Parents should view gaming as a neutral pursuit but depending on the age, gaming can be problematic and early-age screen time can lead to a number of different mental health issues. — Pixabay
Gaming is a neutral hobby by design, but the culture of video games can be ethically gray, predatory and exploitative of young people and adolescents.
The authors of a new book on Internet gaming disorder are encouraging their readers to learn more about equilibrium, distinguishing between addiction and excess, and considering the breadth of a person when determining what balance looks like for them, their children and their patients.
Internet Gaming Disorder: A Clinical Strategy Guide for Providers, Parents, and Players takes an unexpected approach to the disorder, celebrating the complexity of gaming rather than condemning it and offering readers criteria, patient perspectives and strategies for identifying a healthy and unhealthy relationship with gaming.
The guide is a culmination of research and findings by 40 different authors.
Each chapter features a study by three to five authors to educate on gaming’s benefits, including cognitive development and therapeutic applications, while also addressing the risks of excessive play. It distinguishes between addiction and high engagement, explores the ethics of gaming, examines gaming culture and community, and provides guidance on seeking help for excessive gaming.
Each chapter in the book is designed to stand alone, making the material accessible to anyone interested in understanding how gaming affects mental health, strategies for understanding whether underlying disorders are present and offering guides to treatment.
Internet Gaming Disorder: A Clinical Strategy Guide for Providers, Parents, and Players was published by American Psychiatric Association Publishing in December.
Co-authored by doctors Nathan Carroll, Petros Levounis and James Sherer, it is now available through the American Psychiatric Association Publishing website.
Dr James Sherer, chief medical officer at Hackensack Meridian Health Carrier Clinic and a specialist in technological disorders and addictions, said he has seen many lives, families and relationships destroyed because of gaming addictions.
He published his first book Technological Addictions in 2021. It was a wakeup call alerting the medical community to the addictive potential of technology.
He’s always been a gamer and said his own experiences, feeling that gaming had displaced healthier alternatives to achieving balance in his own life, fueled his desire to perform more research on gaming habits.
“The million dollar question answers how games have affected a person’s life,” Sherer said.
When writing the book “I asked myself how I would want to be asked about this…Gaming is a part of life at this point. What might appear excessive and engrossing to one person might be, to someone else, a natural and normal” investment of time and energy, Sherer said.
Sherer and Carroll experienced gaming in the 80s and 90s, wearing their fingers down to the nubs over controllers and keyboards and toggles, solving puzzles on Nintendo consoles and arcade machines. Sherer and Carroll grew up in Summit and Washington Borough in New Jersey. They both still play video games.
“My experience with gaming was always positive but I could get sucked into it for hours,” Carroll, an every day gamer, said. “I’ve always been interested in the intersection between technology and mental health and how people are spending their time.”
As an adult, Carroll balances gaming with outdoor activities and sports, but admits it can be difficult. More recent generations face tougher headwinds as technology grants more access to gaming devices than ever before, and online social gaming continues to develop.
Internet Gaming Disorder occurs when the preoccupation with gaming pushes the gamers’ tolerance beyond their established boundaries of wants and needs, leading to hours-long gameplay and disrupted daily functions and productivity.
But confirming a diagnosis is not a one-and-done.
The experts explained that while one person might be addicted to playing video games, another may be able to walk away after two hours and not play again for months.
It’s based on individual susceptibility, the authors said. If a player can walk away and set regular boundaries, it’s called reflective self-regulation.
“Video games are a lot like water. They can hydrate you or you can drown in them. Like anything, it’s about the amount you’re exposed to,” Carroll said. Still, it’s common for many people not to immediately recognise their own boundaries, Sherer noted.
Parents and partners are often among the first to report a concern about excessive gameplay. The doctors said it’s rare to find people seeking professional advice about video game addiction on their own.
Parents should view gaming as a neutral pursuit but depending on the age, gaming can be problematic and early-age screen time can lead to a number of different mental health issues.
The authors recommend limiting screen time for children until age nine or older. Middle school and high school are the most appropriate time to introduce complex media and gaming to children. Even then, gaming for children should be limited to being productive and purposeful, not for the sake of distraction.
Some teens and young adults who have identified their own excessive gameplay have turned to chatrooms and Gamers Anonymous groups online, which target video game users who are interested in reframing their relationship with gaming.
Carroll noted anxiety and depression can be common aftershocks of toxic video game exposure, or overstimulation. Other symptoms to notice are also physiological and autonomic reactions, which can escalate toward violent actions.
Research shows individuals with antisocial personalities and victims of targeted bullying have often been most influenced, contributing to the tendencies or desires to perform violence, and can be manipulated or weaponised, the authors said.
“It’s something we don’t talk about clinically enough,” the authors said. Many kids spend a majority of their lives virtually and it’s a healthy hobby for most.
By and large “a lot of the narratives are overblown and the positives are underemphasised,” Carroll said; Mortal Kombat likely won’t make boys any more violent than any family after a 120 minutes of Mario Party.
Given the score, five rounds of a competitive game of Tetris between brothers may evoke more anxiety and worse sportsmanship decorum. – The Express-Times/Tribune News Service
