I have two teens who have had unfettered access to computer technology most of their lives (I fought it when my elder was little but I healed that fear and need to control in myself and the issue resolved.)
And they have several friends who are from similar situations. Now that some of them are young adults, I can confirm that *the tech is not the problem.* The family and community environment drives so much of the dynamic.
All the effort that was needed was *within me.* Once I did that, it all flowed.
Gosh, Sarah, there is SO much you've said in this one comment. Healing our own fears, need for control, understanding that the tech is not the problem. So good.
DrK mentioned that any video gamer who is able to beat Dark Souls by definition does not have a problem with motivation. Its only that their motivation doesn't correspond to what you think it should.
I also want to point out that we often use the phrase "the real world" referring to life outside of school. My question is, if the life inside of school is implied to be fake, and correctly so, then why is it so much better than the world of Super Mario??
I love Elden Ring. I couldn't beat the Fire Giant, though :) And Super Mario is great too.
But once I played a really bad game. The rewards kept coming, and I just kept playing. It's angers me a bit, to think about the opportunity cost. Did I have fun? Not really. All the daily chores got done. Both at home and in the game. The structure was perfect. I was a busy worker be. A time management expert. Sadly, a lost my creativity. Sacrificed at the alter of productivity.
I hate rewards. They sometimes force you to do what you hate. I'll rather choose my own faith. Criticize my goal again and again. Time management experts tell you, that the Skinner box is your friend. But I don't think so. It's a quick and dirty fix, that's all. Of course dog training can be fun. But all too often we get stuck, and suddenly our creativity is gone.
Work to get the next pay check.
Clean the house, to look like a good housewife.
Go to some wedding, just to make you wife happy.
Do your home work, to get a gold star or a "good boy".
Teach some stubborn school kids, to feel like a holy crusader.
I follow the fun. Not the money, status, sex, praise or moral brownie points.
I've learned to embrace dependence. I don't know why people insist upon illusions like independence or somehow an action has to be "pure" as if there cannot be multiple reasons or multiple rewards for things. "Love" does not work that way.
Love is infinite. The Ultimate Source does not exhaust. I suspect some don't experience it as a direct result of not thesmelves being tapped-in to The Ultimate Source
You might like to read David Deutsch, he has some good stuff about how infinity works. But it is not obvious to me, how his ideas about infinity can be connected to love.
And I don't think there was love before animals. Which means that, love doesn't stretch infinitely far back in time ;) John Bowlby's attachment theory could also be a good place to start.
Oh, I'm a Muslim. I was just being cheeky while not directly referring to Allah as "The Utlimate Source". I very much believe in The Creator who we call Allah.
Actually I made this point about curiosity and learning once, that since Allah is All-Knowing and Allah is the Ultimate Reality, what exactly is it humans are doing when we discover? In a certain sense we are acting as conduits for this cosmic knowledge, opening ourselves to the possibility that it comes through us and into the world.
I’m not sure what you want to call it but I’ve seen too many kids (mostly boys) freak out and have extreme “painful withdrawal symptoms” when asked to stop playing video games, unlike when I ask them to stop playing Legos, reading a book or riding their bike. It’s an unnatural and highly problematic response when some children are asked to get off video games. I’ve even seen kids go to bathroom in their pants (yes, number one and two) because they do not want to get up from the video game. True stories. These behaviors are truly problematic, unhealthy, and unacceptable for most parents. If you have a child who cannot handle video games it’s best to take a serious pause or delay for the health of the child and the entire family!
I've never had that level of addiction to games, but gaming and internet use can be an escape. If real life feels pointless, might as well spend more time where things matter more. I think parents react to this stuff with negativity, anger, punishment which makes this stuff worse. The thing that snapped me out of this back in the day was having to go on a family vacation and spend time with everyone, and everyone was nice to me. I've suggested such things to parents whose kids struggle with going to school in the morning because they are hooked to their gaming consoles, but they refuse to deal with this stuff with positivity because "that would be sending the wrong message that being bad gets rewarded".
That made sense to me then. Then I became a mom, and it seems like such a silly attitude. Your Kids pull away from you if things are unpleasant, and they don't quite care whether their behavior fits into a moral equation, they are just trying to protect their sense of self. If you prioritize their sense of self and the connection you have, these problems become trivial to fix.
The problem is that this is looking at the problem backwards. Problematic gaming almost always arises because the games are fulfilling a deeper need that’s going unsolved elsewhere in the player’s life—in other words, it’s a symptom, not a cause. Clinicians well versed in problematic gaming are good at identifying and addressing these needs—the problematic gaming ceases almost immediately after the issue is resolved.
If you want to learn more, look up Dr. Anthony Bean’s research and clinical guidelines around this topic.
This extreme aggressive response and need is where we struggle too. So I’m following Jay’s advice and looking further into trying to identify the need he suggests is going unmet. Something I’m curious about though is why that need going unmet for the first 11 & 8 years, respectively for my boys, wasn’t coming out as aggression. Why did they seem more content before video games were introduced?
I don't know the full context of your situation but impulsively I would say anger is often hinting to a feeling of powerlessness.
In my teenag year my brother (2 years younger) was dealing with "video game addiction". First it was noticed, when video games where prioritized over school and family activities, than it oresented itself in outburst of Anger, at at least in depression in self-harming behaviour.
From my perspective this is what happend (summarised):
First phase (playing more)
- the marriage problems of my parents (constent fighting, disrespect, missing attention to their children) caused my brother to search coping strategie outside like video games
- probably extra things effected es well, like that school and my dad couldn't give him something else that interested, motivated him, because they werent adjusted to his desires (befor that we were introduced to video games by playing together with our family)
Second phase (skiping school)
- my parents noticed his playing behaviour when it's stared to affect his motivation to go to school
- their conclusion: "Video games makes him skip school"
- they put limits (they did thats sometimes before but arbitrary) and stopped him from playing also with verbal and physical force (just taking thinks away, shouting, beeing negative)
- from there his response started to be agression (expression of powerlesness and despair of not beeing seen) and manifasted in distruction of objetcts (also of his own Nintendo btw.) and verbal screeming
Thirt phase (depression)
- my mother took care to seek help with therapy
-after that the actual wound came out
- in this phase I was nearly not present also because I couldn't join them in theraphie, but witnessed it when it came down to attempts of self-harm or searching for him when he runaway
In total I reflect that in this experience the naming of the problem as "video games addiction" by my parents was harmfull and lead to the aggression problem in the first place. The real problem of missing attention and different interest than expected was skiped.
Great post. I think the problem with both substance use and internet use is that they are both used to self-soothe when emotional needs aren't met. In that way, I think compulsive scrolling is way better because it doesn't damage your body and brain cells permanently. Arent fewer kids drinking or using weed these days? I think most parents would consider that a win. I say this as someone who had a problematic teenage and might have fallen prey to unhealthy ways of coping but thankfully I found the internet, and didn't put myself in danger like I would have otherwise.
The solution is to have stronger parent-child relationships, stronger communities and an environment more understanding of kids needs, but there will always be these issues for some of the kids.
I’m really glad for this letter. You’ve done a good job of putting down the future use of language that is being mistakenly utilized in discussion about it. I’m not personally as interested in what we’re calling it (though I understand that it’s important to sort things like this out) as I am in getting into discussing how it IS actually negatively impacting our lives. It is great to see positive impacts, but I’d love to get into the compulsions and difficulty managing time, behavioral effects, and impact on balance of things like outdoor/physical activity… That is what I’ll benefit from, I think.
Problematic gaming tends to arise because the games are fulfilling a deeper need that’s not getting fulfilled elsewhere in life. If the player’s engaging in a way that’s unbalanced or unhealthy, a good first question to ask is “what is the player getting from the game that s/he’s not getting elsewhere in life?”
Once that’s addressed, the player is able to moderate or stop in short order.
I’ve written on this a bit, but to go really in-depth, I’d check out Dr. Anthony Bean’s work on this topic
If it makes you feel better, I clashed with my mom quite a bit growing up about my own gaming habits. In my case, I was very much a loner type who didn't fit in with my peers, was marinating in deep unresolved trauma, and greatly enjoyed immersing myself in the stories and worlds that the games I played (of course, everyone is different in this regard, your kids probably have different emotional itches at play). I ultimately turned out well, all things considered. I wouldn't entirely credit that to video games, but they did play a big part in that.
I've found some of my previous posts, one that explore the benefits and pitfalls of gaming (and I touch on compulsive/problematic gaming as well), one is an interview with Dr. Bean, and the other is an interview with Dr. Etchells (who I believe Peter cited in his post). Hope they're useful to you, best of luck!
Jay, thanks for replying here - excited to read your work. I have a gamer husband and a gamer teen who is also neurodivergent, has wildly different interests than peers, and who has had a very difficult couple of years health wise. Gaming has been her lifeline and some really interesting growth and education is coming out of it.
But the fear mongering and judgment is so very real. And mostly because people blame the games instead of looking for that root cause.
Thanks for sharing, Kim! You touch on a big blind spot in the discourse around gaming (and a few other topics), which is that benefits in general are rarely considered, but *especially* when it comes to how it helps neurodivergent folks.
You’ve seen firsthand how games can be helpful to them, but most neurotypical people can’t (or won’t) see it unless they’ve got a personal window to it. A shame, really, because gaming can also be a bridge between parents and children (or people more generally) if one approaches it from a place of curiosity or acceptance instead of judgement. In fact, I have a niece who’s neurodivergent and highly guarded with others. But she trusts and is open with me, and we initially bonded over our shared love of gaming.
On that note, have you ever seen The Remarkable Life of Ibelin? If not, I highly recommend it, I get the feeling it’ll strike a major chord with you:
I read Alok Kanojia's (DrK) book "How to Raise a Healthy Gamer". It was mostly advice on and strategies for talking to your kids in a way that helps build an alliance with them. In the end, people need help figuring out life, so working together is how we get better.
The problem is that the major digital trends of our era (gaming, video, social media) have developed without guardrails over the past 30 years. Until we bake in incentives and disincentives none of our digital networked ecosystems are sustainable, nor efficient or generative. Instead of focusing on gaming as addictive or not, we should be looking at what is driving so many youth and young adults into negative habits of incessant gambling and speculation (mostly on crypto). We should ask ourselves why identity crisis, lack of trust in everything (except crypto), loneliness, falling birthrates and suicide are exploding across most cultures and societies. And we haven't gotten to the point where a majority of youth may be unemployable due to AI; an outgrowth of the above 3 trends. The reasons for this are all of the above, not just gaming. Humanity as a whole should recognize that we've gotten to the point where if we don't rethink our (digital) networks (aka institutional structures) gaming "addiction" will be the least of our worries.
Interesting post, thank you. I personally think it could benefit from some more clarity on definitions and concepts. How do you define addiction and compulsion exactly? What about the distinction of substance- and nonsubstance-based addictions where gaming or online buying disorder would fall into the latter category?
This is a wonderful distinction. Thank you for the way you describe it and for offering the studies as evidence to your claim.
It is easy to believe and fall for the fearful generalizations, as they give us a simplistic and singular reason for complex problems. I believe this makes us feel that we can control the outcome better if the reason for the problem is simple and not multifaceted, as it always is.
"Addictions have painful withdrawal symptoms". Interesting definition.
So when we invent a pill that cures heroin's painful withdrawal symptoms, then you won't be able to have a heroin addiction. You can only have a heroin compulsion. Just take the pill and manage your time, money and health. And it's no problem. Like coffee and sugar.
It reminds me of the moral anger towards premarital sex, before the birth control pill :)
What about love? Can you be addicted to love? Because surely a broken heart followed up by a severe depression, counts as a painful withdrawal symptom. Right? Or doesn't psychosomatic pain count?
I have two teens who have had unfettered access to computer technology most of their lives (I fought it when my elder was little but I healed that fear and need to control in myself and the issue resolved.)
And they have several friends who are from similar situations. Now that some of them are young adults, I can confirm that *the tech is not the problem.* The family and community environment drives so much of the dynamic.
All the effort that was needed was *within me.* Once I did that, it all flowed.
Gosh, Sarah, there is SO much you've said in this one comment. Healing our own fears, need for control, understanding that the tech is not the problem. So good.
DrK mentioned that any video gamer who is able to beat Dark Souls by definition does not have a problem with motivation. Its only that their motivation doesn't correspond to what you think it should.
I also want to point out that we often use the phrase "the real world" referring to life outside of school. My question is, if the life inside of school is implied to be fake, and correctly so, then why is it so much better than the world of Super Mario??
Exactly! Couldn’t have said it better myself
Hey Jay, are familiar with the work of Resonant Arc?
Not ringing a bell, but I’m always down for discovering great creators!
Its a youtube channel and podcast. After checking out your profile, I think it would very much be up your alley
Oh wow, this is great stuff! Gave it a sub, thanks for the rec!
I love Elden Ring. I couldn't beat the Fire Giant, though :) And Super Mario is great too.
But once I played a really bad game. The rewards kept coming, and I just kept playing. It's angers me a bit, to think about the opportunity cost. Did I have fun? Not really. All the daily chores got done. Both at home and in the game. The structure was perfect. I was a busy worker be. A time management expert. Sadly, a lost my creativity. Sacrificed at the alter of productivity.
I hate rewards. They sometimes force you to do what you hate. I'll rather choose my own faith. Criticize my goal again and again. Time management experts tell you, that the Skinner box is your friend. But I don't think so. It's a quick and dirty fix, that's all. Of course dog training can be fun. But all too often we get stuck, and suddenly our creativity is gone.
Work to get the next pay check.
Clean the house, to look like a good housewife.
Go to some wedding, just to make you wife happy.
Do your home work, to get a gold star or a "good boy".
Teach some stubborn school kids, to feel like a holy crusader.
I follow the fun. Not the money, status, sex, praise or moral brownie points.
-
What game have you wasted the most time on?
Isn't their some games you regret playing?
I've learned to embrace dependence. I don't know why people insist upon illusions like independence or somehow an action has to be "pure" as if there cannot be multiple reasons or multiple rewards for things. "Love" does not work that way.
How does love work?
-
Helen Fisher is a good place to start. Intellectually, of course.
Love is infinite. The Ultimate Source does not exhaust. I suspect some don't experience it as a direct result of not thesmelves being tapped-in to The Ultimate Source
You might like to read David Deutsch, he has some good stuff about how infinity works. But it is not obvious to me, how his ideas about infinity can be connected to love.
And I don't think there was love before animals. Which means that, love doesn't stretch infinitely far back in time ;) John Bowlby's attachment theory could also be a good place to start.
Oh, I'm a Muslim. I was just being cheeky while not directly referring to Allah as "The Utlimate Source". I very much believe in The Creator who we call Allah.
Actually I made this point about curiosity and learning once, that since Allah is All-Knowing and Allah is the Ultimate Reality, what exactly is it humans are doing when we discover? In a certain sense we are acting as conduits for this cosmic knowledge, opening ourselves to the possibility that it comes through us and into the world.
Love works like this too.
Well said!!
I’m not sure what you want to call it but I’ve seen too many kids (mostly boys) freak out and have extreme “painful withdrawal symptoms” when asked to stop playing video games, unlike when I ask them to stop playing Legos, reading a book or riding their bike. It’s an unnatural and highly problematic response when some children are asked to get off video games. I’ve even seen kids go to bathroom in their pants (yes, number one and two) because they do not want to get up from the video game. True stories. These behaviors are truly problematic, unhealthy, and unacceptable for most parents. If you have a child who cannot handle video games it’s best to take a serious pause or delay for the health of the child and the entire family!
I've never had that level of addiction to games, but gaming and internet use can be an escape. If real life feels pointless, might as well spend more time where things matter more. I think parents react to this stuff with negativity, anger, punishment which makes this stuff worse. The thing that snapped me out of this back in the day was having to go on a family vacation and spend time with everyone, and everyone was nice to me. I've suggested such things to parents whose kids struggle with going to school in the morning because they are hooked to their gaming consoles, but they refuse to deal with this stuff with positivity because "that would be sending the wrong message that being bad gets rewarded".
That made sense to me then. Then I became a mom, and it seems like such a silly attitude. Your Kids pull away from you if things are unpleasant, and they don't quite care whether their behavior fits into a moral equation, they are just trying to protect their sense of self. If you prioritize their sense of self and the connection you have, these problems become trivial to fix.
The problem is that this is looking at the problem backwards. Problematic gaming almost always arises because the games are fulfilling a deeper need that’s going unsolved elsewhere in the player’s life—in other words, it’s a symptom, not a cause. Clinicians well versed in problematic gaming are good at identifying and addressing these needs—the problematic gaming ceases almost immediately after the issue is resolved.
If you want to learn more, look up Dr. Anthony Bean’s research and clinical guidelines around this topic.
Games only get better and better.
It's a tool with tremendous power.
We have only seen the beginning.
Like with nuclear energy, fear makes it hard to agree.
-
I fear slowing progress, more than I fear loosing a few kids.
But we don't know if it's just gonna be a few.
Just like AI, Industrial food and anything new.
Bad parents, dictator teachers and gambling games can really screw with you.
This extreme aggressive response and need is where we struggle too. So I’m following Jay’s advice and looking further into trying to identify the need he suggests is going unmet. Something I’m curious about though is why that need going unmet for the first 11 & 8 years, respectively for my boys, wasn’t coming out as aggression. Why did they seem more content before video games were introduced?
I don't know the full context of your situation but impulsively I would say anger is often hinting to a feeling of powerlessness.
In my teenag year my brother (2 years younger) was dealing with "video game addiction". First it was noticed, when video games where prioritized over school and family activities, than it oresented itself in outburst of Anger, at at least in depression in self-harming behaviour.
From my perspective this is what happend (summarised):
First phase (playing more)
- the marriage problems of my parents (constent fighting, disrespect, missing attention to their children) caused my brother to search coping strategie outside like video games
- probably extra things effected es well, like that school and my dad couldn't give him something else that interested, motivated him, because they werent adjusted to his desires (befor that we were introduced to video games by playing together with our family)
Second phase (skiping school)
- my parents noticed his playing behaviour when it's stared to affect his motivation to go to school
- their conclusion: "Video games makes him skip school"
- they put limits (they did thats sometimes before but arbitrary) and stopped him from playing also with verbal and physical force (just taking thinks away, shouting, beeing negative)
- from there his response started to be agression (expression of powerlesness and despair of not beeing seen) and manifasted in distruction of objetcts (also of his own Nintendo btw.) and verbal screeming
Thirt phase (depression)
- my mother took care to seek help with therapy
-after that the actual wound came out
- in this phase I was nearly not present also because I couldn't join them in theraphie, but witnessed it when it came down to attempts of self-harm or searching for him when he runaway
In total I reflect that in this experience the naming of the problem as "video games addiction" by my parents was harmfull and lead to the aggression problem in the first place. The real problem of missing attention and different interest than expected was skiped.
Great post. I think the problem with both substance use and internet use is that they are both used to self-soothe when emotional needs aren't met. In that way, I think compulsive scrolling is way better because it doesn't damage your body and brain cells permanently. Arent fewer kids drinking or using weed these days? I think most parents would consider that a win. I say this as someone who had a problematic teenage and might have fallen prey to unhealthy ways of coping but thankfully I found the internet, and didn't put myself in danger like I would have otherwise.
The solution is to have stronger parent-child relationships, stronger communities and an environment more understanding of kids needs, but there will always be these issues for some of the kids.
What do you think of the use of the term "dependency/dependent" as an alternative to addiction?
I’m really glad for this letter. You’ve done a good job of putting down the future use of language that is being mistakenly utilized in discussion about it. I’m not personally as interested in what we’re calling it (though I understand that it’s important to sort things like this out) as I am in getting into discussing how it IS actually negatively impacting our lives. It is great to see positive impacts, but I’d love to get into the compulsions and difficulty managing time, behavioral effects, and impact on balance of things like outdoor/physical activity… That is what I’ll benefit from, I think.
Problematic gaming tends to arise because the games are fulfilling a deeper need that’s not getting fulfilled elsewhere in life. If the player’s engaging in a way that’s unbalanced or unhealthy, a good first question to ask is “what is the player getting from the game that s/he’s not getting elsewhere in life?”
Once that’s addressed, the player is able to moderate or stop in short order.
I’ve written on this a bit, but to go really in-depth, I’d check out Dr. Anthony Bean’s work on this topic
Thanks. I’ve been so far unable to figure out what that thing might be for my kids. I’ll go check it out.
If it makes you feel better, I clashed with my mom quite a bit growing up about my own gaming habits. In my case, I was very much a loner type who didn't fit in with my peers, was marinating in deep unresolved trauma, and greatly enjoyed immersing myself in the stories and worlds that the games I played (of course, everyone is different in this regard, your kids probably have different emotional itches at play). I ultimately turned out well, all things considered. I wouldn't entirely credit that to video games, but they did play a big part in that.
I've found some of my previous posts, one that explore the benefits and pitfalls of gaming (and I touch on compulsive/problematic gaming as well), one is an interview with Dr. Bean, and the other is an interview with Dr. Etchells (who I believe Peter cited in his post). Hope they're useful to you, best of luck!
https://gameandword.substack.com/p/issue-39-a-tale-of-two-case-studies
https://gameandword.substack.com/p/the-game-and-word-podcast-lost-in
https://gameandword.substack.com/p/bonus-audio-pirate-archetypes-with
Jay, thanks for replying here - excited to read your work. I have a gamer husband and a gamer teen who is also neurodivergent, has wildly different interests than peers, and who has had a very difficult couple of years health wise. Gaming has been her lifeline and some really interesting growth and education is coming out of it.
But the fear mongering and judgment is so very real. And mostly because people blame the games instead of looking for that root cause.
Thanks for sharing, Kim! You touch on a big blind spot in the discourse around gaming (and a few other topics), which is that benefits in general are rarely considered, but *especially* when it comes to how it helps neurodivergent folks.
You’ve seen firsthand how games can be helpful to them, but most neurotypical people can’t (or won’t) see it unless they’ve got a personal window to it. A shame, really, because gaming can also be a bridge between parents and children (or people more generally) if one approaches it from a place of curiosity or acceptance instead of judgement. In fact, I have a niece who’s neurodivergent and highly guarded with others. But she trusts and is open with me, and we initially bonded over our shared love of gaming.
On that note, have you ever seen The Remarkable Life of Ibelin? If not, I highly recommend it, I get the feeling it’ll strike a major chord with you:
https://youtu.be/lM_hkJ0Rl-c?si=TrDU_OdCkIa-A7o5
Thank you! I’ll read them tonight and reply back!
I read Alok Kanojia's (DrK) book "How to Raise a Healthy Gamer". It was mostly advice on and strategies for talking to your kids in a way that helps build an alliance with them. In the end, people need help figuring out life, so working together is how we get better.
What do your kids say when you ask them?
The problem is that the major digital trends of our era (gaming, video, social media) have developed without guardrails over the past 30 years. Until we bake in incentives and disincentives none of our digital networked ecosystems are sustainable, nor efficient or generative. Instead of focusing on gaming as addictive or not, we should be looking at what is driving so many youth and young adults into negative habits of incessant gambling and speculation (mostly on crypto). We should ask ourselves why identity crisis, lack of trust in everything (except crypto), loneliness, falling birthrates and suicide are exploding across most cultures and societies. And we haven't gotten to the point where a majority of youth may be unemployable due to AI; an outgrowth of the above 3 trends. The reasons for this are all of the above, not just gaming. Humanity as a whole should recognize that we've gotten to the point where if we don't rethink our (digital) networks (aka institutional structures) gaming "addiction" will be the least of our worries.
Interesting post, thank you. I personally think it could benefit from some more clarity on definitions and concepts. How do you define addiction and compulsion exactly? What about the distinction of substance- and nonsubstance-based addictions where gaming or online buying disorder would fall into the latter category?
This is a wonderful distinction. Thank you for the way you describe it and for offering the studies as evidence to your claim.
It is easy to believe and fall for the fearful generalizations, as they give us a simplistic and singular reason for complex problems. I believe this makes us feel that we can control the outcome better if the reason for the problem is simple and not multifaceted, as it always is.
"Addictions have painful withdrawal symptoms". Interesting definition.
So when we invent a pill that cures heroin's painful withdrawal symptoms, then you won't be able to have a heroin addiction. You can only have a heroin compulsion. Just take the pill and manage your time, money and health. And it's no problem. Like coffee and sugar.
It reminds me of the moral anger towards premarital sex, before the birth control pill :)
What about love? Can you be addicted to love? Because surely a broken heart followed up by a severe depression, counts as a painful withdrawal symptom. Right? Or doesn't psychosomatic pain count?