Reading 11: Addiction and Violence

Addiction is a tricky issue. Psychiatrists and physiologists have varying opinions on what constitutes an addiction. The article from Psychology Today had nine different parameters for what constituted an addiction: preoccupation, withdrawal, tolerance, reduce, giving up other activities, continues despite problems, deceit, escape mood, and risk. It's easy to see with these modifiers how the line between passion and addiction can be blurred. If you are passionate about skateboarding you might think about it numerous times a day, might want to try new tricks and increase your skill, might neglect other opportunities for entertainment, and might even keep up the activity despite breaking your arm last year. These could all be symbols of passion rather than addiction. It needs more nuanced context. It would probably move over to addiction when you started to neglect your job or schoolwork, and minimized contact with friends and family. When we covered Esports last week, there were plenty of examples where it would be considered an addiction. Players who devote 15+ hours a day to a game would be addicts in my book. Factoring in a few hours for sleep and eating they would only have minutes for any other activity. This is no way to live.

Gaming can also have gambling aspect with items like loot boxes which are basically slot machines for virtual toys. Many countries are banning these features in game because they have buried a minority of players in a mountain of debt. US courts have given them a pass because many judges do not understand the value that players afford these items. You can look at the resale market on steam to appreciate that these virtual cosmetic accoutrements actually do possess value. Players are putting up four, five, and the extremely rare six figure amounts for these virtual accessories. This is an instance where the ESRB rating system does not provide enough protection for users because in game gambling effects people of all ages.

Another social issue facing the gaming world is violence. Violence can be critical part of games. Call of Duty, Resident Evil, Fortnite all have violent elements to different degrees. The goal mainly is to kill other players or NPCs. Concerned parents and even Congress cite video games as a cause in violence among kids, young adults, and even adult players. In my opinion this is bologna and the certifiably credible studies back me up. There is plenty of faux science stirring up the masses getting them to think that games like Doom and Call of Duty caused the atrocities of Columbine and Stoneham Douglas. Even the President echoes this sentiment and has called in leaders from the industry to discuss it. In my opinion violence stems from nature and nurture issues that go far deeper than if you play a first person shooter. My opinion is that the way we cut down on gun violence particularly is to make it harder for people to acquire guns for malevolent purposes. This could be tougher background checks or limit the sale of certain types of guns. We cannot use video games as a cop out for the real issues.