[Dr. Douglas Gentile is a developmental psychologist, and is an assistant professor of Psychology at Iowa State University and the Director of Research for the National Institute on Media and the Family. His experience includes over 20 years conducting research with children and adults. He has published research on violent video games, on prosocial video games, on how video games may improve laparoscopic surgical skills, and most recently on video game "addiction." You can visit his site at www.drdouglas.org ]

Recently Doug Gentile published his most recent study, stating that 8.5% of American youth showed signs of addiction. It was picked up by a lot of major gaming sites, bringing along with it controversy among commenters.

You can read about the study here.

Dismissal of studies and research is common among gamers; fear of anything bad surrounding their hobby creates a defensive barrier denouncing all claims. This interview’s purpose is to better inform gamers about research, the “addiction” debate, and how researchers are not the evil antagonists that everyone makes them out to be.

NG: In gaming whenever there’s new research or data gamers become sheltered and the comments you see are often immature, which is one of the main reasons for this interview. Have you seen them?

Oh yeah, I’ve read all the comments about me. Apparently I don’t actually know anything, and they give out PhDs to anyone now. [laughs] I actually don’t read many of them.

NG: Where do you draw the line between using games as a hobby compared to an addiction?

I draw the line the same place the American Psychiatric Association draws the line between gambling as a hobby and gambling as an addiction. It’s when it damages enough areas of your life that you’re no longer keeping it in balance. That means demonstrating at least half of the symptoms. Is that the best way to define it? We don’t know for sure. But it’s a fair way, because for any addiction not everyone shows the identical symptoms.

For any disorder, such as depression, not everyone demonstrates the same pattern of symptoms. Out of the list of ten, this person could show this five, that person could show that 5. Does that mean they’re not both depressed? No, it is causing enough problems, but they way it’s manifesting for that person is somewhat different for this person. So it’s the same thing here, in the most recent study they had to show 6 out of 11 symptoms.

To get to 6 means they are damaging multiple areas of their lives. The average for boys was 2 symptoms, and the average for girls was 1. All disorders are normal behaviors taken to some extreme. It’s normal, anything you love to do, you do sacrifice other parts of your life. But, in this case you’re sacrificing so many other parts that it’s out of balance, and could have long term repercussions if you keep at it in that way. So it’s important to recognize at this level it’s a problem, I should probably get some help, pay attention and do something differently.

NG: You spoke about the addiction affecting “other” aspects of their life, could you expand on that?

We define it based on recognizing that your grades are suffering, that you’re skipping household chores – that of course damages your relationships with your parents. [laughs] You’re spending so much money that you need help from other people. I initially didn’t use that as a criterion, that’s straight out of gambling. You spend so much money that other people have to help you, it shows a kind of co-dependent behavior.

I thought that wasn’t happening with games, it seemed so extreme. In fact, one of the editors one of the addiction journals told me “No you need to put that in, because I’m seeing that in some of my cases!” So I put it in, and there are some people who are spending so much upgrading to the newest equipment or getting games so regularly. Other symptoms include obsessively thinking about games, they can’t stop thinking about gaming and have a hard time concentrating in other areas of their life. They want to cut back, but aren’t able to – which shows a lack of control. When they do try to cut back, they feel restless and irritable ‘“ these are like withdrawal symptoms.

So it’s a number of things, if they lie to other people or steal that damages their social relationships. Some of these are pretty extreme things. Not too many people do those extreme things, but some are. To have 6 of those symptoms it becomes clear that, wow, this matters for some people.

NG: Some video games are solely single player and story driven. Like books and movies, they end. How do you classify buying games with addiction?

Well I don’t. It’s not one of the symptoms, it would be a lack of validity if the kids who were classified as pathological didn’t buy more. They should, but it’s not a way we actually define it. So, no matter how many you’re buying that wouldn’t be a symptom that we would count.

See, it’s only ones that are damaging something else. Even how much they play isn’t a symptom. That’s not one of the things we ask. Once again, it would be a lack of validity if the pathological gamers weren’t playing more. Some people drink or gamble a whole lot, but aren’t addicted. So in fact that’s not the way the DSM [the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual which defines how to identify disorders] diagnoses any addiction. It’s never on how much, only when it damages other areas of your life. That’s when it becoming clinically relevant.

NG: In what way do these study symptoms differ from other hobbies and addictions?

Well, they don’t. What is different is how many symptoms you have. Anything you love to do you will sacrifice for. You will skip homework or chores, just because you love to do it. That’s fine, that’s normal. 1 or 2 symptoms, very normal. It’s when it’s so many that it adds up. If you’re constantly doing a number of these things, then there’s a problem. Skipping chores, not a big deal. Something like 50% of the sample, I forget off hand, say they do that or sometimes do that. Which mean it’s normal, but it’s not normal to do that and five more things.

No one symptom is the important one, and any one of them isn’t that big of a deal. But if you’re continually skipping your homework all the time, over time that’s going to have a cumulative effect. No one time matters. Skipping your homework once, doing poorly on one test? Not that big of a deal. But if you keep it up, then all your grades will suffer. If you continue not doing any of your chores, what’s your relationship with your parents going to be like? You’re going to get into more arguments with them, and lots of kids do report that they’re fighting with their parents over how they play games.

You can play a lot as long as you prioritize. So if you get your chores done, you get your homework done then you’re free. Go ahead play as much as you want. But for the kid that’s having problems it’s a different story. If this were included in the DSM where other addictions are defined, it would probably be included in the same place that pathological gambling is, which is as an impulse control disorder. You know you should do your homework, but you can’t keep yourself from playing the game. You know you shouldn’t lie about it, you know you should go to bed, but you have a hard time controlling that impulse to play.

In fact, that’s a hard thing for teenagers. The right prefrontal-temporal area of the brain is the impulse control area. It’s not finished developing until our mid-twenties. This explains teenage behavior. Why do teens do such crazy things? They don’t have the brakes, the brakes aren’t wired yet. What else do they have? They have the hormones ‘“ that’s like the gas. They’re high on gas, but no brakes. There you go, you now understand teenage behavior. [laughs] So impulse control is already is difficult for teens, just because that part of the brain isn’t fully developed yet.

Some people are better that it than others, but the people that are having problems with games aren’t good at setting their limits, they’re not good at prioritizing and making sure they get the things done first that they need to. So I’m assuming this is the type of problem it is. It’s not a substance. It’s not something you actually can become biologically addicted to. I don’t assume the solution would be to never play again ‘“ it’s probably not the same as Alcoholics Anonymous ‘“ where part of the solution is that you can’t ever drink again. That’s it, none ever for the rest of your life, because your body has a real reaction to it and you can’t keep your body from having that reaction.

I don’t think this is the same type thing. I’m not saying that the right way to treat this is no more games ever. Rather, the gaming has become unbalanced, you can’t control the impulse to game in a way that keeps it in balance with the rest of your life. So the rest of your life is suffering. I’m not a therapist so I’m not exactly sure how it would be done, [laughs] but I assume that treatment would be like other impulse control disorders.

First train the skill of recognizing – alright I want to play games now, is there something I should do first? We need to take the kids that are worse at controlling themselves and shift them into the better category. And it may not change how much they game all that much, it might just make sure that they’re prioritizing appropriately so that it’s now in balance.

NG: The ESA recently refuted against the study, claiming error. Do you ever get nasty emails, whether it be from gamers or big organizations?

Oh yeah, I get hate mail all the time. I get hate mail from gamers who say violent games don’t affect me, I’ve played them all my life so I’m gonna come right over there and kill you. The games seem to damage some gamers’ sense of irony. [laughs]

NG: How about Jack Thompson?

He doesn’t stick to the science, and makes all sorts of crazy claims. And he’s attacked me too for that matter.

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