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by Joking_Phantom
2201 days ago
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The title of this submission should be changed to reflect the content of the paper - it neither talks about gaming in general, nor does it imply that video game achievement is false. To clarify, this study focuses solely on "problematic gamers," a categorization that is still under flux, and also depends on other diagnoses that are also not well formalized, or require rigorous examination of a patient’s life beyond what is normally required for mental illnesses that are more apparent. Neither does it state that video games give a false sense of achievement. It only observes the prevalence of achievement and challenge as a self identified motivating factor for why problematic gamers continue to play games, despite knowingly suffering from functional impairment. |
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Understanding the factors behind video gaming as a problematic behavior separate from addiction is quite useful. Oftentimes, video games and other behaviors are driven by needs satisfaction, rather than physiological dependence. The needs for community, social activity, for achievement, purpose, and other commonly recognized human needs are often partially or fully satisfied incidentally by maladaptive behaviors. Moreover, even in cases of physiological dependence or behavioral addiction, other factors still come into play that encourage the behavior.
We constantly hear from drug addicts and alcoholics, that part of their push-pull factor is the community of other users that they identify with and receive support from, social aspects of their negative behavior, etc. It's not enough to counter their physiological dependence on the stimulation itself - their other needs that were previously satisfied by the activity, must be satisfied by other means, or relapse becomes much more likely.
Spending too much time on the phone, computer, internet, video games, drugs, social media, news, books, etc. There are a myriad of behaviors that can be excessively performed by individuals, to the harmful neglect of their other needs. Today’s world is more full than ever of dangerous and maladaptive behaviors - this is one ail that technology has almost certainly contributed to, with or without ill intent. Though education and institutions to help maladaptive individuals are certainly ways to help, it is difficult to say if they can completely solve this problem, or if it is a price we have to pay in order to continue the upwards progress of technology as a whole. To be clear, technology has only lowered the barrier to people neglecting themselves. The root causes have always been there to some degree.