Excessive computer gaming has the hallmarks of addiction, suggests new experiments on “drug memory”. The researchers argue it should be classified as such, enabling “addicts” to start seeking help.
“We have the patients and we have the parents and family members calling us for help,” says Sabine Grüsser of the Charité University Medicine Berlin, in Germany.
Learning is recognised as an important underlying mechanism of addiction. In becoming addicted, people start to associate cues that are normally neutral with the object of their craving. To a crack addict, for instance, a building in which they have used the drug is more than just a place they have been – it becomes a trigger for craving and can, on its own, reignite a need to use the drug again after months of abstinence.
Grüsser and her colleague Ralf Thalemann wanted to see if computer game cues could also trigger similar “drug memories” in excessive computer gamers.
Desperate to indulge
They compared 15 men in their 20s who admitted that gaming had chased other activities – such as work and socialising – out of their lives, and 15 game-playing but otherwise healthy controls.
They showed them a variety of visual cues and asked the volunteers to rate how they felt about the images. All had normal reactions to neutral images, such as chairs, and even to alcohol-related images, despite the fact that all the participants drank alcohol.
But excessive computer game players showed classic signs of craving when they were presented with freeze-frames from some of their favourite games – they desperately wanted to play, expected to feel better once they did, and fully intended to indulge again as soon as possible.
By Alison Motluk
