Game Over: Addressing Gaming Dependency in College Students

Story by Joshua Carroll | Design & Illustration by Shoshanah Davis Game Over: Addressing Gaming Dependency in College Students

Nearly 70% of Americans play video games, according to a recent study conducted by Electronic Entertainment Design and Research. Based on the U.S. Census Bureau, that’s 230,300,000 people regularly.

Addiction is a broad topic that applies to a multitude of different activities, including the overplaying of video games like Minecraft, Fortnite or Call of Duty, by college students. Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Alan Ross Tokosch explains that addiction is “repeated actions and behaviors that the individual continues to pursue despite negative consequences to themselves.”

Ross Tokosch explains that gaming addiction shares many of the same aspects as other addictions: the feeling of a lack of control, ignoring obvious consequences and withdrawal symptoms.

But despite these similarities, gaming

addiction is another brand of addiction entirely. Ross Tokosch explains that unlike a lot of other well-known addictions, gaming addiction does not include substances.

He describes it as a behavioral addiction filled with “compulsive behaviors, or behaviors that the individual feels they cannot control.”

However, video game addiction is a spectrum of other experiences. “People can fall into gaming addiction and then have these moments of clarity and realization like, ‘Oh man, I’ve spent a whole month in front of the computer. I should get out more and unplug for a while,’” says Ross Tokosch. Level One: How it Begins But what exactly makes video games so tantalizing that people spend hours on end playing them? Mason Saulsbury, freshman Film major and novice game developer, says that video games give a large amount of satisfaction.

“Video games provide a really easy feedback loop; you can play them and get rewards, which incentivises more playing,” he explains.

It’s a formula: you play, you accomplish, you get validated. Easy dopamine for everyone involved. Ross Tokosch notes that dopamine might be a very tempting aspect for someone who is using video games as a means of escape. Someone with nothing going on in their life might find solace in the rewards video games offer. Saulsbury says, “If you just feel bad all the time and there’s this thing here that will tell you that you’re good, then that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to get hooked on.”

Being at a low point in life is rough, and as Ross Tokosch points out, video games themselves are a form of escape.

Luke Stauffer, freshman Music and Elementary Education major and casual gamer says that ease of use is another aspect that can get anyone addicted to gaming.

People may begin to notice that video games are at an all time high in accessibility. Between the amount of mobile games on the app store and major gaming companies like Nintendo investing so much in mobile gaming themselves, video games can travel with you anywhere.

Not only that, but as gaming franchises move to the mobile phone market, with well-known games such as Super Mario Run, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Mario Kart Tour, gaming can now fit in your pocket. Level Two: The Signs With this shift in accessibility and ease, knowing the symptoms of video game addiction can help many of your fellow students.

Saulsbury brings forth the idea that behavioral addiction can cause neglect. “You focus on video games and neglect other aspects of your life to a point where it’s detrimental to your health.”

Ross Tokosch says isolating yourself is another sign. This can affect other aspects of your life, like relationships with friends and family, grades, socializing, mood, jobs and finances.

Other noticeable signs of gaming addiction that Ross Tokosch has seen are a severe lack of hygiene and malnutrition. “A lot of people think of gamers as overweight … but I often see things like being underweight and not eating enough.” However, Ross Tokosch points out the worst consequence of gaming addiction is “when the individual is no longer having fun gaming. At some point, the gamer keeps gaming, even if it’s not fun anymore.”

It may be hard to imagine why someone would continue playing video games if they’ve completely lost interest in the fun parts of the activity. Ross Tokosch says that this continuation even after the sense of entertainment is lost could lead to a sense of dread; a feeling that there is no longer any meaning left.

What some might consider the most important aspect of a video game is the player’s experience, according to Saulsbury, which might make you wonder if a developer can purposely give their game addictive qualities.

Stauffer seems to think so in the form of mobile games. “There’s all those card games you can play for really cheap and you can keep going for hours without any drawbacks.”

“There’s also been psychologists who inform developers how to initiate that good feeling or reward loop for them to add to their games,” Ross Tokosch says.

However, unless someone from the inside speaks out, it can be hard to tell when a game is just interesting versus truly addictive in design. As far as Saulsbury is concerned, there is a definitive line between wanting to keep your player interested and getting them hooked during the development process.

“If you get bonuses for keeping playing and you’re advertised to not take breaks I would call that manipulative game design,” he says. Boss Level: Finding a Healer Ross Tokosch has experienced issues getting gamers to consider taking help in the past. He says they’re afraid of their video games being taken away entirely, which is a treatment that he does not agree with.

The treatment for drugs is not to do them anymore; an approach that Ross Tokosch doesn’t like taking with video game addiction. Instead, he likes looking at the root of the issue, then assisting in helping the gamer discover what they find meaningful in gaming and what they’re using it as a replacement for.

As many people might think, video game addiction is a complicated topic. When going forward with someone with a video game dependency, Saulsbury says, “I don’t think that you should be enabling it in any way. But you should try to approach it lightly … If you know somebody who has it, I would recommend seeking out help from others, or just talking to them.”