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How to Escape from Video Game Addiction

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Study

 

Association experts intervene in all addictive behaviors, including alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, psychotropic drugs, illicit drugs, excessive gambling, and other addictive substances without substances. There are 80 centers throughout France.

The Association deals with addiction with or without products. Especially addiction to gambling, cash games, PMUs, casinos, online Paris, video games! Preventers have been working on this video game addiction for 30 years, from their addiction to gaming at different online source and websites, smartphones, and online gaming sites. At first, mainly boys were playing. Now as many girls as boys are playing. The average age is 34 years old.

 

Video Game Addiction: Illness

 

Since June 18, 2018, video game addiction has been recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a disease in its own right. It is called “game addiction”. WHO prioritizes this as “an act related to the enjoyment of video or digital games characterized by loss of control of the game, where the game takes precedence over” other benefits “and daily activities.

It is defined as “an act aimed at raising the ranking”. By continuing or expanding gambling practice, despite the negative effects. According to the WHO, this disorder currently only affects a small proportion of players, ie from 0.5% to 4%. It would mainly concern players of network games and in particular MMORPGs (massively multiplayer roleplaying games).

 

 

Gaming Disorder

 

This addiction is based on the principle of pleasure, like playing sports, seeing friends, taking products (tobacco, alcohol, narcotics), eating… The pleasure that produces dopamine that makes us happy.

The problem is that playing too many video games does not cause a feeling of satiety! Games are more and more complex, time-consuming, demanding a lot of skills, and technology affects our emotions and behavior. Enthusiasts follow influencers, think about the game all the time even when they’re not playing.

 

Recognize the signs of an addiction

 

A loss of control, a lot of time spent playing, negative consequences on daily life. To this is added a duration: the behavioral disorder must manifest itself over a period of at least 12 months. Concretely, addiction to video games, in adults as in adolescents, can be detected through certain signs.

The player addicted to online games will gradually abandon his activities, his social relations to be able to devote all his time to the game, which will become his only priority. For adolescents, a drop in school results will be visible, for adults professional difficulties will appear. Added to this is poor diet, poor sleep, anxiety, aggressiveness, sadness.

 

How to fight video game addiction?

 

  • Take a sincere interest in the player’s universe, ask him to help you discover it.
  • Then set limits to the practice of video games (2 hours maximum per day on weekdays; 4 hours per day on weekends)
  • Establish a real family dynamic (meals together, discussion time, common activities, and projects).

How the Pandemic changed Gaming Behaviors

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Who will pay more in the pandemic and feel less lonely?

Researchers, Steve and Manuel, reach the end of this question in their research. We talked to and asked both of them: Who are these results related to? Global pandemics and bans are increasing the number and duration of players.

 

Two researchers want to know: What is the relationship between motivation and perceived loneliness?

The Covid19 pandemic has upset our daily lives, expelling us to four walls, and the gaming industry is benefiting from it. The number of players, playtime, game gambling, and spending time on video games is increasing rapidly.

Of course, the focus is also on the relationship between social distance and social video games. Two researcher doctors, Steve Nebel and Mag from TU Chemnitz. Manuel Ninaus of Dr. Insbruck University is interested in this topic and in her research examined the relationship between games and gamer loneliness.

 

And you’re not alone:

​​In 2020, some research and research was done on the topic of games during Covid19. Some people favor video games in lockdown, while others warn about morbid gambling addiction. We talked to Steve and Manuel about the results that are currently being published. What did the two researchers learn from their research? And why are such, but very obvious results so important to the study?

Who plays does not feel lonely?

Steve Nebel (University of Chemnitz) and Manuel Ninaus (University of Innsbruck) both work in the field of educational games, dealing with the wise use of video games as a learning method. Their work contrasts with the famous “killer game debate,” in which video games are often portrayed as the source of all evil. That was the motivation for her research. “Does gambling really connect us?”: “We used pandemics and social distance measurements to investigate whether players play video games for social reasons.” Manuel explains.

 

“Convenient Samples”

So you enthusiastically participated and created a survey that asked more than 700 German-speaking players about their playing time, motives, and perceived loneliness. In the empirical study, we will talk about so-called “convenient samples”, that is, arbitrary samples. As Steve explains to us in an interview, this does not allow us to draw conclusions about the total population. The results apply only to the study group that fully meets the goals of the two researchers.