If a teenager is overly fond of computer games, this is not a reason to drag him to a psychiatrist. In any case, so say scientists from Oxford University. In their opinion, the love of games does not necessarily lead to behavioral problems – rather, it is worth talking about an inverse relationship.
Does what we used to call teenage gambling addiction require medical intervention? Not at all necessary. At least that’s what the results of a joint study between Oxford University and Cardiff University suggest.
Scientists studied data from over 1000 adolescents and their caregivers and found that children who overuse dysfunctional (overly violent) games often have underlying disorders and psychosocial functioning problems – and it is these problems that most likely cause them to look for a certain content, not the other way around.
“The World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association have called on scientists to investigate the clinical relevance of uncontrolled video game cravings among adolescents,” says Professor Andrzej Przybylski, director of research at the Oxford Internet Institute and co-author of the project. “Previous research has not looked at the broader context of what is generally going on in the lives of these young people.
This will be the direction for our future work. Our task is to identify the relationship between the satisfaction of psychological needs and frustration in everyday life in adolescents and their uncontrollable craving for the game.
Gambling is not a clinical disorder
The findings do not support that unhealthy relationships with games lead to significant emotional, interpersonal, and behavioral problems. Differences in play experience and content choice are most likely related to whether adolescents’ needs for competence, autonomy, and social belonging are being met, and whether they experience more global functional problems.
Participants in the control group filled out questionnaires about gaming behavior, which included questions about how much time they spend playing, with whom they play, and whether they use the Internet for this. In addition, parents or other caregivers assessed their emotional and social health.
As a result, the research team came to the following conclusions:
- Most teenagers play at least one online game every day.
- Less than half of these online gamers report symptoms of gambling addiction.
- Teenagers devote quite a lot of time to games – an average of three hours a day.
- It is still not proven that a strong passion for games significantly affects the behavior of adolescents.
It is not the love of computer games itself that “spoils” teenagers, but problems determine the choice of content and game format
“Based on the results of the study, we do not believe that we have enough evidence to attribute gaming to a separate clinical disorder,” Przybylsky emphasizes.
His colleague, Dr Netta Weinstein, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Cardiff University, adds: “In order to understand the nature of gaming obsession, we encourage medical professionals to take a closer look at factors such as psychological satisfaction and everyday frustrations of adolescents.”
“While the growing popularity of games has raised concerns among health care and mental health professionals, our study does not provide conclusive evidence that games themselves are to blame for the problems players face in life,” agrees Professor Przybylski. “In order to understand the issue in more detail, more data and close cooperation with video game companies will be needed.”
So perhaps, contrary to popular belief, cause and effect are reversed. It is not the love of computer games that “spoils” teenagers, but the problems they face in real life and possible addictions determine the choice of content and game format.