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Video Gaming Addiction Can Control Your Thoughts
People using playstation during the launch of the Adidas’ new adiZero footwear range on Jan. 13, 2011, in Barcelona, Spain. (David Ramos/Getty Images for Adidas)
A psychology researcher from Australia has collected some of the first scientific evidence that video gaming can be addictive in a way similar to gambling and alcohol.
“People who spend an excessive amount of time playing video games are powerless to stop themselves from thinking about gaming,” says Olivia Metcalf, who did the research for her PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra. “This is a pattern typical of addiction,” she says.
“Many people have claimed that video games can be addictive. But this is some of the first hard evidence.”
Olivia presented about 20 video gaming “addicts” with different words and asked them to respond to the color of the word, not the meaning. They were significantly slower to name the color of gaming-related words compared to words which had nothing to do with gaming. Non-addicted gamers showed no difference in response times.
“We found that the attention system of an excessive gamer gives top priority to gaming information. Even if they don’t want to think about gaming, they are unable to stop themselves. This likely makes stopping or cutting back on gaming even more difficult,” Olivia says.
“This phenomenon, known as attentional bias, is found across heroin, nicotine, alcohol and gambling addictions, and is thought to be a significant factor in the development of an addiction.”
While most people who play video games do so without suffering negative consequences, a minority of gamers experience significant adverse changes to their diet, sleep, relationships, work and school commitments as a result of their inability to stop gaming. There has been significant debate as to whether or not excessive gaming can be considered an addiction.
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Research like hers begins to build the evidence base used to determine whether the behavior can be classified as an addiction, Olivia says, and helps psychologists to develop effective treatments for gamers who are unable to stop.
A forthcoming edition of the standard reference book which defines mental health disorders—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) published by the American Psychological Association—recommends that Internet-use addictive disorder, including excessive gaming, be regarded as an area for further study.
This article was originally published on Fresh Science — read the full article here.
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*Republished with permission from The Epoch Times
Yeah right…
Any addicition changes your thoughts and usually controls them to obtain the same feelings that the addictive activity/substance creates. So yea any addiction can control your thoughts, but not specifically to do specific things like to shoot up a school or post a paranoid retarded article on beforeitsnews.com. Hope that answers your question to the title, as for the entiritey or the article…I didnt bother reading it because its retarded. I am “addicted” to videogames and my thoughts are more open and varied than most of the people on this website. How about paranoid beliefs and propaganda can control your thoughts?? You know like that 2012 nonsense or this article?
oh what a load of DUCK COVER STRAFE crap, I have played games for LEFT LEFT LEFT SHOOT SHOOT HEADSHOT years and haven’t notice any issues with RELOAD RELOAD STRAFE STRAFE with my mind, since i got voice to text capabilities it has JUMP JUMP SHOOT CHANGE WEAPON ROCKET LAUNCHER FIRE FIRE improved out of site, more useless poppycock. RIGHT RUN RUN RUN JUMP QUIT THROW JOYSTICK AT SCREEN