DSM-V Will Avoid Videogame Addiction

There are very few windmills I’ve charged at on this blog over the years, but one notion I have battled is the idea of video game “addiction.” I prefer the Council on Science and Public Health’s term “overuse” for people who spend too much time playing video games, and I simply do not believe it warrants psychological treatment in and of itself. There may be other issues a heavy gamer needs addressing, psychologically, but not solely video game overuse. That’s my position based on years of engagement with others and consumption of what literature there is on the subject.

In the past, I’ve applauded when the AMA called for more research on the issue before formally deciding to declare video game addiction diagnosable. I’ve been delighted with researchers’ efforts to distinguish between the “addictive” elements surrounding online gambling and traditional role playing games. Finally, my position piece on the issue, Video Game Addiction: Fact or Fiction, remains popular and is currently first to show up on Google searches for “video game addiction fiction,” and fourth on “video game addiction fact.”

So now, the time approaches for the DSM to be modified. One major development in the issue of video game addiction has been to roll it into a broader category of Internet addiction. Since most games these days are online, this sort of makes sense. Overuse of all types of screen time, though, might challenge the definition a bit. If a child spends too much time playing a game that is not connected to the Internet, could he be diagnosed as addicted to the Internet? You can see the difficulties.

Fortunately, the committee in charge of revisions sees the difficulties, too. News this week indicates that gambling will be included in DSM-V as a behavioral disorder, but Internet addiction will not. It will be relegated to an appendix in order to encourage more research, and possible future inclusion in DSM-VI. Of course with so many years between revisions, the relationships we’ve developed with Internet technology may substantially change by that time. Social networking hardly existed just a few years ago, after all.

So, this is a good thing. I’m glad this blog played a part, however small, in the discussion on video game addictions and the struggle over defining it. The public can comment on the proposed revisions to the DSM here, through April. DSM-V is scheduled to be published in 2012-2013, after field trials have been conducted on new and revised diagnoses.

References:
Gever, J. (2010, February 10). DSM-V draft promises big changes in some psychiatric diagnoses. [Online.] Available: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/GeneralPsychiatry/18399

Playing Games on the SMART Table

I’m a big fan of SMART Board’s SMART Technologies, the Canadian company behind one of the leading interactive whiteboards. Warren Buckleitner, the editor of Children’s Technology Review, attended the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s conference, NAEYC 09, where he filmed a nice bit on SMART Technologies’ new SMART Table.

The SMART Table reminds me of the old Ms. PacMan tabletop game of the 1980s, where two players could square off with one another while seated (and yes, I threw far too many quarters down the gullet of one such machine in a College Station eatery way back when).

It also reminds me of Dr. Merrick’s table top computer portrayed in the movie The Island, which was the brain spawn of an MIT consultant for the film.

Various games and activities are included with the SMART Table, including puzzles, mazes, and arithmetic problems embedded in a fun environment. On one, a money game, kids have to slide representations of coins to indicate the cost of an item. Buckleitner asks the SMART rep, jokingly, “So kids could actually gamble and do poker in preschool?” I had to smile since we talked about poker in school earlier today.

Buckleitner seems a bit concerned about the $8,000 price tag for the SMART Table, but if past success is any indicator SMART Technologies will sell plenty of them. Here’s Buckleitner’s video:

A New Book Explores the Educational and Social Benefits of Poker

Games are an important part of childhood development, and informal learning often takes place through a child’s game play. As children mature, the games they engage in and enjoy may get more complex, progressing from something like Candy Land to Checkers to Chess. The informal learning in these complex games increases as well, as do the social aspects.

Poker, whether played for chips, pennies, or serious money, is finding increased academic scrutiny as its continued popularity shows no sign of fading. James McManus, a writing and literature professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who teaches a course on the literature of poker, has a new book on the game: Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker. A very nice adaptation/excerpt is printed in the Chronicle, and you can read it online here.

Rather than focusing on empirical studies surrounding the game, McManus is interested in what the literature of poker has to say. He’s fascinated with the game’s influence on powerful figures, including most of America’s past Presidents (Obama plays poker, too) and industrial figures such as Bill Gates.

He notes academic interest has definitely been piqued:

The Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society was founded in 2006 by the Harvard Law School professors Charles Nesson and Lawrence Lessig, the communications maven Jonathan Cohen, and Andrew Woods, a law student. Nesson had cofounded Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Lessig had started the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University. Lessig was author of The Future of Ideas and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, while Cohen had built a variety of software and communications companies. Woods had graduated magna cum laude from the University of California at Los Angeles, where he started the Bruin Casino Gaming Society, the first officially recognized student organization devoted to the study and teaching of poker.

Those at the GPSTS and elsewhere in academia remain convinced that poker holds high benefits for social and educational development. Much as video games have had to fight for academic legitimacy due to their ties to the entertainment industry, so too has poker had to fight due to its ties to gambling. Private poker parties for money are generally allowed in the States, but much conversation on the GPSTS site centers around legislative and court rulings on whether poker is primarily a game of chance or skill. If chance, it’s gambling and thus verboten in most circumstances. If skill, it’s tolerable to the regulatory powers that be.

From a pedagogical perspective, McManus makes the following observations:

Above all, [Harvard Law School Professor Charles] Nesson makes the case for using poker as a means to helping students understand the world from others’ points of view. In his own classes, he trains lawyers “to see in the game a language for thinking about and an environment for experiencing the dynamics of strategy in dispute resolution.” At the simplest level, he shows how the game can help middle-school students understand percentages and budget making, as well as how to “read” their opponents.

We’re probably a ways off from the day where a middle school teacher can include a few hands of poker in her lesson plans, and not have to explain why to administrators and parents. Nonetheless, this book goes a long way toward legitimizing poker as a valid research subject.

Video Game Psychology: Hijacking a Dopamine Rush for Educational Purposes

Wai Yen Tang, who runs the excellent VG Researcher Blog, introduces us to The Psychology of Video Games Blog, run by Jamie Madigan, an author, programmer, and government personnel psychologist with a PhD in Organizational Psychology.

Dr. Madigan devotes his blog to exploring the psychology involved in making and playing games. His post Phat Loot and Neurotransmitters in World of Warcraft focuses on the reward system in WoW. He notes an early experience while leveling up a hunter, when a blue (high level) item dropped while he was still at a low level. This greatly encouraged his game play and led him to play even more in hopes of further random drops. Madigan draws a parallel with slot machine players, who likewise continue gambling in hopes of hitting another jackpot.

All of this has a neurological explanation, Madigan asserts. Dopamine in the brain is released in expectation of a wondrous event, such as hitting it big at the slots or finding a rare item in a video game. I think also intermittent reinforcement plays a role in gambling and gaming when there is truly no pattern evident for the rewards other than putting in the time (and in the case of gambling, the money).

So, from an educational perspective, obviously, there would be strong interest in leveraging the dopamine rush experienced by players for pedagogical purposes. The question is, can we adequately insert worthy content, say SAT study materials or state exam questions, into a game that provides the same rush as World of Warcraft (or slot machines, for that matter)?

The Last Pinball Manufacturer

In the past I’ve blogged about efforts to preserve vintage Soviet arcade games, and the continued manufacturing of the electric football game. Now Marti Attoun, contributing editor for American Profile, has written an interesting article about the world’s last manufacturer of pinball games.

Stern Pinball in Melrose Park, IL is the company. Owner Gary Stern’s father started the business in 1947.

From its beginning in the 1930s, pinball scored with Americans and kept manufacturers busy supplying games to arcades, bowling alleys and bars. Depending on a player’s skill, which came into play with the invention of the machine’s flipper in 1947, a nickel or dime could buy seconds or hours of entertainment.

 

Today, Stern manufactures thousands of pinball machines a year, producing three or four different models featuring TV or movie characters, such as The Simpsons, Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. The company spends up to a year and $1 million designing a game.

Pinball remains very much an RL, 3D venture, despite the addition of electronics and flashing lights. Machines can contain over 3500 parts and half a mile of wiring. Computer coding is involved, too; Attoun interviewed Lonnie Ropp, a programmer with Stern.

Vintage machines are in demand as well, as baby boomers scoop up remembrances of their youth. This has caused popular models to rise in value. A machine called Medieval Madness has doubled from its $4000 introductory price ten years ago.

The changes in culture and attitudes toward gaming continue to intrigue. Video gaming has all but killed the humble pinball machine, just as other digital gaming devices (slot machines and video poker, for instance) have overrun their mechanical grandparents.

Can pinball machines teach today’s youth anything? Eye-hand coordination comes to mind. Perhaps pinball is more intense, in some ways, with its flippers and physical presence, than a console’s joysticks. Also, a commenter on American Profile’s site notes that pinball taught them anger management through the “tilt” mechanism, where players automatically lose the game (and their money) if they’re too rough with the machine.

References:
Attoun, M. (2008, March 2). Preserving pinball. American Profile, pp. 12, 14. [Online]. Available: http://www.americanprofile.com/article/25738.html

Facebook Adds to Appeal with Zynga Game Network

There has been buzz before about the similarities of social networks and MMO videogames. Both involve interactive screen time. Both involve use of the Internet, cooperation, and social activities. Both have also been criticized for overuse and for a variety of public ailments.

So it comes as little surprise that social sites have taken steps to integrate videogames in an effort to provide members more reasons to stay online and spend time with one another. Brad Stone has a nice article in The New York Times this week on the efforts of the Zynga Game Network to create online games for Facebook. Facebook opened up its network to developers to create third party apps, to much success (the recent award “Blog of the Week” for this blog is linked to one such app, TopNetPix).

The games are simple and traditional, such as Texas hold ’em poker, blackjack, and Boggle. Members can play with their friends, and invite others to the game. Developers keep ad revenue, so both Facebook and Zynga profit from the increased interactivity on the site from videogames. Here’s the money quote:

“People already love to play casual games,” said Fred Wilson, a partner at the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures, which led a $10 million round of financing in Zynga. “But when you take a casual game and stick it inside a social network, it becomes way more exciting. This is like pouring gasoline on fire.”

The interactive nature of games and the idea of injecting a little fun into an activity appeals to serious game makers. I can see the notion of a team inside a virtual interactive environment (VIE) engaging in a game to help solve a learning objective as a viable possibility. At its simplest levels, math can be easily game-ified, or taught within the context of other games. For instance, a learner in a VIE could engage in a virtual card game and be taught the odds of drawing to a flush versus drawing to a straight. Likewise vocabulary building, spelling, and other lower level reading skills are all easily incorporated in videogames.

One such game that might have some small educational appeal on Facebook, Scrabulous, is under legal assault by Hasbro, owner of Scrabble.

References:
Associated Press. (2008, January 17). Makers of Scrabble target Facebook version of game. The Wall Street Journal, p.B4.

Stone, B. (2008, January 15). More than games, a net to snare social networkers. The New York Times. [Online.] Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/technology/15facebook.htm

Canadians Argue Over Videogame “Addictions”

In light of the ongoing arguments regarding whether or not a true “addiction” in the traditional sense exists with videogames, GamePolitics.com has an entry detailing a televised debate up in Canada between Liz Woolley of Online Gamers Anonymous (yes, the similarity to Alcoholics Anonymous is deliberate), Marc Ouellette over at McMaster University in Ontario, and Christina Winterburn at 4thegirlgamers.

This is a good example to watch typical media treatment with easy to digest sound bites and oversimplification of complex issues, all crammed together in a tight time slot between advertisements. Here’s my summary of the segment, FWIW:

The segment opens with a tragic discussion of how Ms. Woolley’s son committed suicide after overuse of EverQuest, leading her to start OGA. Winterburn concedes gaming can become addictive in the sense that games can fill a hole in the lives of certain socially repressed people. Ouellette tries to get into an explanation of the research surrounding videogames, bringing up Loftus & Loftus (1983) regarding inherent reward schedules in games.

But, the journalists wanted to focus on the suicide related to EverQuest and ask Woolley if games like EQ should simply be banned. Ouellette gets back in to the conversation, and points out that comic books were blamed for youthful degeneracy in the 1950s, back-masking in rock lyrics were considered bad in the 1970s, and that basically each generation embraces a medium parents don’t understand. However, now parents have grown up with games and are more accepting. Woolley tries to ask that because Ouellette is a gamer and understands the medium, would he be more careful with his children playing, but this line of discussion is cut off due to lack of time. The journalist wraps up by belittling Ouellette’s last point, saying we’ve come a long way from the days of Pong and comic books with these videogames.

References:
Loftus, G. R. & Loftus, E. F. (1983). Mind at play: The psychology of video games. New York: Basic Books.

Online Gambling: A Press Release from Gibraltar

I had to laugh today while browsing news releases. I came across this one from Belle Rock Entertainment’s Online Casinos, which operates out of Gibraltar. Recall that the US bans online gambling, even if the site is offshore, and this peeves European casinos. So much so, they and some Caribbean nations have filed suit with the World Trade Organization against the US and the offending legislation. I’m not a fan of gambling, and I don’t condone it. But, I’m interested in research on the human element surrounding the risk of personal money with online gaming.

Reading the press release from Belle Rock, I’m struck with the similarities to mainstream MMORPGs. Here is a sample quote:

Gladiator is an online video slot of truly epic proportions set in Ancient Rome and features a massive 50 pay-lines. Its hero is a robust but romantic gladiator and when the sparks fly between him and his Roman Maiden, players score all the way with a Mixed Pay reward.

A gladiator’s battles resulting in rewards? Sounds a lot like World of Warcraft only with real money at stake. Take a look at this paragraph:

For those who prefer the snowy winterscapes of colder climates, Snow Honeys, is a feature rich, 5 reel 20 pay-line, entertainment-packed video slot. It has uber-cool mountain ski resort graphics, complete with bronzed ski instructors, Mounties, hibernating bears and snow Bunnies. The easy-on-the-eye ski-girls who show the way to a generous mix of Free Spins, Scatters, multipliers and a major Bonus feature, will delight any slot player. Adjacent Ice Castles could deliver up to 100 x multipliers and also enable the player to open up the second screen Hide and Seek bonus selection of 5 out of 12 winning windows in the castle. When the Ski Resort Scatter symbols combine, the player can score up to 30 Free Spins with a 5x multiplier and five of these adjacent will result in a massive 100x multiplier booster. Snow Honeys offer high energy slot action and has brilliant audio effects. Wagers from as little as 0.01 up to 0.5 coins can be made, making wins of up to 20 000 coins in the base game, 100 000 coins on the Free Spins and 10 000 coins on the bonus game possible.

It’s a neat press release, and it makes me hope that researchers concerned with online gambling will investigate the ramifications of combining elements of online gaming and social networks with the free spending nature of offshore wagering sites.

Stay Off the Grass: Bypassing Content Filters for Educational Gaming & Web 2.0

I recall hearing a story (somewhere down the line … probably in a college lecture) about an architect hired to design a cluster of buildings. Once built and ready for sidewalks connecting the entrances, he ordered grass seeded between the buildings and delayed sidewalk construction a while. In a few months the grass grew, and people going in and out of the buildings made their own pathways to the doors. At that point, the architect ordered the sidewalks constructed … following the elegant and efficient pathways created by the people.

I remember that story every time I walk through a college or school campus and see paths through the grass where people follow more efficient routes than the sidewalks. At UNT, despite signs pleading with students to stay off the grass, and rope barriers cutting off students’ favorite route between the two main education buildings, the powers that be finally relented and built a sidewalk for the most popular shortcut.

What a powerful idea it was for the architect to simply wait and let the people … the end users … figure out the best places for the sidewalks to go! Think of the money saved, and the aesthetics involved. What a powerful analogy the story is for educational technology, too. “Sidewalks,” or connections to information and resources, must be built for organizations. But, when the connections are dictated without input from those using the connections, efficiency suffers. And those connecting to resources within an organization (“walking to the doors between buildings”) often find their own ways that are more efficient than is what dictated from above.

This helps explain the ongoing conundrum Web 2.0 tools face in academic environments, including instructional gaming. I was reminded of the sidewalk story while catching up with some blogs recently. In late October, uber-blogger Robert Scoble noted during a discussion with his son’s high school buddies that Facebook and MySpace were blocked at school. This didn’t stop them, of course, and Scoble notes various tips the teens had to get around the filters. Scoble himself simply turns on his Verizon wireless data card and bypasses the filter altogether. Fooey on over-controlling administrators, Scoble says.

What is most interesting to me are the attitudes people have toward school filters. They follow the same patterns some people have in their attitudes toward instructional videogames in schools. Namely, some folks think that using the Web for anything besides serious purposes is a waste of time, and should not be allowed in school. The problem is, they want to dictate where to pave the sidewalks. What is “serious” is what they define as serious; anything else should be banned.

Reading the many comments Scoble received is more interesting than his original post. Some folks just don’t get it. One poster wrote: “I’m sorry, but why should we be encouraging kids to circumvent school policies?” Another suggested time would be better spent with teachers than on Facebook. Scoble pointed out that Ray Ozzie, Walt Mossberg, and Joi Ito are all on Facebook. But, because the school blocks the site, accessing these experts in their respective fields while at school is “inappropriate.” He sums up: “But, no, you keep thinking that Facebook is just for fooling around.” Ouch.

The arguments go downhill from there. They should access these sites on their time, not the teacher’s time. Scoble counters: they’re still blocked during recess, before and after school, and that is his son’s time. Teaching your son to circumvent policies he disagrees with may lead him to disregard policies on drugs and guns, too. Scoble dismisses this argument: “You think Wikipedia even belongs in the same sentence as guns and drugs. Discussion over.” Some sided with Scoble, stating that learning to circumvent filters is a good life skill to pick up in school.

The issue of filters and their impediment to teaching was brought up earlier in November by Miguel Guhlin. The Web 2.0 product at issue was Google Docs. An administrator on the Texas technology directors’ listserv noted that Google Docs was used by both teachers and students in their district, but had recently been blocked. Miguel has been railing against folks preventing the adoption of important technologies in school settings for years, and he used this opportunity to again deride those demanding we all stay on the sidewalk.

Finally, a poster on the Serious Games listserv, which is filled with academics and industry professionals, noted, in a tone of bemused frustration, that a game he had worked on for a school was now blocked at the very same school.

-*-

I have written two articles for TechEdge that address techniques students use for bypassing filters. These were aimed at helping educate teachers and administrators who are responsible for preventing students in their care from accessing inappropriate sites, and giving them the sense that filters are far from perfect. In the second article, I noted that educators are often more frustrated by the filters than their students. One teacher confided he used his own laptop and Internet connection to bypass the filter at school, essentially following the route Scoble suggested.

Here are some things I’ve noted in comments over on Miguel’s blog and in my articles:

1. Filters are in schools because Congress says they should be. The Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) dictates that schools receiving federal funds must block objectionable content. It will literally take an act of Congress to get rid of filtering, so don’t hold your breath. Besides, it is “for the children,” and consequently few would want to vote against it. Never mind if it really is beneficial for children, or in fact detrimental. It has been labeled as “for the children,” ergo est. Folks peeved at filters should aim their frustration at politicians, not school personnel.
2. Most filters used by schools are run by the big filtering companies. When something is blocked, for better or worse, rightly or wrongly, save your ire for those companies, not the hapless school administrators. It is true IT personnel can “open” a site deemed harmful by the filtering company, but doing so will involve discussion with the appropriate administrator or committee.
3. The big filtering companies don’t block sites out of spite. They have automated spiders scouring the net, and looking at sites visited by subscribers. When a site fits the criteria for blocking, its URL is added to a list that is updated daily. There is (usually) no Grinch-like administrator hunting for good sites to block. The process is typically automatic. This leads to one of the primary criticisms against filters, that they are reactionary. It usually takes a real live person to go back and correct mistakes made by the bots.
4. As long as there are filters in schools, there will be ways around the filters. A Canadian reference book published in PDF by Citizenlab.org went up recently. Kids can set up proxy sites on their home computers and bypass the filters, use web-enabled devices, or use a host of other techniques. Barring access to anything online is akin to shouting at the wind. People will get irritated the sidewalk doesn’t go where they want, and will get their feet muddy anyway.
5. Unfortunately, along with sites advocating sax and violins, gambling and other vices, Web 2.0 sites are lumped in with the R rated stuff. The reason: liability. Schools don’t want students to make unregulated posts in public parts of the Web using school equipment.
6. Also unfortunately, “gaming” is lumped in with filtering companies’ “bad” categories, because gaming is seen as a waste of time on computers. This includes serious gaming, academic and educational gaming, and often even Google searches for gaming sites. And that’s too bad. The bots can no more distinguish an academically valuable game useful for the classroom from a flash arcade game that is pure drivel.

So there it is. Stay on the sidewalks. But, if you see a quicker, more efficient route to your destination … just follow the path.

Online Gambling: Regulations vs. Research

Speaking in broad generalizations, I’ve often noted the things Europeans seem to abhor versus the things Americans generally abhor. This is often expressed legislatively. Americans like gun ownership. Europeans don’t. Americans like the death penalty. Europeans don’t. Europeans are okay with women doffing their tops at the beach. Americans generally aren’t okay with that. Europeans think nothing of children sipping wine at dinner, or letting a teen quaff a pint. Americans are shocked with the notion, and prohibit legal drinking until age 21. Europeans are okay with online gambling. Americans are not.

It’s this last generalization that has cropped up recently again, as we Americans seek to align commerce with our brethren across the pond. Previous commercial alignment has resulted in soda being sold in one and two liter bottles over here, where we stubbornly cling to the English measurement system whilst the rest of the world goes Metric. Another example is Microsoft’s recent agreement to abide by European anti-monopolist regulations.

Most recently, the Europeans have expressed their ire at American regulations on online gambling. First, US regulators let it be known that gambling sites were discouraged on American soil. The Caribbean, however, has several island nations a short plane ride away, with governments more amenable to profitable online sites. Next, the US passed a law stating that online gambling simply cannot take place at all on American soil. Gambling sites responded by continuing to take credit card payments on the sly, and the fun continued. Finally, the US cracked down on the card companies, arrested some site operators who happened to be passing through American airports, and generally put the kibosh on online gambling.

The EU and Caribbean nations such as Antigua have brought a complaint against the US law to the World Trade Commission, and continue to argue against what they see as overly restrictive US regulations. Namely, this coalition contends Americans should have the luxury of gambling online if the site is not based in the US. The US law essentially violates the rights of offshore gambling sites, they say.

There’s little doubt that gambling can lead some down the path of ruin. Europeans who’ve read Dostoevsky’s The Gambler surely know this. Ironically, legal gambling has become more accessible to Americans down through the years. When I was growing up, folks had to travel to Las Vegas or Atlantic City to legally gamble. Now with the proliferation of state lotteries and casinos on reservations, riverboats, and elsewhere, legal gambling in the real world is far more widespread than it ever was in the past.

The interesting thing about gambling from an academic perspective is that money influences things in ways nothing else can. It’s one thing to pretend to invest in the stock market, or place a virtual bet. It’s quite another to use your own money from your own account.

Gambling also fuels ongoing research into addiction, such as Fong’s work at UCLA. It’s true that people can get “addicted” to almost anything. I’ve long argued there is a difference between chemical addictions and behavioral addictions. Unfortunately, most news journalists make little difference between the two, and we’ve read stories equating videogame players with heroin addicts, etc.

There is something about interacting with a video screen that truly focuses people. I recall reading about the introduction of television at the 1939 World’s Fair. One writer remarked that folks did not have enough time to sit around and watch the contraption. Once World War II was over, and RCA could get about the business of transforming radio networks to television networks, people found plenty of time to sit down and watch television.

Combining true interaction, beyond yelling at the set, was advanced by Willy Higginbotham at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958 when he hooked up a couple of paddle wheels to play virtual tennis on an oscilloscope. About the same time, Ralph Baer was thinking about interactive games for television, and he began developing schematics and a prototype in 1966.

Since then, this interactive element with the screen has caught fire in ways nobody foresaw. Now, people around the world can play online with one another in everything from simulated card games to mock battles with virtual monsters. Video poker and gambling ported to online environments combine the attention-grabbing aspects of videogames with the allure of gambling.

Online gambling creates a strong pool of research material because it combines two highly interactive elements to which players can become “addicted” (a better term is “overuse,” especially for online time or videogame play). I think we’ll see some interesting papers coming out of UCLA and elsewhere in the near future. In the meantime, folks wanting to gamble online in the comfort of their homes will have to wait, if they live in America. Or, they can hop a flight over to Europe and gamble online whilst on the beach. There, they can go topless as well. Maybe have a drink, if they’re underage.