Video Game Addiction Myth

Yesterday I asked my family and friend about whether video game addiction exists. My mother and sister both firmly and assuredly said yes they do believe it exists. Investigating the reasons why, they believed it is a known and accepted fact. They hear about this phenomenon in the media and in conversations with colleagues. They seemed mildly surprised to hear that there is no concrete evidence or consensus about whether video games are addictive. My friend also said that video game violence exists. When I asked him to tell me about these video game addicts, he told me they are nerdy, anti-social people who are at their computers all the time, never interacting with other people: he basically explained the gamer stereotype. My friend is a gamer but not a video game addict and does not identify himself with the stereotype. What I gather from these responses is that the people I interviewed have a learnt bias about video games and the people who play them. A lot of this bias is produced by and encouraged in the media and has become almost an accepted norm. It has become common to see the words “video games” and “addiction” in the same sentence. The discourses at play are discussed in Rob Cover’s reading Gaming (Ad)diction: Discourse, Identity, Time and Play in the Production of the Gamer Addiction Myth. Addiction is a very loaded term in that the stereotypical gamer who is most likely to get addicted is on par with drug addicts, when clearly the two are vastly different for many reasons, the most obvious being that drug addiction is a chemical addiction, and as aforementioned there is no evidence of video game addiction even existing. But as Kevin mentioned in class, the problems caused or intensified by video games deserve attention and attention should be applied to the more correct label of “problematic use” in video games. This will give this are of study a more credible grounding and hopefully in time will improve inaccuracies in the people’s perceptions.