Playing video games online with other members prevents addiction

Jugar a videojocs on line en grup preveu l'addicció

A research carried out by researchers at the universities Ramon Llull (URL), Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Barcelona (UB) and Nottingham Trent (NTU) concludes that playing online with several other people helps to prevent becoming addicted to videogames, by avoiding isolated and solitary situations. The research studies whether this hobby can affect the psychological health of players by analysing their motivations for playing video games online: the majority are interested in social relationships and in exploring new virtual adventures.

07/03/2012

The video game industry is one of the most successful leisure industries, with 20 million players around the world. One of the most popular types of games is the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), in which many users pay to participate. In contrast to traditional videogames, online role games never end.

Given the magnitude of the phenomenon, which created a certain amount of social alarm on its ability to become addictive and to isolate players, together with scarce knowledge about the users, researchers decided to analyse whether these games could affect the health of players by taking into account the reasons why they participated in these games.
A questionnaire was sent to 253 Spanish-speaking players of the popular game World of Warcraft (WoW) and to members of this game's forum in Spanish. The average profile is a young man (approximate age: 21), student, with a medium-high education level and who dedicates many hours to this hobby (an average of 22.61 hours a week) both on weekdays and weekends.

Contrary to what researchers expected, results indicate that the number of weekly hours dedicated to playing online does not decrease with age - video games have always been considered a teenager hobby. This lead to believe that the attraction produced by this environment is probably not limited to very young people.

With regard to the reason why they play, participants showed great interest in relating to others through the game - 84% prefer the "Player to Player" option. Other reasons include becoming friends with other players and the support they receive (all factors associated with a socialisation reasons). They also demonstrated interest in discovering the game and how different adventures within the game unfold (exploration reasons). To a lesser extent, participants indicated their interest in leadership, prestige, and reaching one's goals (related with achievements). Finally, they manifested a low level of identification with their avatar and evasion of reality (dissociation reasons).

According to the study, participants' answers indicate that playing role videogames online responds to a healthy motivation to socialise, gain power, explore and even escape from reality and play with new identities, and the image they give off is of a type of player distanced from the typical stereotype of a video game addict. "To the contrary, they seem to have a series of different motivations which may lead to explain their high degree of involvement and perseverance when playing", the study concludes.

Researchers further consider that interaction with other players prevents the formation of addictions, because it prevents players from being isolated and playing alone. The risk of becoming addicted happens when players can freely create a new identity which allows them to satisfy their desires and fantasies which at the same time helps them forget their frustrations, and the life of their avatar becomes more real than their own. This separation from reality, together with a high degree of absorption into the game, may have a relevant role in the appearance of disorders.

Reference article: Fuster, H., Oberst, U., Griffiths, M., Carbonell, X., Chamarro, A., Talarn, A. Motivación psicológica en los juegos de rol online: un estudio de jugadores españoles del World of Warcraft. Anales de Psicología (2012) 28, 274-280.