours at a time and it is normally at some sort of cost.

Thomas Umstattd: That was good what you said about dreaming. I remember as a gamer, games used to preoccupy my dreams quiet a bit. I thought that I was the only one but I got online and I found out that that is quiet a common side effect for gamers. They’re dreams are just bombarded with dreams of the game itself.

Dr. Kimberly Young: Yes, and another sign too, is just the physical effects too. Gaming for hours and hours and just sitting at the computer people can get back problems from sitting there. They might get carpel tunnel syndrome from clicking on the mouse, they might get eye problems, eye strain. So physically it’s not good to just sit at the computer for a great length of time on a daily bases.

Thomas Umstattd: One of the questions I get a lot in my talks is; “What about people who make money on online games like Second Life or War to War Crafts where you can earn items in the games that you can actually sell for real money on eBay or other web sites. Does that money making potion alleviate any of the dangers of does that strengthen the dangers?

Dr. Kimberly Young: Well, I would think that with the money making it makes it worse in the sense that it can be part of the fulfillment. You can become an enterer and sell property that you can buy things that you need in the games like weapons or World to War crafts. All of this is not profitable and it kind of enhances the whole experience because it’s not just “I can win a battle” anymore it’s “I can also make money off of this.” So it builds on itself and it just enhances the whole experience because if you can get something tangible out of it as well you think that it is justified. “This isn’t an addiction, I’m making off of this. I’m an enterer.” So there is defiantly that way of rationalizing that behavior too.

Thomas Umstattd: What would you give as way of advice to someone who say, her husband is gaming too much of their son is gaming to much? What do you do in that situation when you aren’t the gamer but you’re the loved one of the gamer?

Dr. Kimberly Young: Well, I think that is the hardest role. We get a lot of calls from parents of or spouses of the gamer. They were very despondent. They said; “we don’t know how to stop this behavior for my husband or my child.” You know, the greatest problem is to try to confront any addict. It doesn’t matter if we’re having to deal with alcoholics or gaming addicts. There is not a real sure fire answer. People say; “What am I supposed to do?” I would say that it’s a lot of work to get them to realize that they have a gaming addictions. I know what we do a lot of times is a family intervention where you have to sit down with all your family members, lets say that is dad that is addicted. So the kids, mom, maybe the dad’s parents, you know friends. Anyone who sees the problem and they do a confrontation, if you will, with the addict. Talking about some of the problems caused by this behavior.

Thomas Umstattd: Do you have any resources on how to carry out a family intervention or any advice on the best way to do that?

Dr. Kimberly Young: Well, actually, we do have a booklet on our site at net addictions. com called “Breaking the Denial” and that booklet has step by step guide if you are going to do a family intervention, how to set it up, a good time to talk to the addict, obviously not when they’re at the computer, and maybe the things to try to include when you talk to them and the reactions that you might encounter. I mean, obviously when ever you’re confronting an addict it isn’t just a welcomed opportunity. They might feel defensive and threatened, maybe even angry that you are trying to take away something that they enjoy so much because they don’t see the problems the way you do so it’s kind of an up hill battle sometimes, explaining to them that they are harming themselves.

Thomas Umstattd: Do you recommend for gamers to come off cold turkey or is it better to do a kind of gradual approach?

Dr. Kimberly Young: You know, for myself, what I’ve seen, some really like the gradual approach. I know sometimes kind of the therapy that is involved is just realizing what that game means to that person and upping their motivation to want to quit. A lot of people under therapy don’t really want help. They’re just there because their mom or dad said that they need to come but they don’t really want to stop. The problem is kind of like how do you treat an alcoholic that doesn’t want to quit? Probably not as effectively as someone who says “I have a problem and I want to quit this and get a hold on my behavior.” At least then you have more of a chance. Again it’s the same thing. Gaming addiction isn’t as highly recognized as, we’ve talked about alcoholism, or we’re minimizing it because it doesn’t involve an intoxicating substance that over time could kill you. Where as crack or cocaine or things of that nature would.

So there is a lot of justifications that you have to work though so when I’m talking about treatment, the early phases are not just about the game and stopping the game but about “why are you gaming? What is this doing for you psychologically” And then finding another out look and way of achieving those rewards so that eventually the gamer will say “you know what? I’ve got it! I need to quit!” Then you’ve really had success when the accept it but getting to an acceptance in any addiction is a very difficult process.

Thomas Umstattd: One of the things that I say in my talks is; “it’s a lot easier to take the play station out of your house than it is to get it out of your child’s heart. I think that has a lot to do with it.
Well, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Tell us more about your web site and the resources that it offers.

Dr. Kimberly Young: Well, one of the things for gamers is the “self test.” I know that you asked a couple of times about the criteria. We have a list that defines gaming addiction and a little test that you can take, and also a booklet that talks specifically about gaming as an obsession. It’s geared towards parents, since often their the ones on the front line. We also have some articles, a blog, and a pod cast as well. We want people to be able to get information.

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.

Transcript

Welcome to the very first episode of the cgames.com Podcast. This episode will serve as an overview and introduction to what we will be talking about in this Podcast. We are going to explore the dangers of computer and video gaming. And you are probably thinking video games? Video games, they aren’t dangerous. And for the most part we don’t see games as dangerous as a society.

But digital games can be dangerous and that I exactly what we are going to be exploring throughout this Podcast. We are going to talk with current and former gamers as well as various experts and authors in the field. We are also going to talk with gamer widows and discuss the effect of gaming on families and society in general. This includes a lot more to do than just violence, sex, or other content issues like that. We are going to look at the whole effect of gaming.

My name is Thomas Umstattd Jr. and I am a former gamer and the director of cgames.com. If you have any questions you can contact me on this blog or at my email.