Video Game Addiction Case Study

Griffin Mathieu is a 16 year old boy who has gone through treatment for Internet Gaming Disorder. He began to play video games when he was ten years old and slowly became more and more isolated and addicted over time. When his addiction began to badly damage his life, he was sent away from his games to Utah for six weeks in order to overcome his addiction. Griffin is doing much better now, though he is still battling his addiction. He told reporters, “Sitting inside and staring at a screen won 't make it (someone’s problems) disappear” (Bresnahan and Worley). While playing these video games does not release as much dopamine as doing drugs, it can still become an addiction which damages people’s lives and has a very similar effect to doing drugs.

No definition has been made for addiction today that is universally agreed

One key component to addiction, however, is when it begins to damage someone’s life. Around 8.5% of children who play video games in the United States are addicted to the games. Many different aspects of video games draw people in to make them become addicted to these games. One of these aspects is the ABC of human needs. A of this triplet stands for autonomy, or feeling in control. This is followed by B, or belonging and C, or competence. Video games satisfy every one of the ABC’s in a simpler way than going out and interacting with people, which is one reason why some people turn to them instead of leaving their house. The constant rewards in video games are another part of the games that draws people in and makes them not want to stop. Mark Griffiths, a chartered psychologist and director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University argues that,