Digital Addiction
Video Games – Are they Addictive?

We know they aren’t good for us. Still, we play them, play them for hours on end, spending precious time punching buttons and fingering controls. They aren’t like the games of our childhood, games where the entire family gathered around the table and bonded over a few hours of Monopoly or an evening of cards. Sure, we do sometimes play these new games with our kids, and we do talk, razzing each other throughout the furious pushing of the buttons, but mainly we concentrate on the screen, mainly we play them alone. These games have no real value. They simply exist to waste our time. But they aren’t dangerous, are they?

I’m not sure what to think about the studies that state that children kill other living beings because they are so numbed to the violence of video games. I don’t know if Grand Theft Auto causes people to want to kill police. But, I do know these games interrupt our lives, they keep us from living fully, and like most things that keep us from experiencing the moment, they are addictive. According to David Walsh, Ph.D., a psychologist, author and founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family in a study he conducted in the spring of 2004 he found one out of seven kids who played video games had the behavioral characteristics of addiction.

Definition of addiction:
1. The quality or state of being addicted or
2. Compulsive need for and use of a habit forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly: persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful.

I’ve experienced symptoms of this myself, and I’ve suffered through a serious withdrawal in my fifteen year old son. My experience with computer games was limited to one brief week, one brief period in which I would start playing the game first thing in the morning, just for a few minutes, just to see how far I could get the mouse, then just one more game and poof, it was 5 pm and I would still be sitting at the computer, still in my pajamas, no shower, no sunshine and very little food. After a week of this, I decided enough was enough, and I quit, I won’t even sit down to video games anymore, unless it is to play a specific game with one of my children.

Like most parents, I know my kids play video games, I know the games aren’t particularly good for them, but I didn’t believe they were harmful until I watched my fifteen year old son’s social life, family life and school grades slowly disintegrate.

It all started out harmlessly enough, he subscribed to a gaming magazine. I didn’t care, he paid for it, and at least he would be reading. He used the magazine to keep up on current video game events and followed one particular game he thought would be fun. He asked his grandmother for it for Christmas and was thrilled when he unwrapped it Christmas morning. His grandmother was thrilled because she had found a gift (other than money) that a fourteen year old boy was excited about. He told me he wanted to subscribe to an on-line gaming group. I checked it out, no one had to know his name or address, and he already knew not to give it out. I didn’t think the gaming group was his best idea, but hey, it was his money.

He didn’t overdo it at first. We had a rule that video games could only be played for one hour each night. He followed that – for a while. Then I began to notice that he was spending more and more time in his room and each time I checked he would be on the game. But he would tell me he had researched school work and had only been using the game for ten minutes. I didn’t buy this for too long, but getting him to leave the games alone was becoming a constant battle Every time I would leave him alone he would be on the computer again.

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