Term Paper on "Video Game Addiction"

Quoted Instructions for "Video Game Addiction" Assignment:

Part 1

Please continue to develop a theoretical framework while you are doing a literature review. For this, you need to identify what information is still missing? What findings are unclear or inconsistent? What is not apparent from current research? These questions will establish your problem statement as well as the theoretical framework for your future study. These insights might determine the ultimate value of a research study more than any other factor. That is, your task is to summarize 'what we do NOT know' at this time.

Hint: When you read a scholarly or peer-reviewed source, there will be a section that says what is not found, a section of limitations, a section that gives suggestions for further research, etc. This is where you will get the information on what is not yet known in your area for your Project. Or, you may want to venture into areas that you feel need to be researched by evaluating the current "state of the art" for the body of knowledge reviewed. (2 page)

Part 2

You identified "what we do not know" (in other words what research still needs to be done in your particular subject or field of interest?)

Use the articles which you already found, to do this. Summarize major contributions of significant studies and articles to the body of knowledge under review, maintaining the focus established in the introduction. You may just touch on some articles that cover areas that need further research for your subject. Describe what hypothetical studies you would conduct in order to answer the gaps in research that currently exist. (2 page)

Part 3

In effect you are to make sure that you have addressed the following issues:

*****¢ What do we know

*****¢ What do we not know

*****¢ Given what we do not know, what issue should be addressed

*****¢ What research can be conducted to fill in the gap in our knowledge?

After editing your paper you are to add an abstract or executive summary to the front of your paper. This abstract should be so well written that if a person encounters your abstract, he or she will have a succinct overview of what your paper is about. (1 page)

First Part of My Paper:

With each advance of technology as the creation of the telephone, radio, and television, psychologists have conducted research to determine the positive and negative impact on adolescents. Recently, the game playing on the TV and Internet have become one of the major entertainment vehicles for youths. Online gaming, similar to activities in previous generations, has raised concerns regarding the effects on children*****s behavior. These games appeal to adolescents for many reasons.

A large number of the studies have dealt with video game playing teens (boys) and violence. Another growing area of concern is addiction. It is not so much the video/Internet game itself, but the time spent playing the game that raises an issue. My study would be about the video game/Internet game addiction and time spent playing the game. That is, how much time per day/week would be considered addictive? (This is similar to alcohol abuse and the number of drinks per day that are consumed). The title would be: ADOLESCENT VIDEO/INTERNET GAME PLAYING: AMOUNT OF TIME PER DAY CONSIDERED ADDICTIVE

I believe this is an area that should be studied, since I did not see any studies that actually addressed this issue. In addition, there are not many studies that I saw that researched video/Internet game playing addiction in general (and some of the ones I saw and include below are not peer reviewed). The concern is that adolescents are spending a great deal of time playing these games, which is taking them away from other social activities and affecting their behavior in a negative way. There are many children in my class who have nothing to talk about but video games. They tell me that*****s all they like to do every day when they get home from school. Plus, they spent more time on the weekend online or with the video games than doing other important social things. I feel like this has a lot to do with the reason why children are exhibiting a lot of violence, and social trouble. It seems that now, more than ever before, children are having a lot harder time getting along with one another. I wonder if this is the cause.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Hauge and Gentile (2003) from the Minnesota School on Professional Psychology studied 607 8th and 9th graders for hand-held devices, video game consoles, and the computer to analyze addiction levels and degree of aggressive behavior. A scale of addiction was identified and separated into two groups (Non-Addicted and Addicted). The results showed that the addicted group revealed more reports of involvement in physical fights in the last year, more arguments with friends and teachers, higher hostile attribution scores, and lower grades. The authors report that video game *****addiction***** is a problem among adolescents, particularly among males, and that addiction is associated with adjustment problems, such as school performance and aggressive attitudes and behaviors.

Moore (2005) expresses his concern about his own children and addictive behavior. He states: *****Lest you think I'm jesting about the addictiveness of these games: The family down the street had a ten-year-old who was so deeply entranced by the Harry Potter game that he would sit unblinking in front of the TV set for three to four hours at a time, until he wet his pants rather than interrupt the game for a bathroom break.***** He continues that unless he gives his children even a moment of unscheduled and unmonitored time, they are immediately downstairs again in front the video games. He states that his sons will not play real basketball, but they will play Allen Iverson in the NBA game for hours on end, similar to other sports.

Harris Interactive in collaboration with Psychology Professor Douglas Gentile, Ph.D., director of the Media Research Lab at Iowa State University and director of research for the National Institute on Media and the Family interviewed 1,178 U.S. children and teenagers (ages 8 to 18) concerning their online game use between January 17 to 23, 2007. This study is the first to document a national prevalence rate of pathological video game use among youth.The amount of video game playing time varies by age of the player as well as gender. Harris found the average 8- to 12-year-old plays 13 hours of video games per week, while the average 13- to 18-year-old plays 14 hours per week. However, boys played almost two times the amount of hours as girls.

Gentile stated, "It is important that people realize that playing a lot is not the same thing as pathological play. For something to be an addiction, it has to mean more than you do it a lot. It has to mean that you do it in such a way that it damages your life. This is why we based our definition on how pathological gambling is diagnosed in the DSM-IV. Almost one out of every ten youth gamers show enough symptoms of damage to their school, family, and psychological functioning to merit serious concern."

Dr. Suzanne *****, youth and education researcher at Harris Interactive, says, "The prevalence of video gaming in youth culture in combination with this level of pathological video gaming is great cause for concern and highlights the need for further research in this arena." Gamers who were interviewed and deemed pathological were getting lower school grades than other students, more apt to have video game systems in their bedrooms (65%), spending significantly more time playing games each week (averaging 24.5 hours per week), and more likely to have been diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder.

Psychologists at the University of Rochester, New York, in collaboration with Immersyve, Inc., a virtual environment think tank, asked 1,000 gainers what motivates them to keep playing. The research as published in Motivation and Emotion suggests that people enjoy video games because they find them intrinsically satisfying (Science Teacher 2007). The Rochester reseachers analyzed at the basic motives and satisfactions that can spark players' interests and maintain play. Four groups of people played different games, including one group tackling massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, which are considered the fastest growing segment of the computer gaming industry. MMOs support hundreds of thousands simultaneous play worldwide. For group playing MMOs, demonstrated the need for relatedness "as an important satisfaction that promotes a sense of presence, game enjoyment, and an intention for future play."

Finally, Young (2004) wanted to conduct further research about online users who became hooked on chat rooms, interactive games, and even eBay and, as a result, saw their lives become increasingly unmanageable. Prior research explored the addictive qualities sustaining drug and alcohol abuse, pathological gambling, and even video game addiction. However, Young (2007) stated that *****given the relative newness of Internet addiction, little is understood about the habit-forming nature of the Internet and its potential for abuse.***** As the Internet becomes more a part of homelife, school, and work, what kind of impact will it have on family, academic-, and job-related problems.

Young (2007) stated that with little restriction, students must exercise self-control because Internet addiction can put the student at risk of failing out of school or family and relationship problems. *****Students can tumble into major depression when their online steady blips off the screen forever or they experience withdrawal when they try to quit their online habit*****¦*****

As can be seen by this brief literature review, more research needs to be conducted in the area of video game/Internet game addiction in order to help those youths who have a problem in this area.