Don’t You Know Games Are Addictive?
If you're part of a church body, you've probably experienced one of those awkward and uncomfortable conversations that occasionally come up when interacting with various members. On a variety of occasions, my choice of career has been the impetus for this strain in communication. Thankfully very few brothers and sisters I've met believe video games have no place in a Christian's life. However, I speak with parents who are very concerned about the addictiveness of games and their impact on their children. Sometimes their questions are delivered with a pointedness that I interpret as a mix of fear, worry, and unfamiliarity about games. The feeling I sometimes walk away with from those conversations is that there was a question left unspoken: As a Christian, how can you, in good conscience, make video games when they are so addicting?
When put on the spot in situations like that, I have stumbled through my answer—talking about all the positive aspects of video games and how they can be a medium for good. I also mention that video games don't have to be addicting; it often comes down to specific design methodologies employed. My answers and delivery have become clearer and more confident over time. Nevertheless, when I received a Slack message about this topic the other day, I realized I needed to stop and give this question the attention it deserves. When you love something, it's easy to focus on its positive aspects and gloss over the negative ones. Yet, this issue keeps coming up. Case in point, just this morning, this story came across my feed. Also, The Gospel Coalition released this podcast titled: Gaming Alone: Helping the Generation of Young Men Captivated and Isolated by Video Games.
From personal experience, my mother was concerned that I was addicted to video games growing up. She would remark that I exhibited all the telltale signs of a drug addict when picking me up from the arcade; she would find me covered in sweat and jittery with excitement. Addiction has deep roots in my family, so I don't blame her for her concern. Early in my parent's marriage, long before I was born, my father developed an addiction to alcohol. My parents were young, and neither of them was saved. Based on the stories I've heard over the years, the addiction caused some real pain and damage in their lives. Thankfully, when my father gave his life to the Lord, He also cured him of his addiction. In hindsight, I don't think I was addicted to video games, but I spent a tremendous amount of my childhood playing them—even more time than my mom knew.
What is Addiction?
Before we get too far into this topic, we should take a moment to define the term addiction to ensure we are all on the same page. According to dictionary.com, addiction is the state of being compulsively committed to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, such as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.
Concerning video games, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that up to 3% of people who play video games have a video game addiction. Three percent seems like a small percentage, but considering there are around 3.25 billion gamers, that stat translates to almost 100 million people affected by gaming disorder. To have 100 hundred million people negatively affected by my industry is not a statistic I can easily dismiss or choose to ignore!
I'm reminded of Paul's words in the eighth chapter of 1 Corinthians. Some church members in Corinth were purchasing food sacrificed to idols and had no qualms about it. However, their actions were causing damage to some portion of the church. Paul concludes chapter eight by saying, "Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble." Paul was ready to do whatever it took, even giving up his rights, to avoid damaging his brothers and sisters of the faith. As followers of Christ in the games industry, we are obligated to the people negatively affected by the practices we employ and the products we create to do better!
Are Video Games Inherently Addictive?
Where do we start? The first question we need to ask is: is addictiveness an inherent quality of the medium of video games? Based on the WHO's statistic of only 3% of gamers suffering from gaming disorder, it would appear not to be the case. Nonetheless, let's dig deeper. In John Dyer's book, From The Garden To The City, he contends that technology is never neutral. John's proposition was a new concept to me. I had always assumed technologies were neutral, and it simply came down to how they were used. For example, I could use the power of the internet to pray with people across the world in a video conference, or I could use that same internet to watch pornographic videos. In my mind, people were the agents shaping the technologies and aiming them at virtue or vice—which is true, but it is an incomplete picture of what is happening.
Mr. Dyer uses the example of a shovel to explain his claim that technology is never neutral. He points out that as a person uses a shovel to shape their environment, the shovel has a reshaping power of its own. Through shovel use, a person's hands will become soar, and with enough time, their hands will develop callouses. In addition to their hands, a person's arms, shoulders, and back will begin to change as they gain strength and build muscle. Ultimately, technology can never be neutral because using it will always have some effect on its user. So how do video games affect us?
For the most part, video games take place in the mind. In saying that, I'm not neglecting more physical games like Beat Saber, Dance Dance Revolution, Ring Fit, and the like. Some games require and promote physical activity, which will shape your body akin to John's example of the shovel. However, taken as a whole, the primary interaction between a game and the player takes place in the mind. Now I am not a neuroscientist and only possess a rough understanding of how the brain works, so I did some research. In my research, I was reminded of a Simon Sinek talk on leadership in which he explained, in easy-to-understand terms, the four primary chemicals in the brain. I recommend taking the time to watch the video before continuing.
Based on Simon's explanations of the four primary chemicals in the brain, video games leverage dopamine and serotonin to a lesser extent. The first chemical, dopamine, allows you to feel pleasure, satisfaction, and motivation. When you unlock an achievement or complete a task in a game, dopamine is the reason you feel good about it. The Mayo Clinic identifies dopamine as the primary contributor to addiction. The Mayo website notes, "The reward center in the brain releases dopamine in response to a pleasurable experience or hyperarousal. If a person experiences hyperarousal while playing video games, the brain associates the activity with dopamine. The person develops a strong drive to seek out that same pleasure again and again." The second chemical at play is serotonin. Serotonin is responsible for regulating your mood and your happiness. As Simon pointed out, many things can cause these different chemicals to release, but Simon makes two crucial points. One, these chemicals can be hacked. Two, it can be dangerous when a brain's chemistry is out of balance—especially regarding heightened dopamine levels. These are important points to remember as we consider our role in this discussion.
“Dopamine is dangerous if it is unbalanced.”
Video Games and Food
When considering our industry's role in addiction, it may be helpful to draw an analogy with another industry: the food industry. Speaking of video games in terms of food is a reoccurring metaphor in my life. Over the years, my friends at Numinous Games and I have often expressed our intentions to "create wholesome, filling meals for players rather than sugary snacks." The first thing in common between the video game industry and the food industry is that both take raw elements from our world, process and refine them and then package them as products. In the food industry, a company like Lay's takes potatoes and transforms them into crunchy, salty potato chips. A video game company such as Activision takes the activity of play and adds structure, story, graphics, and sound to create a game like Call of Duty. The end goal of both is to develop products that generate pleasure and enjoyment for the customers.
The second point of comparison is that companies in each industry benefit when consumption increases. In saying that, I'm not implying that nefarious methods are employed; I'm simply pointing out the business realities, especially the pressures placed upon publicly traded companies. I may be overly optimistic or naive, but I believe most people in the games industry aren't looking to take advantage of gamers or damage their lives in any way. Yet, we have to admit there are people in each industry trying to tip the odds in their favor.
In the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, author Michael Moss illuminates some tactics companies use to optimize the "food pleasure" they deliver to their customers. There is a reason companies can confidently proclaim slogans like, "I bet you can't eat just one," and that is because they have spent millions of dollars on research with teams of scientists to ensure that is the case. Likewise, companies in our industry use psychologists to optimize a game's attention and monetization strategies. So yes, techniques are being used to increase consumption in both sectors. Nevertheless, does that fully explain why some people become hooked on games and processed food and others don't? I don't believe it does.
Addiction and Connection
In a quest to understand addiction, best-selling author Johann Hari has spent years traveling the world to speak with experts and addicts. Johann didn't set out to write a book addiction; rather, he was set on his journey by love. You see, Johann had people he dearly loved in his life, and they had addictions that he didn't know how to help them. What he discovered in the process surprised him.
One of the people Johann spoke with on his quest is a man named Bruce Alexander. Bruce is a professor and addiction researcher who spent decades working in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He conducted a famous experiment known as "Rat Park." The experiment consisted of placing some rats in isolated cages and others in "Rat Park," an enriching environment full of toys, food, and other rats. He then gave the rats a choice between drinking regular water and water laced with drugs. He found that a greater percentage of isolated rats chose the drugs than the ones living in "Rat Park." The findings supported his hypothesis that drug use is primarily a response to social circumstances. People and rats who lack meaningful relationships often use drugs as a substitute for those connections. Johann writes, "It isn't the drug that causes the harmful behavior—it's the environment. An isolated rat will almost always become a junkie. A rat with a good life almost never will, no matter how many drugs you make available to him."
“Today’s flood of addiction is occurring because our hyper-individualistic, frantic, crisis-ridden society makes most people feel socially or culturally isolated. Chronic isolation causes people to look for relief. They find temporary relief in addiction... because [it] allows them to escape their feelings, to deaden their senses—and to experience an addictive lifestyle as a substitute for a full life.”
Johann and Bruce's work provides a much more detailed picture of what is happening in the lives of addicts. It may also explain why people with a game addiction may have other underlying problems like depression and bipolar disorder. However, even the explanation of social disconnection and isolation is a muddy answer concerning video games. For many people, video games can serve as a means of connecting with friends. Take my oldest son, for example. He often chooses to play Fortnite or Minecraft to be able to spend time with his friends and cousins in other states. For him, these games offer a more fun and less awkward occasion to chat and catch up rather than staring at each other on video chat.
Another thing to consider is that relational disconnection is also not the only form of disconnection we experience today. Priest and author Henri Nouwen wrote, "Boredom is a sentiment of disconnectedness. While we are busy with many things, we wonder if what we do makes any real difference. Life presents itself as a random and unconnected series of activities and events over which we have little or no control." Fewer and fewer people feel in control of life these days, and no group is less in control than our youth. Much of our children's lives are dictated to them via school and family schedules. It's no wonder they complain about being bored; when I was in school, I was bored out of my mind most of the time. Subjects were presented to me in isolation, and teachers failed to draw connections with other classes, let alone life outside of school. Playing video games at that time was one of my most enjoyable activities. I could escape the dull reality of my day-to-day schedule, inhabit strange and exciting worlds filled with interesting characters, and exercise real agency. For many people, video games satisfy needs that their material world is not.
“The opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety; it is connection. It’s all I can offer. It’s all that will help [you] in the end. If you are alone, you cannot escape addiction. If you are loved, you have a chance”
Where Do We Go From Here?
Video game addiction is a complex issue; the more I research it, the more factors and considerations I uncover. Because of its complexity, you may be tempted to think it lets game developers off the hook. We're not off the hook; let us not be like the religious leaders who chose to ignore the injured man on the side road in Jesus's parable about the good Samaritan. As mature, responsible followers of Christ, we must be proactive and do what is in our power to help the situation. Here are a few simple ideas to consider, and if you come up with additional ideas, I would love to hear them.
Guard your tongue—words matter. Some people in our industry use addictive as a term for praise. If we change the language we use, the conversation will change.
Design games that give permission the player permission to stop. One of the main techniques doctors cite for reinforcing addictive play is the lack of natural stopping points. Social media companies use this same technique with infinite scrolling.
Avoid time-gating content—this is another design doctors attribute to creating compulsion loops by pressuring players to return.
Avoid designs that borrow heavily from gambling, like loot boxes.
Create games that develop real-world skills so players feel empowered in their lives.
Think about ways to encourage players to connect in ways beyond the game world. You could host online hangouts or meetups or create an achievement in the game that requires real-world collaboration.
Ultimately, it comes down to seeing the player as a treasured individual made in the image of God and working intentionally to create games through the lens of love.
