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Doctor clarifies MMO addiction research

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Apr 9, 2008 1:16 pm PT

Psychologist says findings of Asperger's traits among hardcore Asheron's Call players have been overly simplified in recent reports.

Last week, the gaming news sites and blogs were saturated with reports of a study that found addicted online gamers displaying traits common among people with Asperger's syndrome. But as is common when in-depth scientific research is boiled down to an abstract, which is then adapted into a press release, which then serves as the basis for sensationalized reports written for an audience that has no explicit scientific interest, some of the finer details may have been lost along the way.

Dr. John Charlton.

GameSpot contacted the psychologist behind the study, the University of Bolton's Dr. John Charlton, to ask a few questions about those finer points. Charlton responded at length and in detail, specifically seeking to clear up a handful of misconceptions and bring up a number of relevant points that didn't survive the news cycle.

"The point about Asperger's was just that the relationships between addiction and the personality characteristics that we examined suggested that [massively multiplayer online role-playing games] might be addictive to people with Asperger's--and I tried to emphasize the 'might' to reporters--since the relationships between the addiction indices we used and the personality traits that we looked at suggested such a possibility," Charlton said.

Charlton looked at a variety of criteria to determine whether or not gamers counted as being addicted. He broke those down into two groups: peripheral criteria, which would be seen in highly engaged (but not necessarily addicted) gamers, and core criteria (a set of traits which should all be present to classify someone as addicted).

Highly engaged gamers will increasingly think about a game, spend more and more time playing it, and get a buzz or sense of excitement from it. Actually addicted gamers would have their lives dominated by a need to play, exhibit unpleasant physical or emotional withdrawal effects if they don't play, increasingly find themselves in conflict with others (or themselves) due to gaming, and be prone to relapsing into old play patterns despite attempts to stop.

In his research, Charlton notes that there is a fine line between the highly engaged and the addicted gamer. Other specific issues he wanted to clarify follow:

a) We didn't target people with Asperger's in our data collection (we collected data from Asheron's Call players in general).

b) We did not classify any of the participants as having Asperger's.

c) The point about Asperger's was just that the relationships between addiction and the personality characteristics that we examined suggested that [massively multiplayer online role-playing games] MIGHT be particularly addictive to people with Asperger's given the properties of both this type of game and the psychological characteristics of people with Asperger's.

d) It would be necessary to conduct specific studies to test whether people with Asperger's syndrome are overrepresented in the population of MMORPG players and whether they are more likely to be classifiable as addicted than other players.

e) In no way can it be said that Asperger's can be caused by game playing (Asperger's is thought to have a biological basis).

f) We are not saying that all people who might be classifiable as addicts have Asperger's.

Charlton and his coauthor Ian Danforth plan to submit their findings for journal publication, but they are still in the process of writing the paper.

91 Comments

  • Santhin

    Posted Apr 21, 2008 6:17 am PT

    Awww, this wasn't sensationalist at all, I might have to turn back to CNN or something to hear someone declare that Mass Effect encourages kids to sleep together so that I can get my quota for ridiculous news for the day.

  • marriage0

    Posted Apr 19, 2008 12:15 pm PT

    heh i love things like this that get blown entirely out of proportion....reminds me of a while ago when there was a murder which got associated with the game "manhunt" because it was found at the scene or something, and apparantly the murder was similar to an action you could preform in the game...what they failed to report was that the game belonged to the victim...

  • heaven_weapon

    Posted Apr 18, 2008 12:35 am PT

    i got a fever and the only prescription is MORE MMO!!!!

  • Citan76

    Posted Apr 17, 2008 3:56 pm PT

    WHOooWHAT???!! The media totally over sensationalized something and also just made stuff about it? That hardly ever happens. The media helped me avoid playing that morally decrepit sex simulator Mass Effect. I never thought they could steer me wrong.

  • PacoL250

    Posted Apr 16, 2008 6:47 pm PT

    Ah finally, a good clarification.

    Good job by GS News.

  • ma6ic

    Posted Apr 16, 2008 7:11 am PT

    GAMESPOT DOES GOOD SCIENCE WRITING!

    (when it can)

    Thank you for the clarification.

  • drummerdude21

    Posted Apr 15, 2008 3:45 pm PT

    Really now, Sumotaii... the same thing? Definitely not. You do know that people are playing online, not the "5 hour storyline." I know this isn't relevant to the subject, but don't compare playing Call of Duty to Call of Duty 4.

  • the_elements600

    Posted Apr 12, 2008 6:01 pm PT

    I have Asperger's Syndrome. It's something I've learn to live with over the years, and feel very few of it's negative effects now. I'm perfectly happy to socialise, and I feel perfectly at home with my friends. Hell, I wouldn't be me if I didn't have it. Does this mean I have a wild obsession with MMORPGs? Of course it doesnt. In fact, I dont play any MMORPGs at all. I prefer racting games, shoot-em ups and platformers, but I wouldnt call myself obsessed with video games.

  • kaiokenx100

    Posted Apr 11, 2008 5:51 pm PT

    PrimeLazarus probably has Asperger's Syndrome

  • PrimeLazarus

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 1:18 pm PT

    @ markharris31

    In actuality, this research isn't working towards a 'body of knowledge' that can be used to prove or disprove the hypothesis. There aren't any long-term conclusions that can be drawn outside the obvious that games are fun, that all people can become addicted, and that addiction with anything implies certain characteristics (whether biological, physiological, or psychological) that may or may not reinforce previous behavior based on some unrelated biological or psychological disorder.

    They were drawing conclusions based on two FUNDAMENTALLY different things. They studied the behavioral traits of game addicts and attempted to correlate them to behavioral traits of people with a biological disorder. You can claim research doesn't have to prove anything, that it can be an incremental process---but this isn't working towards any conclusion that would have been hidden otherwise: People that exhibit certain behaviors due to a biological disorder are difficult to correlate to other people that exhibit seemingly similar behavior because the REASON they exhibit those behaviors are COMPLETELY unrelated.

    However, the research seems to be making the point that patients with Asperger's have some similar behavioral patterns to that of addicted gamers; implying that people with Asperger's have an increased chance of video game addiction.

    Giving the benefit of the doubt and taking two steps back, similarities can be drawn at every turn between 'normal' people under the influence of any addiction and people who have biological disorders exhibiting similar behavior. That doesn't point to any correlation to video game addiction specifically; besides the fact that on the surface that some people under both categories share some similar behavior.

    "The point about Asperger's was just that the relationships between addiction and the personality characteristics that we examined suggested that [massively multiplayer online role-playing games] might be addictive to people with Asperger's"

    Really? So they are telling us that they studied game addicts behavior to find out that similar behavior between addicted gamers and people with Asperger's might point to an increased chance of said Asperger's patient becoming addicted to games, nevermind the fact everyone knows that games are fun and engaging. Heck, the MMOs are designed to be addicting. Again, this isn't science--it's sensationalism. I can tell you without any research that people with Asperger's might like to drink alcohol for the same reasons everyone else likes to drink alcohol. Maybe more so since I'm sure alcohol addicts exhibit some similar behavior to some people with Asperger's. Again, maybe not all the time, but in some cases. In other words: I could research all day and find that the reasons your average game addict loves to play Sonic are the SAME reasons a 4 year old likes to play Sonic. Maybe not in all cases but for the majority of subjects-- that would seem like a fair correlation. So we could then conclude that addicted gamers share some behavioral traits of your average four year old. That doesn't point to any type of connection between the two besides the fact that games can be interactive, fun, and fairly addicting no matter your age, sex, race, psychological or physiological state. I have a friend in his 30s who will still huff and puff like you wouldn't beleive losing a game of Madden. I have a 6 year old neighbor who does the same thing. The correlation: people act out based on many different factors while exhibiting similar behavior. The 6 year old acts out because well, he's six. The 30 year old acts out because he hates to lose, and because he has a little 6 year old inside trying to get out. The correlation ends there, not because it isn't backed up by similarities--because it is-- but because the causes or implications of such behavior are either completely unrelated, obvious, or otherwise moot. After all, we are all human.

    My point: We all have a little Asperger's in all of us, trying to get out. Games might reinforce certain behaviors of people with Asperger's leading to an increased chance of addiction among people with Asperger's but the same could be said about fast cars with people who like to go fast. All the behaviors might be there, but not all people who like to go fast actually gets a fast car for a motley of reasons. So it would be inconclusive to say that people with Asperger's are any more likely than anyone else to become addicted to games. Gamers, all people with biological or psychological disorders, scientists, researchers--we all share common traits and behaviors.

    "We didn't target people with Asperger's in our data collection (we collected data from Asheron's Call players in general)."

    "We did not classify any of the participants as having Asperger's." "It would be necessary to conduct specific studies to test whether people with Asperger's syndrome are overrepresented in the population of MMORPG players and whether they are more likely to be classifiable as addicted than other players."

    I'm giving the researchers credit for establishing a hypothesis stating that people with Asperger's may have an increased chance of video game addiction based on their results identifying similar behaviors between game addicts and people with Asperger's; however they fail to honor the scientific method by testing their hypothesis. Why should these guys get published with nonexistent relevant test data?

  • lyk3

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 11:05 am PT

    At one point, I was addicted to Diablo II, is Asperger's trait applies to me?

  • lew_0911

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 10:36 am PT

    It's always stormy at the science scene, especially when the media comes in...

  • Jazzism

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 10:24 am PT

    'Still writing the paper' = vapourware

    What can we say other than the media boned the original source of information and reported inaccuracies...

    Just another day at Gamespot, at least it seems they did read some of the information source this time.

  • markharris31

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 9:05 am PT

    Don't bash the study, people, bash those who take it out of context. On the whole "studies should only prove or disprove" something idea... you clearly have never done any research. Yes, there are times when one good experiment can effectively "prove" something, but it is way more common for a series of studies to incrementally gather more information and create a cohesive body of knowledge that is used to "prove" or "disprove" a hypothesis. Besides, this is psychology, which is notoriously hard to quantify, making it even harder to concretely rule out any other possibilities and say that A causes B.

  • markharris31

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 9:05 am PT

    Don't bash the study, people, bash those who take it out of context. On the whole "studies should only prove or disprove" something... you clearly have never done any research. Yes, there are times when one good experiment can effectively "prove" something, but it is way more common for a series of studies to incrementally gather more information and create a cohesive body of knowledge that is used to "prove" or "disprove" a hypothesis. Besides, this is psychology, which is notoriously hard to quantify, making it even harder to concretely rule out any other possibilities and say that A causes B.

  • Quezakolt

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 8:35 am PT

    e) In no way can it be said that Asperger's can be caused by game playing (Asperger's is thought to have a biological basis).

    there you go.

  • KingSigy

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 8:17 am PT

    MMO addiction is a serious case, as I developed depression a few years back out of my WoW addiction. I let it get the best of me and lost many close friends because of it. I'm glad to see that doctors are finally taking a stand to help people so tragedies won't happen in their life.

  • Icky27

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 7:25 am PT

    AC 1 was a great game. Thank you Microsoft for ruining AC 2

  • Agulf

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 6:22 am PT

    By the definition, I'm still only in the "highly engaged" criteria. But I have experienced withdrawal sympathoms after playing a really good game.

  • Agulf

    Posted Apr 10, 2008 6:22 am PT

    By the definition, I'm still only in the "highly engaged" criteria. But I have experienced withdrawal syndromes after playing a really good game.

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