As the more than 25,000 members of subreddit StopGaming would indicate, people who are looking to quit video games are a small, but real, minority of players. People who have quit describe the months they felt were lost to gaming, or the sensation that they played games to activate the brain’s reward chemistry in the absence of life accomplishments. Computer Gaming Addicts Anonymous offers a self-test for anyone looking to analyze their own relationship with gaming. There are also guides to quickly deleting games libraries and finding support forums.
But so far, most advice has depended upon existing addiction literature. “Efficacy of Short-term Treatment of Internet and Computer Game Addiction: A Randomized Clinical Trial” is a new, five-year study published in the American Medical Association journal JAMA Psychiatry.
The study was conducted in four outpatient clinics in Austria and Germany, from January 2012 to June 2017 and tested a modified Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, based on gambling disorder treatments already in use in outpatient settings. In total, 149 randomized trial participants were split, with 74 receiving the new therapeutic treatment and 75 serving as a “wait-list control group.”
The 15-week treatment “conceptualizes Internet Addiction as resulting from a dynamic interaction of individual factors, features of the online activity, dysfunctional coping strategies, and disorder-specific cognitive biases.”
All subjects were men between 17 and 55 years-old. Treatment combined individual and group sessions divided over three broad phases, focused on establishing therapy goals, using the internet in healthy ways and ending with therapy focused on techniques for preventing relapse.
“It is important to emphasize that it does not automatically mean you are addicted if you are keen on playing computer games,” one of the study’s co-authors, Dr. Kai W. Müller told Vice. “It is important to keep in mind that only a minority is developing an addictive behavior towards gaming and other internet activities. On the same hand, it is equally important to take these patients seriously and to accept that they are suffering and in need of help. Anything else would be mere ignorance.”
Despite a high drop-out rate from participants (consistent with other addiction studies), the research found a strong effect among those who completed the CBT therapy, with 50 of 72 men in the CBT group self-reporting remission, compared to 17 of 71 from the control group, for an effect size of 1.19.
In the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), Internet Gaming Disorder is identified in Section III as a condition warranting more clinical research. The new study published in JAMA Psychiatry suggests one way forward in not only treating, but expanding our understanding of gaming addiction. In the study’s conclusion, the author’s even urge a next step, calling for research into combining pharmacotherapeutic drugs with the newly designed therapy, potentially bringing us closer to a fully systematized treatment for addicted gamers and internet users.
