Addiction to old games is more serious than it seems. It causes withdrawal syndrome and has the same psychopathological basis as another addiction. Delve into its symptoms and treatments.

Video game addiction: symptoms and treatments

Video game addiction is a hot topic. Increasing technological development and the influence of the internet have made more and more people have access to games, especially online.

In fact, the latter type of games are the ones that most concern professionals, due to the great power and ease they have to cause addiction. But, where is the limit that defines a behavior as addictive? Is anyone who gambles excessively addicted to video games? Let's go deeper.

What is video game addiction?

Excessive activity and addictive activity are not the same. What differentiates them, and what allows us to carry out an addiction diagnosis, is the interference it produces in the daily life of the player. That is, a person with a video game addiction is one who loses part of his life playing.

Boy with console controller playing video games

Thus, to identify video game addiction, and therefore to prevent and treat it, it is necessary to know that there are a series of behavioral indicators. In this sense, the symptoms related to this addiction are the following:

  • Targeting : video games become the central nucleus of the person's life. Much of your thoughts go to the game or the next game, as well as your feelings and actions.
  • Modification of the mood : a video game addict is characterized by presenting a subjective experience of euphoria and excitement while playing. In addition, this is also considered as a coping strategy against said addiction.
  • Tolerance : As in substance addictions, there is an increasing need to play to match the feeling experienced in its early days. Which means that the player will spend more and more time in front of the video game, thus forming a vicious circle.
  • Withdrawal symptoms : When it is not possible to play or the playing time is reduced, playing manifests a series of symptoms similar to those that occur in a withdrawal syndrome. Some of them are for example: moodiness, irritability, etc.
  • Conflict : this symptom refers both to conflicts with other people, with other activities or with oneself. The addiction to video games causes interpersonal relationships to be affected, work or academic conflicts appear, and in turn, the player begins to have subjective feelings of loss of control.
  • Relapse : after periods of abstinence or control, the behavioral patterns of addictive gambling are restored.

Treatments for video game addiction

The recent awareness in this field and the lack of research on it, makes treatments for video game addiction scarce. In addition, there are some factors that hinder the progress of research such as the growth of the video game industry, the low cost of this addiction for the player and the permissive attitude of the population towards this type of activity.

People playing video games

Still, there are steps that can be taken to prevent this problem from occurring. A particularly vulnerable population are children and adolescents. For this reason, some measures are directly aimed at parents and educators who, suspecting that a minor may be addicted to video games, can carry out the following measures:

  • Check the content of the most used games and, where appropriate, replace violent games with more educational ones.
  • Encourage the child to play in a group, to avoid isolation and promote interaction.
  • Agree with him the hours and conditions of the game. For example, negotiate with the child that they will play two hours a day in the afternoon once all the homework has been done.
  • Maintain an active listening with the child. We must understand that this behavior has an explanation. Maybe it's a way to communicate or express discomfort in other areas of your life.
  • In the event that all of the above fails, we can remove the game console for a time until we deem it appropriate to return it to you.

Obviously, when video game addiction occurs in adults, the treatment changes. There are some clinics that carry out specific therapies for this population. His philosophy is to show players that they can achieve the same satisfaction in the real world. While it is true, that this type of addiction is much rarer in adulthood.

SOS: My son is hooked on Fornite

"Sos: My son is hooked on Fornite", this is how the news has been titled in the newspaper "Diario de Mallorca" on October 24, 2018. This headline refers to a conference that took place in Mallorca on addiction to this game so fashionable among young people.

Several psychologists addressed the issue and noted that the game is "highly addictive by design" and that it is "promoted very intelligently." It's a game mostly played by a lot of teenagers, but each time, it seems, the age is reduced to 7 years.

The psychologist Azuzena Hernández highlights that: "the risk user profile is a boy between 11 and 18 years old and of low or medium-low socioeconomic level and that addiction to this video game, like any other, has the same psychopathological basis than any other addiction (and yes, it also causes withdrawal syndrome) " .

The issue is more serious than it seems, so we should not get confused and leave our children with the tables and consoles just because they do not bother. Unknowingly, we may be making them addicted to a video game with all the possible negative consequences afterward.