A recent study published by the American Academy of Pediatrics links video game addiction with mental health problems. The study examined 3,000 grade school children and found that nearly 10% of video gamers displayed pathological gaming problems that are linked to depression, anxiety and poor grades. Researchers in the U.S. and overseas studied 4th, 5th, 7th and 8th grade children in Singapore and determined that 9% of the total group could be considered as addicted to gaming.
The study suggested that children who are less social among their peers and who spend a lot of time playing video games were at the most risk of becoming addicted to video games. The two-year study also found that 84% of children who participated in excessive gaming remained excessive gamers throughout the study. The implication is that gaming addiction is not a phase, but a real addiction.
In order to establish a threshold for what is considered excessive gaming, the students in the study were evaluated to determine if they thought they were becoming preoccupied with video games and whether or not did they lied about the amount of time spent they actually spent playing games. Other indicators for pathological gaming were ignoring schoolwork to play games and if playing games allowed them to escape from problems or bad feelings in their lives.
Although the medical community has not yet agreed if pathological video gaming should be validated as a true mental disorder in the American Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, if gaming was causing multiple problems in a student’s life, they were considered to be addicted to gaming according to the Academy study. The threshold set by the study suggested that any gamers who played more than 31 hours a week were pathologically addicted. Normal, non-addictive gaming was considered anything less than 19 hours a week in the study, but the American Academy of Pediatrics actual recommendations are no more that one hour of gaming for elementary school aged children and no more than two hours a day for teens in high school.
Boys were more likely to be excessive gamers than girls and those who were considered pathological gamers were at a greater risk of developing depression and other mental health problems than kids the same age that did not play as many video games. As might be expected, the study also found that when those in the excessive-use category stopped their excessive gaming, their levels of depression, anxiety and social phobias also decreased. Those children who were socially awkward or had difficulty managing their impulses were more likely to become addicted than average kids when exposed to an excess of game time.
Although medical insurance companies do not yet cover treatment for gaming addiction, the time may not be far off. The Academy study shows the importance of maintaining balance in all the activities of children and teens and that an excess of any one behavior is never a good thing.
