The DSM is widely recognised as the standards manual defining mental disorders. It provides diagnostic criteria for mental disorders and is used by researchers, doctors, health insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies and policy makers. It has been revised five times since it was first published in 1952, updating existing disorders and adding and removing new and redundant disorders. The CSAPH's recommendation to encourage the inclusion of video game addiction in the upcoming DSM was followed up by the AMA in June 2007, and, in response, the APA stated that "if the science warrants it, this proposed disorder will be considered for inclusion in the DSM-V, which is due to be published in 2012."
GameSpot AU contacted the APA and received the following statement in regards to video game addiction and the 2012 edition of the DSM: "There is no way to state specifically whether or not the issue of video game addiction will or will not be included [in the DSM of 2012]. What we can say is that our workgroups are considering all issues, new science and research as they are continuing work on the DSM-V."
A need for research
Studies into video game addiction are scarce. However, the increased recognition of the issue amongst the scientific community means more and more researchers are beginning to look seriously at video game addiction. Daniel Loton, an ethics officer and former psychology honours student from Victoria University, used his thesis to explore the relationship between social capacity and problematic video gameplay to try to determine the cause of video game addiction. Loton used the Social Skills Inventory (SSI), a broad scale that measures basic social skills, to survey 560 male and 61 female gamers with an average age of 23.4 years. His survey found a very small connection between social capacity (that is, social skills and self-esteem) and video game playing. Given the past research on the topic, Loton said his study yielded surprising results.
"To use the words of the American Medical Association after it had conducted a review of the literature, problem gamers are likely to be...somewhat marginalised socially, perhaps experiencing high levels of emotional loneliness and/or difficulty with real-life social interactions," Loton said. "Considering this past research, I would have expected social skills and self-esteem to drop as problematic play increased. Instead, only a tiny relationship emerged."
The results revealed that basic social capacity is not the central cause of problematic video gameplay. Broadly speaking, no serious negative consequences of playing video games were revealed, even when playing to the extreme. Loton thinks his results may turn attention away from the assumed link between social capacity and problematic video gameplay and direct attention to other characteristics such as behaviour moderation, depression and stress, locus of control (that is, feelings of control one has over one's environment), and arousal (using games to get excited or to relax).
Richard M. Ryan, a psychologist and professor of psychology, psychiatry, and education at the University of Rochester in New York, has been focusing on a different aspect of video game addiction: motivation. Ryan and his team are testing the idea that psychological needs for control, mastery, and connection can be readily satisfied within games.
"People can feel a lot of autonomy and competence during play, and also it can be a place to relate with others, albeit in a virtual context," Ryan said. "We think that this poor self-control, combined with a more impoverished life, leads a subset of players to sink deeply into the gameworld and in time to feel an obsessive need to play. The obsessive player feels he/she has to play, does it too much, and gets less fun and satisfaction out of it. It also crowds out other satisfactions in life, compounding the problem."
Ryan and his team found that when games were played for less than 10 hours a week, there was no evidence of negative effects on wellness; when games were played in excess of 20 hours a week, signs of ill-being emerged--negative mood, symptoms of depression, and more impoverished relationships. The team's studies showed that those who overuse games are getting fewer of their needs satisfied in their lives outside of games.
"We also discovered players who report obsessive attitudes toward games--they are preoccupied with their games, feel compelled to play, and feel tension when they cannot or are not playing. This latter set of players also shows signs of negative effects on psychological functioning."
Ryan thinks the lack of quality research into video game overuse will be rectified with time as games become more sophisticated in the ways they satisfy people’s psychological needs.
“We have a lot of people, some in the media and some in the sciences, who are too ready to make very strong claims about video games, whether we are talking about aggression, addiction, or cultural estrangement, based on very little evidence. I think that is especially how the media often sells stories. Some commentators exaggerate risks, and on the other hand there are defenders of games who deny any and all problems and attack any perceived bad news.
"Games are relatively new in our culture, and such vacillation between hysteria and denial I suspect often greets any new phenomenon, from hip-hop to the Internet to video games. Both sides usually have some part of the truth, but it may be a while before at least we as scientists, much less as a society, have a coherent understanding."
Check back with GameSpot next week for Part Two of our game addiction feature. We'll look at more studies into the issue and what game publishers are saying, and we'll talk to some gamers who consider themseves "addicts." In the meantime, hit the comments below and tell us if you think video games can be a real addiction, whether you know people who have a problem, and more.
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