Computer game addiction message. How to get rid of computer addiction in teenagers and children: advice from a psychologist. Treatment on a psychological level

In the 21st century it is difficult to imagine life without a computer. Virtual reality has firmly established itself in our homes, and every day it captivates more and more people. We are attracted by incredible opportunities and fantastic prospects. When the passion for games and the Internet goes beyond what is reasonable, when a person does not eat, hardly sleeps, and what is happening on the other side of the monitor becomes more important to him than what is around him, we can talk about a painful addiction. Doctors call it computer addiction, gambling addiction. It is especially alarming if a child becomes a prisoner of virtual reality.

Everything usually starts according to one scenario. Moms and dads, hoping to get an hour and a half of free time, give their baby a tablet or phone. The son is busy, the house is quiet, the adults are happy. Then the grown-up child masters the Internet and realizes that it is much more interesting there than in ordinary life. And after a few years, parents do not know where to look for help, what to do with their child’s obsessive craving for high technology.

And their fears are not unfounded: the child is not interested in studying, does not want to walk with friends in the yard, does not dream of going to the sea in the summer, does not help with housework, and sometimes forgets to eat and sleeps poorly.

Let's try to figure out together what computer addiction is in children and adolescents - a disease or just a hobby? What to do to prevent it from appearing? And what to do if your child is already dependent on virtuality?

Diagnosis or hobby?

There is no consensus on this matter yet. The International Classification of Diseases does not contain a diagnosis of “computer addiction,” although the question of including this term in the list is raised every year. But many doctors tend to consider computer addiction a disease, on a par with alcoholism and drug addiction. An experiment was conducted in Germany in which two dozen people were shown screenshots from their favorite computer games. The reaction of people turned out to be identical to that observed in alcoholics and drug addicts when they are shown a bottle of alcohol or a dose of drug.

According to statistics, 12 out of every 7,000 people are addicted to online computer games. 19% of Facebook's 250 million users admit to being addicted to gaming.

Many doctors insist on including computer addiction in the list of serious diseases

Online games are the most addictive. In 2005, a teenage girl died of malnutrition in China. She played World of Warcraft for several days. A year later, a 17-year-old boy died in Bashkiria from an epileptic attack that developed as a result of playing on the computer for many days. The sad statistics can be continued further, because such cases have been occurring more and more often lately.

It’s no secret that schoolchildren who have played bloody “shooters” can organize massacres in real life. Executions and massacres are occasionally carried out by American and Japanese schoolchildren.

Passion for computer games in itself is not dangerous. But when does it become an addiction? The main signs that your child is a gambling addict or a victim of Internet addiction:

• He began to communicate less on abstract topics. All conversations are around your favorite game.
• He is not interested in studying he stopped attending sections, or does so extremely reluctantly.
• The child spends all his free time at the computer. Any attempts to force him to turn off the equipment lead to a scandal. Attempts by parents to limit screen time cause the child to have bouts of crying, rage, and hysteria.
• The child has become more irritable his mood often changes without reason - from excitement he easily moves to depressive blues.
• He does not know how to control his time spent at the computer. He says that he will play for two hours, but he can sit for much longer.
• The child stopped taking care of himself- without a reminder, he may forget to wash his face, brush his teeth, or change clothes.
• He has no friends left. He hardly communicates with anyone.
• Your child has memory gaps. Short-term memory suffers; he may not remember what he said or promised several hours ago.

If you find at least three matches in this list, this is a reason to take urgent action. There are now special tests on the Internet that, after filling out a questionnaire, allow you to understand how great the risk of developing computer addiction is. They are largely subjective and do not allow for a 100% diagnosis, but they will help you get a general idea of ​​the problem.

If a child throws tantrums when separated from a gadget, this is a clear sign of computer addiction.

Causes

Almost all children love to sit at the computer. But why do some people develop addiction and others not? Why is behavior correction easy for some children and difficult for others? It's all about the personal characteristics of your offspring - his temperament, level of self-esteem, type of organization of the nervous system.

If a teenager is not confident in himself, he has little communication outside the home - with a high degree of probability he can become addicted to online communication. There he will find what he is missing in life.

Children with high levels of anxiety and fears often become hooked on heroic computer epics. They like to identify themselves as an all-powerful game character who kills hordes of monsters with just his left hand. In this case, the child seems to compensate for the lack of courage and determination in reality.

Game developers know all this very well, and every year they improve their product more and more - high-quality sound, 3D graphics, presence effect... Everything is created so that a person feels “real” inside the game. Children's psyche is more labile, they are easier to captivate than adults, they believe in what is happening faster. That is why for every adult suffering from computer addiction, in our country there are now more than 20 children with the same problem.

What's really going on? The child ceases to perceive the world as before. As computer addiction develops, he loses the best human qualities - empathy, love, honesty.

The most susceptible to gadget addiction are:

• Children suffering from attention deficit disorder. Parents devote little time to them, and then their peers ignore them. The best prevention in this case is love and participation in the child’s life.
• Children are choleric and children are melancholic. Their worldview is special even without computers. Guys with such temperaments “get used to” the proposed circumstances more easily than others.
• Children from “problem” families. We are talking about families where domestic violence is practiced - scandals, beatings, coercion to do anything. And even if the victim of violence is another family member, the child will psychologically strive to escape from this uncomfortable reality to another. Why not go virtual? The same partly applies to families where the parents have recently divorced, and the child still finds it difficult to accept change.
• Children who are not accustomed to saving time. If a child has not been taught to manage his time rationally since childhood, then by the age of 10-12 he will have too many free minutes and hours. He sincerely believes that the responsibility of cleaning the room or taking out the trash can be postponed until later. It’s much more interesting to spend time in virtuality. Without parental control, such children won’t do much with the housework, but they will sit down at the computer with great pleasure.
• Children suffering from complexes. A girl who doesn't like her own appearance gets a chance to become a beautiful warrior in a computer game. A shy and timid boy manages to be a hero - a winner. The game fills the voids in the child’s soul, and gradually he ceases to be himself, but becomes a character in the game.

If you don't give your child enough attention, he or she is likely to develop computer addiction.

Consequences

Computer addiction can lead to very disastrous consequences:

• Social isolation, the child’s lack of ability to communicate and negotiate.
• Nervous and mental personality disorders - psychosis, clinical depression, hysteria, schizophrenia.
• Difficulties with learning, lack of motivation.
• Associative behavior, lack of understanding of the boundaries of what is permitted, including by law. As a result, the child may become a criminal.
• Diseases: gastritis, poor posture, hemorrhoids, chronic fatigue syndrome, exhaustion of the whole body, peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum, myopia, glaucoma, dry eye syndrome, farsightedness, display syndrome.

Help

There are several ways to help your child get rid of computer addiction. But the degree of bias should be taken into account. In some cases, parents can help their child on their own, but in some cases, the help of specialists is needed.

Conversation is the first step to get rid of computer addiction in a child

Educational conversation

An excellent method at the very beginning of addiction. It is important to understand the causes of addiction. Why is the child on the other side of the monitor better than with you? The most common mistake is to start lecturing about the dangers of a computer, making trouble and appealing to the child’s conscience. This will all only irritate him. Try to become a “companion”.

Spend the evening with your son playing his favorite game. Play with him, talk to him. Let him tell you about all the characters and their abilities. During the virtual adventures, gently ask your child why he likes to be this hero and not another? Why does he need so many weapons? Who is he fighting? Contact will be established, perhaps not the first time. But when you understand for yourself what attracts your son or daughter to the game, you will be able to plan his leisure time a little differently, including in it the very thing that is missing.

Scandals and swearing are your main enemies in the fight against addiction

Psychoanalysis

Today this is the most common way to combat computer addiction in both children and adults. An experienced psychoanalyst will help reveal the true underlying reasons for leaving for another, virtual world. Sometimes, after just one session, a specialist will accurately determine which family problems, personal complexes, and moral traumas are pushing the child into another space and dimension. Parents are encouraged to participate in therapy.

If you take the whole family with a sincere desire to change something in your life, the result will be positive. The main condition is that parents must be ready to make changes to their own lifestyle, their habits and character. The services of a psychoanalyst are not very cheap. But this method is effective when addiction has long passed the initial stage.

Hypnosis

Psychotherapists began treating computer addiction using hypnosis about ten years ago. Sufficient experience has been gained. The hypnologist puts the child into a trance (with the consent of the parents) and carefully gives him psycho-settings for indifference to computer games and communication on the Internet. This is roughly how alcoholics are coded.

However Don’t think that hypnosis is a panacea. Firstly, not all people can be hypnotized, and secondly, the symptoms of addiction may disappear, but their hidden causes will remain. And then the child, from whose life computer games have disappeared, will begin to fill the voids with something else. It’s not a fact that it’s something good and useful. Computer addiction may be replaced by other pathological conditions - from theft to drugs.

Hypnosis is not effective in all cases

Medicines

Often, drug treatment is used to get rid of computer addiction (especially in “advanced” stages). Medicines that are sold strictly according to a prescription are prescribed by a doctor. Typically, this happens if a child has personality disorders, depression, or anxiety. The specialist prescribes antidepressants and sedatives.

It must be said right away that you cannot get rid of computer addiction with pills and injections alone, since they again treat the consequences, not the cause. Whatever one may say, one cannot do without psychological help and rehabilitation. And the use of psychotropic drugs has never brought much benefit to a child’s body.

• If you discover that your child has a computer addiction, do not panic. You can scare him with your reaction and drive him even deeper into a detached state. Analyze the situation and make a plan to get out of it.
• Don't scream, don't blame your child. It's not his fault. After all, weren’t we ourselves the one who once gave him a gadget in his hands to keep him occupied for a while? Take responsibility and be patient. Computer addiction does not go away quickly.
• Find a good time to talk with your son or daughter. Look for the reason for his voluntary departure into virtuality.
• Offer your child interesting ways to spend his free time. Remember, they must be in tune with the cause of the addiction. If a timid child is carried away by games in order to feel omnipotent, send him to a boxing section, karate, or organize a parachute jump. If your teenager doesn’t have enough thrills in everyday life, offer to go together on a weekend and play paintball or take part in an interactive quest in reality. Now they are common. There the child will be able to feel like the same hero, but for real. If your son or daughter has communication problems, enroll your child in a theater studio, dance classes, or anywhere where the “we are a team” principle applies.

Give your child bright impressions and unforgettable moments!

• Set goals for your dependent child. And gradually teach him to set goals on his own and go towards them.
• You shouldn’t forbid him to sit at the computer or take away his gadget, trying to force him to wean him off the tablet. This will cause aggression and resentment. And these feelings do not contribute to establishing contact.
• Outline your child's responsibilities. Homework, cleaning, walking the dog, taking out the trash. Don't be afraid to overload it. No one has ever died from housework. Reward for what is done, but not with additional time on the computer. Set up a reward system yourself. What could it be? Small money that a child can save for the sneakers of his dreams or anything else he wants.
• Computer addiction is rapidly becoming younger. If 10 years ago 14-16 year old teenagers suffered from it, now you can meet mothers who complain that they cannot kick their 4-5 year old child out because of the monitor. If your child is under 10 years old, try to strictly limit the time spent playing. Preferably no more than half an hour a day. It’s best to find an alternative activity; a computer is not the best toy for young children.
• Be prepared to change yourself. Together with your child you will jump with a parachute, master roller skating, go fishing or dancing. Remember that he cannot cope with addiction alone.
• Don't relax. As in the treatment of alcoholism or drug addiction, the patient may experience relapses and breakdowns. It would seem that you managed to distract the child from the “tanks” and “war games”, but you quarreled, and he moves away again, trying to hide in the game.

You need to know the enemy by sight

Parents whose children are overly addicted to the Internet and games need to know which games are the most addictive and mentally crippling.

In this list, according to experts, The Sims, horror Five Nights at Freddy's, Second Life, Prototype, Left 4 Dead 2, Fallout 3, Splatterhouse And World of Warcraft. Recently, children and teenagers are immersed in " World of Tanks».

“Tanks” is not as bloody as “Splatterhouse”, where severed limbs and skin torn off from enemies are the norm, not savagery, but they have their own nuances. Playing "Tanks" requires financial investments - after all, the equipment needs to be improved (“pumped up”). Where will the child get the money? That's right, from the parents. And if they don’t give it to you, then they can steal from strangers, since the desire to have the coolest tank at this moment is stronger than common sense. I have seen grown men who “invest” most of their income in tanks, without thinking about the fact that they have families, children, and obligations. What can we say about teenagers? Take your time, ask what your child is playing, try to play it yourself, get to know the enemy by sight as much as possible.

If a child has an Internet addiction, you need to be on guard every day. Fraudsters, pedophiles, perverts of all stripes have recently been lying in wait for children not in the gateway of their home, but on the Internet. Look at what social media groups your child is in. Did he end up in the so-called death group? These are communities where teenagers are prepared to commit suicide. Are there any adults among his contacts that you don’t know?

It would be unfair to classify all computer games as malicious without exception. Of course, there are educational games that develop logic, thinking, and memory.

So, my eldest son studied the English alphabet at one time. He was helped in this by Winnie the Pooh from the game marked 3+. When I noticed that my son in the 3rd grade, instead of studying, was concentrating on destroying another batch of bloody zombies in “Left 4 Dead” with a shotgun, and when asked where we would go on the weekend, he answered: “Can I stay at home?”, the question was posed bluntly - either now or never. By that time, by the way, my son weighed about 70 kilos, suffered from stage 1 obesity, and in principle did not want to go to any sections. As soon as he turned away, he grabbed his plate of dinner and went to eat at the computer. As a gift for the holidays, I asked for a new game or another disc with a continuation of the game...

So I brought him to the cadet school, where he put on a military uniform, learned to run and do pull-ups, jump with a parachute and disassemble a Kalashnikov assault rifle. At first, of course, he was capricious, incredibly, suffered and complained. When in the fifth grade he announced that he would be a military man, we were almost not surprised. Now he is 17. He graduates with honors from the Stavropol Presidential Cadet School. Studying three foreign languages. This summer I intend to enter a higher military school. His dream is to become a scout.

He calls his peers who spend their free time playing computer games in unprintable terms and wonders how he himself could sit at the computer for so much time. Now I am grateful to fate that I was able to recognize the symptoms of the onset of addiction in time and quickly block it. Now I'm looking at my middle son. There is no talk of addiction yet, but I am always ready.

By recognizing a child’s addiction to virtual games in time, you can save his future

Other extremes

One day an old friend called me and burst into a long and detailed text on the topic “How to live further?” Like, “this idiot” won’t achieve anything in life, because he doesn’t need anything other than a “computer”. He spends all his free time there and doesn’t want to hear anything. It was about her 13-year-old son. My imagination immediately drew the darkest images, and I promised to stop by one of these days and talk to the teenager.

Misha greeted me with a dull semblance of a smile. It was clear how exhausted he was by constant reproaches and even hysterics from his mother. I walked up to the table and, to my surprise, found books on programming and graphic design on it. A few questions were enough to understand that the child does not play on the computer. He works behind it. With great difficulty, I managed to convince him to at least slightly reduce the time he spent behind the monitor, and my friend to leave the teenager alone. Misha is currently studying at university and will soon become a programmer. He is already a recipient of a presidential scholarship and a regular at various IT events and rallies on an all-Russian scale.

Conclusion - do not rush to label your child as a “gambler”, “addicted”, “sick”... Take a deep dive into what your child wants and dreams of.. Whether he has an addiction or not, you will understand quite quickly, but a damaged relationship and broken contact with a teenager will still cause a lot of trouble. The main thing is to love the child, accept him with all his oddities and hobbies. But at the same time, do not go blind from love and recognize the symptoms of impending disaster in time. If computers have already begun to “absorb” the personality of your son or daughter, do not hesitate to ask specialists for help.

Communicate with parents of other children who have fallen into the clutches of virtual reality and share your experiences. It is possible and necessary to overcome this addiction. But this can only be done by everyone together, joining forces.

Acne in boys

Computer addiction

Chapter from the book “I Can’t Stop. Where do obsessive states come from and how to get rid of them” Sharon Begley about how addiction to various computer games works - from Candy Crush Saga to World Of Warcraft.

Compulsive video game playing is different from all other compulsions. Most people do not become pathological hoarders, OCD sufferers, compulsive eaters, bodybuilders, or shopaholics. Due to their psychotype, they do not risk falling into the black hole of such behavioral patterns, since they have a fairly high resistance to painful anxiety.

But Video games and other electronic temptations exploit universal aspects of human psychology. As I have already noted, a person's compulsive behavior does not mean that he is crazy. On the contrary, an adaptive response to anxiety that would otherwise be unbearable is completely normal.

Nowhere is this more evident than in gambling addiction. Video games are extremely compelling because their creators have learned to tap into universal aspects of how our brains function. That's why Almost anyone can feel the attraction to games and the inability to resist it. John Doerr, the famed Silicon Valley venture capitalist who invested in game developer Zynga, told Vanity Fair in 2011: “It's true that these games aren't for everyone, but they're as close as anything to me. known."

I hoped that the reasons for this could be explained by game designers and scientists who have devoted themselves to a new field of research - the psychology of games. But first it was necessary to make sure that the games satisfied the necessary condition - the ability to reduce anxiety - in order to be a subject of compulsion, and not, say, addiction.

In a 2012 New York Times Magazine article, consulting critic Sam Anderson described his compulsive need to play Drop7, a Sudoku-like game released by Zynga in 2009 where you manipulate balls falling from top to bottom in a 7x7 grid of squares.

“I played instead of washing dishes, bathing children, communicating with relatives, reading the newspaper, and most importantly, writing,” Anderson admitted. “The game became for me a painkiller, an emergency escape capsule, a breathing apparatus, a Xanax.”

The game has become a digital sedative. He realized that with its help he was “self-medicating”, grabbing Drop7 “in any extreme situation,” for example, “after a raised conversation with his mother; as soon as I found out that my dog ​​was probably going to die from cancer.”

One online commentator confirmed that video games, at least for him, are inseparable from compulsion. “They reduce my anxiety and I confirm that I play Bejeweled for that purpose,” he wrote. “I didn’t pay attention to how much time I was devoting to this game until one day I realized that I was playing it on the exercise bike during physical therapy,” before falling off it.

Screenshot from the game Bejeweled.

Neil Gaiman described this condition in his 1990 poem "Virus":

You play - there are tears in your eyes,
Wrist aches
Hunger torments... and then everything goes away. Or - everything except the game.
In my head now there is only a game and nothing more*.

Tens of millions of people could subscribe to these words.

In May 2013, Dong Nguyen, a previously unknown game creator from Hanoi, Vietnam, released Flappy Bird, which he told reporters the following year: “It was probably the simplest idea I could think of.”

The game turned out to be the embodiment of the “dumb toys” despised by serious gamers, in which the lack of plot, visual appeal and full-fledged development is compensated only by the complete thoughtlessness of the process. In Flappy Bird, the player pokes his finger at the screen, trying to make the barely animated bird (it doesn't even flap its rudimentary wings - in fact, they are barely visible) to fly into the gap between the vertical green pipes.

However, despite the stupidity - or, conversely, because of it - the game became a sensation. At the beginning of 2014, it topped the lists of the most popular downloads on both Apple and Android, to the utter bewilderment of its creator.

“I don’t understand why Flappy Bird is so popular,” Nguyen told the Washington Post. Ian Bogost, a professor of interactive computer systems at Georgia Tech and a game designer, wrote that countless gamers are "amazed and depressed by the fact that they both hate this game and are captivated by it."

Video games: normal or addiction?

Of course, games are also played to relieve stress after a hard day, to feel at least a little bit of pride in one’s achievements, or to simply relax and disconnect from everything. And not every activity that is spent too much time on is compulsive. Excessiveness is not a sign of compulsiveness (even if we leave aside the question that the very concept of “excessiveness” is subjective).

There are many reasons why people play video games at the expense of other activities and at the expense of work, such as to relieve boredom or procrastinate, avoid socializing, or cope with loneliness. But, as evidenced by the above examples, as well as the study of the phenomenon of psychological attractiveness of video games, for some people this activity still becomes a compulsion, including a destructive one.

Since the first decade of the 21st century, “reboot camps” have been opened in South Korea and China to treat children who are unable to resist the compulsive need to spend hours playing video games.

This does not mean, however, that compulsion is a mental illness. A panel of experts determining which disorders should be included in the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic Manual reviewed nearly 240 studies purporting to describe "online gaming addiction."

As a result, they decided not to include gaming compulsion among the officially recognized mental illnesses by science, agreeing only that this problem deserves additional study. Today, science says one thing with certainty: even a person with a perfectly sound mind can become addicted to compulsive gambling.

Flow, intermittent reinforcement and Angry Birds

Nikita Mikros shows up for an interview in a T-shirt wet with sweat and with a helmet under his arm, rolling a bicycle next to him. We agreed to meet in an old warehouse building on the waterfront in Dumbo, a hipster Brooklyn neighborhood of cobblestones and coffee shops.

Mikros, a video game and arcade developer since the 1990s, invited me to spend the morning in his company and learn a lot of interesting things. For example, why the puzzle game Candy Crush Saga from the giant of mobile gaming applications King Digital Entertainment attracted 66 million players in 2013, Alec Baldwin allowed himself to be disembarked from a plane about to take off, just so as not to tear himself away from Zynga’s Words with Friends**, and Tetris According to the voting results, it turned out to be the most exciting game of all time.

Word With Friends

“We've learned a lot about how to make games seductive,” Mikros wrote to me in an email. “Unfortunately, some of the tricks make me feel creepy.”
Mikros quickly leads me into the premises of his game development company, Tiny Mantis. These are just two rooms and a dozen workstations. Among gamers, Mikros became famous for creating such things as Dora Saves the Crystal Kingdom, Dungeonsand Dungeons and Lego Dino Outbreak.

The rooms are filled with flat-panel monitors surrounded by disposable coffee cups, and the surroundings include exposed communications, painted brick walls, holes in the ceiling and posters of Mr. Spock and a panda.

Mikros leaves for a minute and returns with a fresh T-shirt - black, with a picture of the Mona Lisa bleeding. I've been tuning in all morning to watch him play Diablo and Angry Birds, but he loads the presentation he prepared for me. Instead of gutting monsters, we dive into the ideas of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Psychologist Csikszentmihalyi proposed the idea of ​​"flow" - a state of mind characterized by complete unity with the current activity.

In a state of flow, you are so immersed in what you are doing that the outside world barely enters your consciousness, no other thoughts overcome your mind, the sense of time disappears, even hunger and thirst are not felt. Having been “in the flow,” many are amazed: “Honest mother, where did the time go and why do you want to eat so much?”

The best game developers, Mikros explains, put players in a state of flow: “You forget yourself, your sense of time changes. You start playing, and you won’t even notice how it happened, but - oops! - it's morning already. The experience of the game becomes an end in itself. But each person’s flow zone has its own dimensions. If you give players too many challenges, they'll become overly anxious and give up, and if it's too easy, they'll get bored and quit.

But being in the central zone, they are completely immersed in the process.” The flow is so attractive that the experience of experiencing it sinks into the soul, and it is very difficult to refuse it.

One way to keep players of varying levels "in the flow," according to Mikros, is to constantly adjust the difficulty. This method was used in the 1980s classic. Crash Bandicoot*. If the player found themselves fatally unable to, say, jump onto moving shelves, the game showed mercy by not rewinding too far back to the beginning if the character died, and by making it easier to navigate the obstacle-filled environment.

On the other hand, as soon as you gained experience, the game became more difficult. “Some people like it,” Mikros said. “Since I’m playing better and better,” they reason, let the tasks become more difficult, otherwise it’s just a walk.”

Another way to keep a player in a state of flow is to, for example, crush a monster by using a new skill against it, and then use only that skill in several subsequent situations.

“Your capabilities are growing, now you can defeat a monster that was previously invulnerable,” Mikros explained. “Good developers lead you through a narrow corridor in the flow zone, increasing the difficulty and then giving you a slightly easier task, increasing the level of difficulty again and again offering something easier.”

I admit that I don't see anything special about creating games that keep us in flow. Obviously, a game needs to have these characteristics to be attractive (since it needs to hold the player's attention long enough for them to be drawn in), but it seems to me to be a necessary but not sufficient condition. There is no universal recipe, agrees Mikros: “If we knew exactly what to do, every game would turn into Angry Birds.”

In the 4 years since the release of this game by Rovio Entertainment, it has been downloaded 2 billion times.

People can't seem to resist the temptation to use a virtual sling to hurl an enraged bird at an egg-grabbing green pig! Why? There are many reasons why Angry Birds is fun to play: it's a simple game, there's no learning curve, and when hit directly, the pig explodes, to the delight of any inner preschooler.

But the reasons for the game's compulsiveness go deeper. If an action is guaranteed to be followed by a reward (successfully throw a bird - the pig explodes), then the dopamine production system is triggered in the brain. It was previously thought that its sole purpose was to produce a subjective feeling of reward or pleasure, but it turns out that the system is more complex: it calculates the likelihood that an action will provide a reward and adjusts the expectation module in our brain accordingly.

“The presence of dopamine signals to the brain that a reward is expected—like the splendid sight of houses made of glass and wood flying into the air,” psychologist Michael Chorost (who deleted Angry Birds from his phone to overcome his compulsive need to play) wrote in Psychology Today in 2011. ). “However, the brain does not know how large the reward will be.

Will the bird just glide across the surface or hit the bull's-eye? This uncertainty creates tension, and the brain craves relief. As a result, you will go to great lengths to find that relief.” For example, you will use a virtual sling over and over again.

It's no surprise that many people who can't stop playing Bejeweled or even FreeCell have a less-than-pleasant experience. They feel forced, unable to escape the shackles of the game, and inevitably continue to play, receiving almost no pleasure, except for rare moments of success.

Video games somehow “tap into” deep-seated properties of our psyche that make us expect pleasure, cause us unpleasant experiences and force us to constantly repeat the experience, although we know that disappointment and frustration are inevitable.

Games can be compelling without being particularly fun because their developers exploit 2 very effective psychological tricks: variable and intermittent (or probabilistic) reinforcement.

Reinforcement is intermittent with a variable probability of reward: sometimes you get a prize for your achievement (for example, a game trophy or moving to the next level), and sometimes... nothing - for the same action.

Variable reinforcement is a reward system in which the value of the reward for a given achievement varies. Slot machines are the quintessence of variable and intermittent reinforcement. When playing, you always perform one single action - pull the handle of a one-armed bandit - or, with the transition from mechanical devices to electronic ones, press a button. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose - but most of the time you lose. The input signal is the same, the output varies from jackpot to ruin. It is not surprising that the textbook image of a slot machine enthusiast is a man chained to the machine, seemingly hypnotized, mechanically pushing quarters into the iron guts. Compulsively playing until he loses everything and having to take the bus back home.

Like a slot machine, "Diablo uses variable rewards, and that's one of the reasons why it's so addictive," Mikros explained. Let me explain for the uninformed: Diablo is a 2012 release within a gaming franchise founded way back in 1996 by Blizzard Entertainment.

All three releases are action role-playing games with an emphasis on mass extermination of enemies in close combat (the so-called hack-and-slash, or simply “slash”). The player, aka the hero, leads his avatar through the kingdom of Khanduras, fighting vampires and other enemies to end the reign of Diablo, the Lord of Terror.

If you manage to complete 16 levels of dungeons and reach Hell, the hero will face Diablo in the final battle. Along the way, the player casts spells, receives weapons and other useful things, and interacts with various characters - a warrior, a robber, a wizard, and others.

At the beginning of the game, the rewards are essentially fixed: you kill a monster and something good happens, like going up a level or increasing your "experience" (essentially, combat power). However, as you progress through the game, the likelihood of being rewarded with an effective new weapon or other means of survival and advancement decreases, but the value of the reward increases.

“You still expect it, but you don't get it every time,” Mikros says. - You are already accustomed to the fact that destroying a given demon or monster will provide you with something useful, say, gold, a special sword or bow. But now you don’t know if you’ll get anything, and you wait impatiently, even anxiously, for that moment.”

Game developers call this effect the “compulsive loop.” It is rooted in the way our brains work and allows us to understand the essence of the hybrid nature of games. Like other electronic enticements like email and messaging services, video games are a textbook example of an activity in which addiction and compulsion flow into each other like a demon changing shape.

Gaming Addiction: Access to Dopamine

Addiction is fueled by a desperate need for another dose of pleasure. The reason for this is that addictions are born from pleasure - the initial experience is always pleasant, exciting, bringing joy and buzz. These sensations are formed in the so-called reward system in the brain.

The system is activated when we experience pleasure and consists of neurons that connect into a network under the influence of dopamine. “Connection into a neural network” is that the electrical signal, having reached the end of one neuron, passes through the synapse to the next neuron due to the fact that the first neuron released dopamine into the synaptic cleft.

Dopamine bridges the gap between two neurons and is assembled by the recipient neuron, just as the ISS modules are assembled by the Soyuz spacecraft. The “gateway” of the neuron is called the dopamine receptor. The fact of docking promotes the movement of an electrical signal along the entire length of the recipient neuron, and the process is repeated many times until it is perceived by us as pleasure - a subjective feeling caused by food, sex, alcohol, nicotine, cocaine and the destruction of monsters in Diablo.

That is why all these substances and activities, being sources of deep euphoria, have such a pronounced reinforcing effect.

However, the processes occurring in the brain turned out to be more complex than scientists initially imagined, and the production of dopamine is no exception. The activity of the pleasure center is easier to understand if we think of it as an expectancy mechanism: it generates predictions about how enjoyable an experience will be.

To better understand how video game developers use the dopamine system, I turned to Jamie Madigan, a doctor of psychology who worked for many years at a game company. Madigan became famous in the gaming world thanks to the website psychologyofgames.com, where he posts materials on topics that interest me, including the “dopamine rush,” which, by his own admission, he himself could barely cope with while playing Diablo.

At the end of Diablo, he said, "you complete the storyline" of slaying vampires and monsters in order to get to Diablo and fight him, "and get increasingly more numerous and effective trophies to kill more monsters and get more stronger trophies." There are more than ten levels, “and the better equipment you acquire, the more tenacious the monsters become. There is no end to this. Gradually I realized that I was doing the same thing for 3 hours every evening, and I was no longer happy about it. If I, who knows what elements of the game make it sticky, got hooked...” He trails off.

But what are these elements that provoke compulsion? Nick Mikros gave another textbook example of a game that, like Diablo, exploits a variable/intermittent reward system. This is the super popular World of Warcraft, also known for its ability to drive players into compulsion by offering them unpredictable and unexpected finds.

World Of Warcraft

A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), released in 2004, it has more than 10 million subscribers, each of whom chooses a character and completes a quest through many levels of the virtual world. In World of Warcraft, players choose a profession, such as blacksmithing or mining, and can master any of four minor skills (archaeology, cooking, fishing, or first aid).

They unite to complete tasks, either situationally or as part of permanent associations - guilds, inviting each other through the game's built-in messenger, group "text channels" or, in some games, voice communication systems.

In guilds, players gain access to tools that will be useful in quests - missions that form the backbone of the game and give players experience points, useful objects, skills and money. In addition, World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs provide the opportunity to escape into a carefully crafted, complex, interesting world where there are no parental attacks, tyrant bosses or ungrateful spouses. They exploit our desire for achievement, even if the achievements - defeating enemies, destroying monsters, rescuing princesses, accumulating wealth or increasing status and moving to higher levels - are not entirely real.

This is, however, a psychologically obvious and relatively harmless pull factor for multiplayer games. Jamie Madigan fell victim to a different mechanism. He once virtuously exterminated bandits in World of Warcraft, earning a chance to replenish his arsenal of armor, weapons, or other consumables - trophies that would be useful in subsequent battles and quests.

Trophies come in different qualities, which are indicated by the color of the accompanying text: gray - the weakest, white - slightly more valuable, then green, blue, purple and orange. The character the player chooses as an avatar also has a specific place in the hierarchy. The “classes” - monks, rogues, shamans, warriors and druids - have their own style of behavior, determined by the weapons and defensive techniques available to them, as well as the skills, powers and magic that are earned by completing various stages.

His character was nothing special and could hardly count on valuable acquisitions, so Madigan “was shocked by the trophy that fell - a rare pair of “blue” mittens that perfectly met the needs of my class at that time,” he recalls. For a low-level character, “finding a blue item on a random enemy is a unique case, and I decided that I was in for a colossal breakthrough.

More importantly, at the same time there was a strong desire to continue the game and kill more bandits.” Intermittent rewards in the form of a rare trophy keep passions high in a way that expected and predictable prizes cannot. "It's an incredibly effective way to keep people playing because of the way the dopamine reward system works," Madigan explained.

As you may remember, “dopamine neurons” anticipate the surge of pleasure from a pleasurable experience, firing even before the reward arrives (for example, when the microwave signal tells you that your favorite dish is ready). “But this is just one of the reasons why games based on collecting trophies are so powerful,” he continued. - The main thing is that dopamine neurons simply light up as soon as your brain learns to predict an event, but they literally go wild when they receive an unexpected, unpredictable dose of dopamine, and turn you on even more. Something like “ Wow! One more portion - unexpectedly! Keep doing what you're doing while we try to figure out how to get a repeat!” And you keep playing».

So what if your rational brain convinces you to stop! If you're on an emotional high—for example, when you're slaying bad guys in an online shooter or hurtling through hellish Gran Turismo tracks with squealing tires—you don't remember that you have to take care of your daily bread, prepare for tomorrow's presentation, or finish your coursework.

« All intentions dictated by common sense are powerless - you are already thinking with a different brain, after some stinker broke your record in a shooter or you yourself accomplished an amazing feat in another game, Madigan explained. - Rationality creeps away with its tail between its legs, and you suddenly realize that it’s a quarter to three and there’s a work day ahead, but you still mutter that you’ll kill one more, and that’s all...»

Nick Mikros is not thrilled that video game developers have learned to exploit the dopamine system. It seems like half the basement spaces in Brooklyn are occupied by game designers building compulsion loops into their creations. However, not all people in this profession are proud of this skill of their colleagues, brought to perfection.

“The games that are the material embodiment of Skinner’s box make my hair stand on end,” Mikros admits at the end. - That’s not why I want to make games, not so that people can get food. I pressed the lever and got a pellet. I doubt that this is the path to human progress.”

Homegrown neuroscience

I was starting to feel like I was on a Halo quest, hoping that the next room I entered—the next expert I interviewed—would reveal the rest of the secrets of the compulsive gaming. My next location was the New York University Game Development Center.

He was so new to the MetroTech business center in Brooklyn that his office key card, Frank Lantz, who met me at the elevators, did not work. (A graduate student helped us out.) The monitors in the break room were still wrapped in cellophane, and there were boxes piled up everywhere. Founded in 2008 as a department of the Tisch School of the Arts, the Center for Game Development offers a two-year master's program in computer game development.

Lanz is a legend in the gaming world. He is the co-founder of Area/Code (acquired by Zynga in 2011), which developed Facebook games such as CSI: Crime City and Power Planets (“Control the fate of your own miniature planet. Build buildings to ensure a happy life for the inhabitants, and... create energy sources to support the development of their civilization").

He has made many iPhone games, including Drop7. In Sharkrunners, which he created for Discovery Channel's 2007 Shark Week, players can feel like marine biologists interacting in the ocean with real sharks, which are equipped with GPS sensors that provide the game with telemetry data.

Lanz sat down at an almost empty table (his things had not yet been unpacked) and expressed satisfaction that game design was finally recognized as a full-fledged academic discipline, especially since ideas from such disparate fields as architecture and literature converge in this area. "Most game creators have creative goals, and that's a stronger motivation for them than wanting to make a game that players can't put down," he said.

However, while developers may be driven by aesthetic and other lofty considerations, game companies are more eager than ever to get a compelling game for their investment. In years gone by, a teenager would have shelled out $59.95 for a Gran Turismo, and that would have been the last of Sony's money on it. If a player lost interest, no one cared.

In the 2000s. A different business model took hold: rather than paying upfront, gamers were given free, free access, often in the form of a download to a mobile device, but were then assigned “micropayments.” For example, in Farmville, for one dollar you can buy magic that restores crops (those withered due to your neglect, damn those homework!) or speeds up their ripening (so you can pick vegetables before they send you to bed).

Farmville constantly encourages players to return to the virtual fields because it has a timer: the crops will die if you don't check them often enough. Many people hate losing what they have gained, and this effect is so strong that psychologists have given it a name - “loss aversion.”

Other games ask you to pay $1 or $2 to get around an obstacle, access to a more exotic part of the game world, a cool outfit for your avatar, or virtual food and drink for the virtual inhabitants of CityVille.

In the micropayout model, stickiness—an attraction so strong that gamers can't stop playing—is the alpha and omega. “The commercial operation is built into the game,” says Lantz. “This is causing a really big debate around game design because some of the techniques are perceived as manipulative.” They are not designed to improve the player experience or fulfill the developer's vision, but to push you towards micropayments. I doubt that game designers use behavioral psychology in a calculated way to get players to stick to a game. Very few developers know that they are creating a compulsion mechanism. They want people to review the experience and say it was cool and fun. However, they understand that they are relying on knowledge of psychology.”

And that's putting it mildly. Whether through trial and error or deliberate search, game makers have become frighteningly powerful at creating compelling games. According to Lanz, even something as simple as a leaderboard contributes to this, awakening the desire to get into it and, thus, exploiting our deep-seated need for high status, for the satisfaction of which we are ready to play and play until we break through to the top hundred (or our fingers will not wither).

Or, for example, “nested” goals. In the 1991 video game Civilization, players took turns to “build an empire that could stand the test of time,” as the blurb read. Each began his journey as ruler of the future empire in 4000 BC. with a single warrior and several commoners, whom he could move to organize settlements. Through exploration, diplomacy, and war, players developed their civilizations, building cities, accumulating knowledge (what will you invent first, pottery or the alphabet?) and exploring the surrounding areas.

“Why is this so addictive? - Lanz picks up my question. - Because urgent goals converge here: say, settling peasants or successfully completing a quest for your character, medium-term ones, which must be achieved in the next 3-4 turns, for example, creating a city, and long-term goals, designed for 10-15 turns [achieving the flourishing of civilization] . The game is permeated with rhythm, and when the immediate goal is achieved and the mind could rest, you are already thinking about the next few moves. The overlap, or “nesting,” of near, middle, and long-range planning horizons is incredibly exciting. In the real world, we often don’t even know what’s connected to what.”

Let's say we don't know what momentary achievement could later result in something greater. The digital world of a video game gives certainty: from “A” necessarily follows “B”.

Another developer trick to make a computer game sticky is instant reward. “You do an action and the character jumps,” Lantz explained. “This is very attractive because in the real world a lot of buttons end up broken.” You click on "work hard in school" but don't end up getting into your preferred college as promised, or you click "graduate from college" but it doesn't help you get a good job.

In video games, the button works as promised, "which is what makes them so addictive". World of Warcraft, which induces compulsive gaming through variable/intermittent rewards, has another psychological appeal, like a good novel, detective story or thriller. “That’s why you open War and Peace every night to read the next chapter,” Lantz says. “You want to know what happens next.” Ignorance causes anxiety - the same one that makes you compulsively gamble.“It’s not so easy to immerse yourself in a plot, follow it to the end and be able to part with it” - to overcome compulsion.

Ryan Van Cleve was convinced that not everyone can do this. Born Ryan Anderson, he adopted a new name in 2006, borrowed from World of Warcraft.

In 2007, on New Year's Eve, his passion for the game almost turned into tragedy. Van Cleve, a college professor, poet, and editor, was stripped of his teaching position because of his compulsive gambling: he gambled up to 80 hours a week and was completely alienated from his wife and friends. On December 31, he told his wife he was running to get cough drops, but instead drove to the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, where he planned to jump. Slipping, he almost fell into the icy waters of the Potomac, but caught himself at the last moment and managed to crawl away from the edge. In 2010, he published the book Unplugged: My Journey into the Dark World of Video Game Addiction, which chronicled his descent into gaming hell. The game became the most important thing in his life, to the detriment of everything else: his wife threatened to leave, his children hated him, and his parents refused to come visit. “I was so immersed in virtual worlds,” Van Cleave wrote, “that I barely remember what happened in real life. Almost everything passed me by."

Lantz is saddened to know that the skill and creativity he sees in game design can be the cause of such tragedies. “I think game development is a kind of homegrown psychology or neuroscience on the knee,” he noted. - An emotional experience is created, so, of course, the developers take psychology into account. Long before the advent of free-to-install games, the goal was to provide gamers with an immersive experience, but this meant creating a viable game, not just a slot machine.

The developers know that if they throw the resources players need: strength, opportunities, lives, weapons - for example, into every 4th trash bin, this will force people to continue examining the boxes. That’s the power of intermittent reward.”

“There is a lot of shamanism in all this,” Lanz concluded. - We still don’t know the exact reason for the popularity of Angry Birds. It's just something inexplicable." As I was about to leave, I asked him what his favorite game was. It turned out that Go is an ancient Chinese board game in which you need to make moves with black and white stones on a board of 19x19 cells.

Gaming Addiction: Digital Drug

The emergence of compulsion in a fan of video games is possible in an interval reminiscent of a narrow mountain peak: if you go down one step from the top, you will find yourself in a valley of excessive simplicity, in the other - in an abyss of excessive complexity. We quit games that are too simple or complex due to boredom or disappointment, so game designers use adaptations to always remain in the gamer’s “Goldilocks zone” (in astronomy, the habitable zone, or life zone. A conditional region in space, determined on the basis that the conditions on the surface of the planets located in it will be close to the conditions on Earth and will ensure the existence of water in the liquid phase).

One of the first such examples was Tetris. In this geometric puzzle, blocks of different shapes fall from the top of the screen to the bottom - in the form of the letters L, T, I, 2x2 squares - and the player must, during the fall, manage to turn and move them so that they form a solid wall below, Moreover, the filled lower rows disappear as the upper ones increase.

« They called it pharmatronic, this electronic thing that affects the brain like a narcotic drug " says Tom Stafford, a cognitive scientist at the University of Sheffield. According to him, Tetris is incredibly sticky, including because it uses a psychological phenomenon - the so-called Zeigarnik effect.

Once, sitting in a Berlin cafe, psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik (1901–1988) noticed that waiters perfectly remember orders that had not yet been delivered to customers. But as soon as the order is completed, it is immediately forgotten. “It's unfinished business that's remembered,” Stafford explained, “and Tetris takes advantage of that very well. This is a world of endless unfinished business. With each completed line, new blocks fall from above. Every block you put in place creates a new space where the next block can be placed.”

We remember unfinished tasks, and this makes us need to finally get things done and worry until it is completed. “The game of Tetris brilliantly exploits the ability of memory to latch on to unfinished tasks and draws us into a compulsive spiral of completing tasks and creating new ones,” continues Stafford. “The desire to complete the next task makes you play endlessly.”

If we started doing something, took certain steps towards the goal, then we feel obligated to finish it. However, unfinished actions take over our minds not only due to the Zeigarnik effect. There's also the sunk cost effect: We hate giving up something we've already invested time and effort into. If you have a task to write and send a letter and you are halfway through it, you feel the need to continue working.

Many MMORPGs exploit the tendency to avoid sunk costs by drawing us in deeply from the very beginning. “These games have what they call a high absorption rate,” says Zahir Hussain, a psychologist at Britain's University of Derby. - When you start playing, you find yourself in a very comfortable environment: pleasant colors and sound effects, simple quests that you can complete without any problems, receiving rewards for it.

This makes you spend more and more time playing." This is also facilitated by the use of another feature of the human psyche, discovered by behaviorist B.F. Skinner in the 1950s: If rewards become rarer and more difficult to achieve, as is the case with many online games, you not only continue to play, but become increasingly compulsive in your determination to get the damn prize that seems to be only 1 or 2 levels away. back .

In World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs, there's a status bar at the bottom of the screen that tells you how many quests you've completed and how close you are to the next level or reward, which Hussain says is "an incentive to keep playing."

Stopping so close to the next achievement, especially if it throws you back to the beginning of the level or quest, is a waste of time and effort already spent.

Regardless, Guardian readers voted Tetris the most addictive* game of all time in a 2014 poll, with 30% of the votes. Second place went to World of Warcraft (22%), third - Candy Crush Saga (10%).

Oh, this Candy Crush! To discover the secret of her devilish charm, I again turned to Jamie Madigan, whom I tortured about dopamine. I was intrigued by his analysis of the spirals of compulsion, and I thought that no one better than him could explain why millions of people are so immersed in Candy Crush that they miss their stop, spit on homework, housework, and just work and forget about the existence of children , spouses and friends.

For the uninformed, I’ll explain what the game is. The screen is filled with “candies” of different colors and shapes, and the player must, by moving them, match three of the same kind in a row (the predecessor game, Bejeweled, was designed in a similar way). Once the result is achieved, the trio disappears, the surrounding elements are rearranged, and you receive a reward in the form of multi-colored flashes, glasses, an increase in sound volume, and the appearance of stimulus words on the screen, for example, “yummy.”

At the most basic level Candy Crush appeals to our mind's tendency to detect patterns in seemingly random groups of objects - because of this gift, the ancient Greeks and Romans saw a swan, twins and a bear in the chaos of stars scattered across the night sky.

candy Crush Saga

“Over the course of development, the brain has learned to notice something good even where it shouldn’t be there, for example, finding a food source that was previously absent,” Madigan explained. - Thus, due to evolution, we are why. We are wired to look for meaning in patterns, especially unexpected patterns.”

Besides, Candy Crush relies on our habit of putting things back in their place, organizing everything, and generally putting things in order. This is exactly what you feel you are doing when you look at the playing field, where complete confusion reigns, knowing that you can rearrange the elements so that the same ones are next to each other. Therefore, the game attracts and brings joy.

There are, however, plenty of activities—watching movies, gardening, cooking, or whatever you choose to do in your free time—that are enjoyable without being "sticky." What makes Candy Crush sticky, Madigan says, is that the rewards don't just keep coming, they appear unexpectedly.

Sometimes, when the three elements you have collected fall, a combination is formed in which there are many such triplets, and they all immediately fall off the playing field, exploding with bright flashes, loud sounds, a demonstration of the points scored and congratulations in full screen.

Because of this, “the dopamine areas of the brain go crazy,” Madigan said. “Something similar was experienced by our ancient ancestors, hunter-gatherers, who knew very well where they were guaranteed to find food, when they suddenly came across a rich bounty in a completely unexpected place, for example, on a fish stream or thicket of berry bushes, which they had not previously suspected.

A 2013 study revealed the mechanism behind this psychological phenomenon. Psychologists Jordy Quaidbach from Harvard University and Elizabeth Dunn from the University of British Columbia divided the volunteers into 3 approximately equal groups and gave the following instructions:

1. Some were forbidden to eat chocolate for a week until a return visit to the laboratory.;
2. Others were given almost a kilogram and told to eat as much as possible so as not to get sick.;
3. The third were told nothing other than a request to come back in a week..

Upon returning, everyone was again treated to chocolate and asked if they liked it. " Participants who temporarily gave up chocolate found it much tastier and more enjoyable ” than those who were implicitly allowed to eat as much as they wanted or explicitly encouraged to binge on chocolate, the scientists reported in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Potential gamblers

It's time to solve the next problem - to find out whether the danger of becoming a compulsive gamer depends on individual personality characteristics, age, gender or other variables.

The scientific study of this problem has been affected by a host of childhood diseases characteristic of the new area of ​​research. Even basic concepts - say, what makes behavior problematic and what exactly such behavior looks like - are defined differently by scientists, each in their own research.

This behavior is "neither consistent nor specific," said Scott Kaplan of the University of Delaware. The problem is illustrated by the changing description of the individual who has the greatest risk of developing compulsive gambling addiction.

In the early 2000s, when fewer people were online than today, research into excessive online gaming (and excessive Internet use in general) focused on identifying predictors of such behavior. Unfortunately, even a cursory glance at the published results suggests that the scientists "found significant correlations with a large number of psychological characteristics," noted Daniel Cardefelt-Winter of the London School of Economics and Political Science in a 2014 article in Computers in Human Behavior. , he continued, “virtually all psychological characteristics make a significant contribution to the likelihood” of developing a gambling addiction. Calling a spade a spade, the most important risk factor is the presence of a human brain.

At first, the typical compulsive gamer was “a lonely, socially challenged type, maybe with social anxiety,” Caplan said, “but in those days, those were the only ones who played video games.” Thus, personality traits were an external manifestation of the true, deep-seated cause of excessive gambling, and not the actual cause. For example, such a feature as neuroticism is associated with the inability to tolerate anxiety, and therefore it is recorded in studies of the characteristics of gambling addicts. But it is not neuroticism as such that forces people to play online games, but anxiety, which they are unable to reduce by other means.

Similarly, scientists have found correlations between excessive online gaming and a wide variety of personality traits, such as loneliness, depression, anxiety, shyness, aggressiveness, interpersonal difficulties, sensation-seeking, and lack of social skills. These traits, however, were not so common among individuals predisposed to compulsive online behavior as they were among the majority of Internet users, both compulsive and non-compulsive. “Today everyone uses the Internet, including through smartphones, and the description of the type of people who do it compulsively must also change,” Kaplan added.

As with other compulsions, compulsive video game playing in itself is neither pathological nor a manifestation of mental disorder. People play games for many hours every day (using the Internet, Twitter, messaging services, or Facebook, discussed in the next chapter) “for the same reasons that they compulsively engage in other activities—boredom, escapism, competitive and sociable because that’s what their friends are doing,” Kaplan explained.

It is fundamentally important that online games, especially multiplayer ones, provide social interaction behind the saving guise of an avatar , which is attractive for people who find it easier to communicate anonymously than to personally contact people they know.

People with fragile mental health may prefer online communication simply because the personal is too stressful or difficult for them - virtual life is more comfortable for them. Thus, many people spend a lot of time playing video games to compensate. It's a coping strategy, a way to cope with stress or depression, to escape loneliness, a boring job, or any other nasty side of the real world.

In a 2013 study, Kaplan and colleagues surveyed 597 teenagers who regularly played online games. The most reliable predictor of problematic gaming behavior and the negative impact of gaming on the rest of a person’s life was turning to gaming to normalize mood (for example, to get rid of sadness, boredom or feelings of loneliness) and the inability to solve this problem in other ways.

“If I'm lonely and I go online, it's compensation,” Kaplan explained. “This is not a primary pathology.” Games give us something we need or want. If compensation turns out to be effective and becomes a routine means of getting rid of anxiety, it can become compulsive.

Are we all at risk? Not equally. As you may recall, massively multiplayer online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft are masters of the "one-armed bandits" trick that traps players - variable/intermittent reinforcement provided by lures such as unexpected valuable trophies that push our "dopamine buttons" " Susceptibility to such lures is an almost universal human trait., but, as in any other relationship, there are many weak points.

Madigan offered another thought regarding compulsivity associated with video games. Among other charms, simple games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds have the ability to be played during tiny periods of time, say, between tasks at work, chores, or on the way from point A to point B.

Modern children know from the cradle what a computer is, and by the time they are one year old they can already operate a mouse and press keyboard buttons. The close “communication” of a child with a computer causes an ambiguous attitude: on the one hand, now there really is no place without a computer. On the other hand, constantly sitting at a computer is fraught with serious consequences. The most dangerous of them is the development of computer addiction in a child, which is a real disease that requires treatment.

Causes and types of addiction

Computer addiction in children is, first of all, an escape from reality, so the main reason for the desire to plunge headlong into the virtual world is the lack of something in reality. Children may lack attention and participation from their parents, self-confidence, and recognition in the company of their peers. As a result, the child tries to satisfy his real needs not in the real world, but in the virtual world.

Dependency can be of two types:

1. Gaming addiction (cyberaddiction) – addiction to computer games. Some games are personalized, that is, a person plays on behalf of a specific hero, increasing power, conquering cities, acquiring superpowers. In this case, we can talk about role dependence. In other games there is no character as such, but the essence of the game is to collect points and win. In this case, the dependence is non-role.
2. Network addiction (netegolism) . This is a child’s dependence on the Internet, which can manifest itself in different forms, but in a global sense the essence is the same - a person cannot imagine his life without access to the Internet. Spending time on social networks, chats, and listening to music are options for network addiction. Even harmless Internet surfing is a type of network addiction, because a person spends a lot of time viewing and reading completely unnecessary information, moving from link to link.

When to sound the alarm: 10 signs of computer addiction

Both children and adults are susceptible to computer addiction, but in children addiction develops much faster. The earlier a child is introduced to a computer, the more likely it is that the computer will displace real life. Addiction in a child can be recognized by the following signs.

1. The child cannot use the computer within the established boundaries. Even if there is a preliminary agreement, he cannot tear himself away from the computer in time, and attempts to restore order and remove him from the computer end in hysterics.
2. The child does not complete assigned household chores. Usually, children always have chores to do: wash the dishes, tidy up their things, walk the dog. A dependent child cannot plan his time and skips homework by sitting at the computer.
3. Spending time at the computer becomes a more preferable activity than chatting with family or friends. Even family holidays and visits are no exception.
4. Even natural needs cannot force a child to take his mind off the Internet , so he doesn’t part with his phone/tablet either during meals or in the bath.
5. The child is constantly looking for devices from which he can go online or play. If you take away his tablet or computer, he will immediately pick up the phone. READ IN DETAIL: The influence of a tablet on a child: 10 reasons to say “NO”! —
6. The child communicates mainly online, constantly making new acquaintances there, who remain in the virtual world. Even with real acquaintances (classmates, friends), the child prefers to communicate on the Internet.
7. The child neglects his studies: does not complete homework, becomes absent-minded, sloppy, and performance declines.
8. Deprivation of a computer causes “withdrawal”: the child becomes aggressive and irritable.
9. Without a computer, the child does not know what to do with himself , it is impossible to interest him in anything.
10. The child does not let you know what he is doing online. Any questions cause a negative reaction.

Note to moms!

Hello girls) I didn’t think that the problem of stretch marks would affect me too, and I’ll also write about it))) But there’s nowhere to go, so I’m writing here: How did I get rid of stretch marks after childbirth? I will be very glad if my method helps you too...

Video 2 - Internet addiction in teenagers:

Computer damage

Presentation: “Computer: benefit or harm.” Completed by: student of grade 6 “B”, Elina Mulasheva (clickable):

The constant presence of both adults and children at the computer has become a familiar sight, which is why parents risk underestimating the danger of addiction to games or the Internet. In reality, computer addiction has negative consequences for both the body and the psyche. Moreover, when it comes to children, these consequences are deeper and more difficult to eliminate, because the body and psyche of a growing person are still being formed.

We also read:

About the dangers of a computer:

and, finally, get rid of the terrible complexes of fat people. I hope you find the information useful!

Ekaterina Morozova

Reading time: 10 minutes

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Disputes about the dangers and benefits of computers for children have not subsided since the appearance of this new technology product in our apartments. Moreover, no one even discusses the issue of time spent in front of a monitor (everyone knows that the less often, the healthier), but we are talking about specific harm and attachment, which is already equated to serious addiction . What is the harm of a computer for a child? and how to determine that it is time to “treat” addiction?

Types of computer addiction in a child, video – you need to know the enemy by sight!

Known two forms of computer addiction (main):

• Networkism is a form of dependence on the Internet itself. Who is a networkaholic? This is a person who cannot imagine himself without access to the Internet. He spends from 10 to 14 (or even more) hours a day in virtual worlds. What to do on the Internet does not matter to them. Social networks, chats, music, dating - one thing flows into another. Such people are usually sloppy and emotionally unstable. They constantly check their email, look forward to the next time they go online, spend less and less time in the real world every day, and spend real money on the Internet on virtual illusory “joys” without regret.

• Cyber ​​addiction is a form of addiction to computer games. It can, in turn, be divided into two types: role-playing and non-role-playing games. In the first case, a person is completely detached from reality; in the second, the goal is to score points, be excited, and win.

10 signs of computer addiction in a child - how to know that a child is addicted to a computer?

We all remember cases of people becoming addicted to slot machines - the last of their money was lost, families were destroyed, loved ones, work, and real life faded into the background. The roots of computer addiction are the same: regular stimulation of the pleasure center in the human brain leads to the fact that the gradually formed illness displaces from a person’s needs everything that does not relate to his favorite activity. With children it’s even more difficult - the dependence is stronger, and the blow to health is double. What are the signs of such addiction in a child?

• The child goes beyond the allotted time limits for using the computer. Moreover, in the end it is possible to take away the computer from the child only with a scandal.
• The child ignores all housework, including even your responsibilities - cleaning the room, hanging things in the closet, putting away the dishes.
• The child prefers the Internet to holidays and communicating with family and friends.
• The child surfs the Internet even during lunch and in the bathroom.
• If a child’s laptop is taken away, he immediately goes online via his phone.

• The child constantly makes new acquaintances on the Internet.
• Due to the time a child spends on the Internet, studies begin to suffer: homework remains undone, teachers complain of poor performance, negligence and absent-mindedness.
• Left without access to the Internet, the child becomes irritable and even aggressive.
• The child does not know what to do with himself if there is no way to go online.
• You don’t know what exactly your child is doing on the Internet, and the child perceives any questions you have on this topic with hostility.

Computer harm for children – possible physical and mental disorders in a child dependent on a computer.

The mental and physical health of a child is much weaker and “shaky” than that of adults. And the harm from a computer, in the absence of proper parental attention to this issue, can become very serious. Why exactly is a computer dangerous for a child? Experts' opinion...

• Emission of electromagnetic waves. For children, the harm of radiation is doubly dangerous - in the future, a favorite laptop can lead to endocrine diseases, disorders of the brain, a gradual decrease in immunity, and even oncology.

• Mental stress. Pay attention to your child at the moment of his complete immersion in the virtual world - the child does not hear or see anyone, forgets about everything, is tense to the limit. The child’s psyche at this moment is subjected to severe stress.
• Spiritual harm. A child is “plasticine” from which a person is molded according to the information that the baby absorbs from the outside. And “from the outside,” in this case – the Internet. And it’s a rare case when a child uses a laptop for self-education, playing educational games and reading books. As a rule, the child’s attention is focused on the information from which mom and dad fence him off in real life. The immorality that creeps out from the Internet takes a strong foothold in the child’s mind.
• Addiction to the Internet and computer games replaces the need to read books. The level of education and literacy is falling; horizons are limited to games, forums, social networks and abbreviated versions of books from the school curriculum. The child stops thinking because there is no need for it - everything can be found on the Internet, spelling can be checked there, problems can be solved there.

• The need for communication is lost. The real world fades into the background. Real friends and loved ones become less necessary than thousands of likes on photos and thousands of “friends” on social networks.
• When the real world is replaced by a virtual one, the child loses the ability to communicate with people. On the Internet he is a self-confident “hero”, but in reality he cannot put together two words, he keeps himself apart, and is unable to establish contact with his peers. All traditional moral values ​​are losing their significance, and they are being replaced by the “Albanian language”, online impunity, baseness of desires and zero aspirations. It is even more dangerous when the child’s consciousness begins to be influenced by information from pornographic, sectarian, ritual, Nazi, etc. resources.

• Vision deteriorates catastrophically quickly. Even with a good expensive monitor. First there is pain in the eyes and redness, then decreased vision, double vision, dry eye syndrome and more serious eye diseases.
• A sedentary lifestyle affects a weak spine and muscles. The muscles weaken and become sluggish. The spine becomes curved – stooping, scoliosis appears, followed by osteochondrosis. Carpal tunnel syndrome is one of the most “popular” problems among PC addicts. Its symptoms are severe pain in the wrist area.
• Fatigue increases, irritability and aggressiveness increase, and the body's resistance to disease decreases.

• Headaches appear, sleep is disturbed, dizziness and darkening of the eyes become almost the norm due to their frequency.
• Problems with blood vessels arise. Which is especially fraught with consequences for children with VSD.
• Overstrain of the cervical spine leads to poor blood supply to the brain and its oxygen starvation. As a result - migraines, apathy, absent-mindedness, fainting states, etc.
• The lifestyle of a child who constantly sits at the computer will be very difficult to change later. Not only sports - even an ordinary walk in the fresh air, necessary for a young body, is rejected for the sake of the World Wide Web. Appetite decreases, growth slows down, and problems with body weight arise.

Of course, a computer is not a terrible monster, and in many ways it can become a useful technique and educational assistant. But only if it is used for the benefit of the child under the constant supervision of the parents and strictly on time. Teach your child to get information from books and scientific films, from the outside world. And teach him to enjoy life, so that there is no need to look for this pleasure on the Internet.

Have there been similar situations in your family life? And how did you get out of them? Share your stories in the comments below!

Computer addiction is a person’s pathological addiction to working or spending time on the computer. American scientists first started talking about computer addiction in the early 80s. Nowadays, the term “computer addiction” is still not recognized by many scientists working on the problems of mental disorders, but the very phenomenon of the formation of a pathological connection between a person and a computer has become obvious and is becoming increasingly widespread. computer addiction teenager

A new term, “cybernetic gambling addiction,” has been officially introduced into world medical practice. It refers to people who have become heavily dependent on computer games, which affects their lifestyle and often even their physical and mental health.

This new disease affects the younger population, predominantly teenagers and young adults. Although this disease has nothing to do with infection, it is spreading around the world at epidemic speed. There are a lot of reports in the press that here and there the aggressive behavior of a teenager led to tragic consequences.

Computer addiction is an addiction to activities related to the use of a computer, leading to a sharp reduction in all other activities and limitation of communication with other people. It is most common in childhood and adolescence, especially in boys. A sign of computer addiction is not the time spent on the computer itself, but the concentration of all the child’s interests around the computer and the refusal of other activities. This phenomenon became widespread at the end of the 20th century. in industrialized countries and in recent years has become increasingly common in Russia. In younger schoolchildren, computer addiction usually manifests itself in the form of an addiction to computer games. At older ages, it begins to include more meaningful activities: improving your own computer, searching for computer programs and other materials on the Internet, programming, etc. Computer addiction is often observed in children with intellectualism. Its occurrence is facilitated by impaired communication with peers; it, in turn, leads to the consolidation and further progression of these disorders. At the same time, the computer provides the opportunity for virtual communication (in particular, via the Internet), which mitigates the negative psychological manifestations of disruption of real interpersonal relationships. Like other types of addiction (alcohol, drugs), this addiction can increase the likelihood of crime in adolescence and young adulthood (illegal “hacking” of computer programs, etc.). At the same time, it often becomes a source of successful professional preparation for subsequent productive activities in the field of computer technology.

There are three main types of computer activities:

• 1) Cognitive - passion for knowledge in the field of programming and telecommunications or, as an extreme option, hacking;
• 2) Gaming - passion for computer games and, in particular, games via the Internet or, as an extreme option, the so-called. gaming addiction;
• 3) Communicative - passion for network communication or, as an extreme option, Internet addiction, including cybersexual addiction [Babaeva Yu.D., Voiskunsky A.E., Smyslova O.V. Internet: impact on personality. Humanities Research on the Internet / Ed. A.E. Voiskunsky (Moscow: Mozhaisk-Terra, 2000, 431 pp.), P.16].

Computer addiction is divided into several types:

• 1) Cyber ​​addiction - addiction to computer games is divided into groups depending on the nature of a particular game:
  • · Role-playing computer games, which are characterized by maximum escapism from reality.
  • · Non-role-playing computer games, which are characterized by the desire to achieve a goal - to complete the game, the excitement of achieving a goal, gaining points.

It doesn’t matter what type of game a person chooses - they all have the same effect on the mind: they give an amazing feeling of control over what is happening in virtual reality, eliminating the need to think about really important matters and make serious decisions. This creates the illusion that the time spent playing a computer game is not wasted. The brain can relax during the game. Gradually a person gets used to living by the rules, but in a real life situation, when he needs to decide something on his own, he gets lost.

Escaping reality into the computer world over time gives rise to indifference to life, real emotions lose their brightness, and the line between feelings is erased. The nature of the relationship with the computer takes on more and more intimate, emotional features, creating the illusion of comfort and stability. Subsequently, the range of interests narrows, productivity decreases, and communication difficulties intensify. The need for a computer or game consoles increases and becomes insurmountable, competing with hunger and thirst, the need for rest and live communication.

• 2) Networkism - addiction to the Internet. They are manifested by a person’s endless presence on the Internet. It is characterized by a long stay in the virtual world (sometimes 12-14 hours a day), making virtual acquaintances, downloading music, and chatting. .
• 3) Hacking is a type of activity characterized by a passion for searching for information and applying such knowledge [Markov J., Hefner K. Hackers. Kyiv: 1996]. Most often, people become hackers during adolescence, perhaps compensating for the lack of development of social skills. Their forbidden and downright criminal actions speak of their underdevelopment of the personal, moral and legal sphere. There are practically no psychological studies devoted to this phenomenon. The media suggest that the most striking psychological characteristics of hackers are asociality, limited interests, fanaticism. We can say that hacking can be considered as a negative direction in a teenager’s personal development.

Some signs of a “netaholic”:

• 1) Excessive passion for Internet problems.
• 2) Repeated but successful attempts to control your Internet use or stop using it altogether.
• 3) Irritation, feeling of emptiness, sadness or even deep depression in case of prolonged disconnection from the Internet.
• 4) The time spent surfing the Internet is always longer than expected at the beginning.
• 5) Due to too much passion for the Internet, there is a risk of losing important personal contacts - family, friends, work colleagues.
• 6) Using the Internet as a way to escape from personal problems or to lift your spirits, as a remedy against feelings of guilt, hopelessness and depression.
• 7) Low performance. [http://www.baddhabits.ru/komp/internet.php]

Professor K. Young from the University of Pittsburgh, engaged in research in this area, identifies five main categories:

• 1) Cybersexual. Addiction to interactive chat rooms for “adults” or cyberpornography.
• 2) Cyber ​​relations. Dependence on friendships made in chat rooms, interactive games and conferences, which replace real friends and family.
• 3) Excessive network involvement. Includes involvement in online gambling, addiction to online auctions, and compulsive online trading.
• 4) Information overload. Excessive involvement in visiting websites and searching databases. [Yang K. Diagnosis - Internet addiction // Internet World. 2000. No. 2. P.24-29]

Kimberly Young also lists the following four symptoms of Internet addiction:

• 1) obsessive desire to check e-mail;
• 2) constantly waiting for the next access to the Internet;
• 3) complaints from others that a person spends too much time on the Internet;
• 4) complaints from others that a person spends too much money on the Internet;

I. Goldberg gives the following system of criteria. In his opinion, Internet addiction can be established if 3 or more of the points he proposed are present. .

The common features of computer addiction are a characteristic number of psychological and physical symptoms that are closely related to each other:

Psychological symptoms:

• 1) good health or euphoria at the computer;
• 2) inability to stop;
• 3) increasing the amount of time spent at the computer;
• 4) neglect of family and friends;
• 5) feelings of emptiness, depression, irritation when not at the computer;
• 6) lying to employers or family members about your activities;
• 7) problems with work or study;

Physical symptoms:

• 1) carpal tunnel syndrome (tunnel damage to the nerve trunks of the hand associated with prolonged muscle strain);
• 2) dry eyes;
• 3) migraine-type headaches;
• 4) back pain;
• 5) irregular eating, skipping meals;
• 6) neglect of personal hygiene;
• 7) sleep disorders, changes in sleep patterns.