As the first person to coin the phrase “technological addiction” in the mid-nineties, it’s fair to say that Dr. Mark Griffiths was way ahead of the curve when it came to predicting the potential impact technology could have on society. The world-renowned psychologist is a Distinguished Professor at Nottingham Trent University’s School of Social Sciences, as well as the Director of their International Gaming Research Unit, which was established to, amongst other things, discover and understand attitudes toward potentially addictive behaviours in gaming. And with an estimated 33 million gamers in the UK – almost half the population – we caught up with Dr. Griffiths to find out what it actually means to be addicted to video games...
How do you determine whether or not someone is addicted to gaming?
You can speak to fifty psychologists and we’ll all give you a different answer of what it is to be addicted. I’ve used the same definition since 1995 in a paper called Technological Addictions, which is when I first laid out what I call my components model of addiction. I believe that all addictions comprise six components, and if any behaviour fulfills those I would define that person as addicted to that activity, whether it’s gaming, gambling, sex or eating.
What are the six components in relation to video games?
The first is salience: “This is the most important thing in my life, this is an activity that I will do to neglect everything in my life, and even if I’m not actually doing the activity, I’m thinking about doing it. So I’m totally preoccupied.” The second is mood modification, which is when you use the activity as a way of modifying your mood either to get buzzed up, high, aroused, excited, or the exact opposite, to escape, de-stress or relax. The third is tolerance, which is the idea that we need more and more of an activity to get those same initial mood modifying effects – so somebody that started off playing video games for an hour or two per day will build up to where they’re playing twelve or fourteen hours a day.
The fourth component is withdrawal symptoms. If you are genuinely addicted to an activity or substance, when you are unable to engage in that activity, you will experience the shakes, headaches, nausea, stomach cramps and, on a psychological level, you will feel increased irritability and frustration. The fifth component is the most important one: conflict. This is where an activity is so conflicting in a person’s life that they neglect their job or education, their loved ones, family and friends. They also experience what I call intrapsychic conflict – a conflict within yourself. They know that they’re doing this activity too much, and should probably cut down or stop, but feel unable to do so and experience a subjective loss of control. Finally, you’ve got relapse. Even if you’ve managed to give up for a number of days, weeks, months of years, when you’re starting to engage in the activity again you go straight back into the addictive cycles you were in before.
How widespread is gaming addiction?
By my definition, very few people fulfil those six components to be considered genuinely addicted. There are people out there who engage in problematic aspects to do with gaming without being addicted. Every week I get emails, usually from women, saying that my husband or boyfriend is addicted to playing games, because as soon as he comes home from work he spends six hours playing video games and completely ignores me. While that person might be gaming excessively, if you can go to work for your eight-hour day, you’re quite clearly not addicted.
People can become addicted to even the simplest of games. I would say that there were people out there who were clinically addicted to Tetris
Is there a specific type of game that those who fulfill those six components tend to become addicted to?
Most research shows that traditionally it’s been online multiplayer games like League of Legends where we’ve seen people at the problematic end of the spectrum. One thing I’ve said with my research is that people can become addicted to even the simplest of games. I would say that there were people out there who were clinically addicted to Tetris, although they were few and far between. The thing with online games is that they never end, so you do get that fear of missing out. With a game that’s going on for 24 hours, you’ve got to be offline for twelve hours because you’ve got to sleep and do other things. So it’s the online element, rather than the genre of the game, that’s most important.
In your experience, what has been the biggest change in academic research into gaming addiction?
Just the sheer increase in the amount that’s going on worldwide now. In the nineties, about 90% of the papers published on gaming addiction came from me – it was just not something that was particularly looked at. I was the first person to publish a paper on online gaming in 2003, and over the last ten years it has multiplied by such an extent that you’ve now got research on gaming disorder in almost every Westernised country. When I think back to 1995, my team’s main research areas were gambling addiction, gaming addiction and internet addiction, but they have all kind of come together now.
What are your thoughts on the professionalisation of gaming?
I think it’s probably harder to become a professional video game player than to become a professional footballer. A football team needs a squad of thirty players, whereas to become the world’s best Fortnite player, it’s going to be much harder. Things like the Fortnite World Cup have legitimized children to tell their parents that they want to be professional gamers. It’s interesting, because if you’re a professional gamer, it’s not unusual to spend twelve or fourteen hours a day gaming, because it’s their job. People will ask if they’re addicted but, for me, they’re not addicted to gaming, they’re addicted to their job. It’s like an Olympic athlete being addicted to exercise because they’re doing it for twelve hours a day.
Are you a gamer?
I remember playing Space Invaders in amusement arcades back in the late seventies. I grew up as a gamer, and spent hours and hours playing Donkey Kong, and I’m still a gamer. My kids started playing video games when they were three; I’m not anti-gaming in the slightest.
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