I would like to draw everyone's attention to this article, which appeared Monday in the Des Moines Register:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009904200324
As you will see, I posted a comment (you can tell it's genuine by the typos and flubs). It's really good to see something that takes the problem seriously in a major media outlet. I have written to the reporter, who is out until next week, and urged her to write a follow-up story dealing with what parents and friends can do when the see someone developing an addiction.
For myself, we have had many developments with our son that will be of interest, and which I will post in a separate thread.
"We got Trouble, Right Here in River City"
aEU"Harold Hill in The Music Man, who comes into Iowa to fleece the locals
but ends up a convert to decency
I added a little support to your comments, Pete.
"Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun." -------William Wordsworth
The complete study is located here: http://www.olganon.org/?q=node/15775 There are also some TV clips, futher down that discuss this research. Liz
Liz Woolley
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the article doesn't make it sound like a "study" so much as a "poll." Gentile used standards for gambling addiction to identify young video game addicts. His questions were added to a national Harris Poll of children at no charge. I absolutely agree that video games can be addictive (look at me), but I would point out that people are notoriously bad at accurately monitoring their behaviors and reporting them. It's especially fatuous for Dr. Gentile to report that "video games fire up the brain's 'reward centers, which set off the type of rush that drug addicts feel," based merely on poll data. So, you can do fMRI via polling these days? The signal-to-noise ratio in the study of gaming addiction is... discouraging. Everyone has an agenda. You have the gamers who won't admit that some people have a problem; you have the religious right who think that Video Games Are Of the Devil; you have the people who think that addiction is just something that happens to people who are already unbalanced. *sigh*
Actually, the MRI's have been done in a separate study by a neurobiologist in Taiwan. The results are fascinating, and consistent with what Dr. Gentile is talking about here. The link to the story about the Taiwanese study is... http://news.softpedia.com/news/Game-Addiction-Similar-to-Drug-Addiction-100447.shtml
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Ah, okay, bgh - I'll check that out. I apologize if I came off as overly critical in my above post - I work as a research analyst, so research design brings out the nitpicker in me :) I was actually talking to some friends of mine today about how I would like to see research like that into the effect of gaming on pleasure centers in the brain... this sounds pretty much like what I was asking for.
I have a background is social research and social policy, so expect me to be equally pedantic. ;)
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
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There was also a very small study published in Nature several years ago in which PET scans showed levels of dopamine release during video game playing that were equivalent to levels of dopamine release during an intravenous amphetamine infusion.
"Small service is true service while it lasts. Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun." -------William Wordsworth
Gamersmom: Do you have a citation for that article in Nature? I'd like to find it. Concerning Dr. Gentile's research, I'm sure that he is very aware of previous research, and was at this point looking into the extent of gaming to see if the word "addiction" was justified. The outcome of the poll, which surprised him, is that it is an addiction, and in far more people than he expected. (I think it was 12% of boys and 3% of girls self-reported levels that constitute an addiction, and it is unlikely that anyone over-reported their gaming.) The study is linked in an earlier post, and I would encourage everyone to read it. Then any criticism will be well grounded :-) .
"We got Trouble, Right Here in River City"
aEU"Harold Hill in The Music Man, who comes into Iowa to fleece the locals
but ends up a convert to decency
Oh! I found the Nature article -- it is in the list of resources, which is quite valuable, found elsewhere on this site.
"We got Trouble, Right Here in River City"
aEU"Harold Hill in The Music Man, who comes into Iowa to fleece the locals
but ends up a convert to decency