Read Aloud the Text Content

This audio was created by Woord's Text to Speech service by content creators from all around the world.

Text Content or SSML code:

Video Games Effect on Attention and Addictive Behaviors Attentional problems are accounted as a crucial area of focus on outcomes of intensive game-play practices in children and adolescents. However, literature on the topic appears inconsistent. While some research has found mixed results [50] or a positive effect [51,52,53], or no relationship between VG practice and attention, other studies have linked VG playing with greater attention problems, such as impulsiveness, self-control, executive functioning, and cognitive control [53,54,55]. Gentile et al. [56], examining longitudinally, over 3 years, a large sample of child and adolescent VG players aged 8–17 (mean = 11.2 ± 2.1), suggested a bidirectional causality: children who spend more time playing VGs have more attention problems; in turn, subjects who have more attention problems spend more time playing VGs. Therefore, children and adolescents with attention problems are more attracted to VGs (excitement hypothesis), and, in turn, they find it less engaging to focus on activities requiring more control and sustained attention, such as educational activities, homework or household chores (displacement hypothesis). According to such hypotheses, and to the operant conditioning model [57,58], VGs, providing strong motivational cues, become more rewarding for impulsive children and teenagers [51] who, in such contexts, experience a sense of value and feelings of mastery that they do not experience in their daily relationships [59]. Actually, any modern VG is a highly engaging activity with a variety of attractive cues, such as, for example, violence, rapid movement, fast pacing and flashing lights [60,61]. According to the attractive hypothesis [56], it may provide a strong motivation and support for attention and even become addictive, especially in subjects with problems maintaining attention in usual, monotonous and poorly engaging tasks. Therefore, paradoxically, a greater VG exposure may improve visual attention skills involved in such engaging play [26], but it may impair the ability to selectively focus on a target for lasting time, without external exciting cues. Probably, in line with the bidirectional causality framework [56], such rewarding conditions could become the psychological context for the structuring of addictive behaviors, such as a sense of euphoria while playing, feeling depressed away from the game, an uncontrollable and persistent craving to play, neglect of family and friends, problems with school or jobs, alteration of sleeping routines, irregular meals and poor hygiene [14]. The most psychologically fragile subjects may be most attracted to an engaging and rewarding activity, ensuring an effective compensation to their fragility [14]. However, the topic of video game addiction continues to present today many outstanding issues. There is a large consensus that ‘pathological use’ is more debilitating than ‘excessive use’ of VGs alone [62,63,64]. Addictive behavior appears associated with an actual lowering in academic, social, occupational, developmental and behavioral dimensions, while excessive use may simply be an excessive amount of time gaming. According to Griffiths’ suggestions, ‘healthy excessive enthusiasms add to life, whereas addiction takes away from it’ [65]. However, it is sometimes difficult to identify the clear line between unproblematic overuse of gaming and the pathological and compulsive overuse that compromises one’s lifestyle and psychosocial adjustment [66,67,68]. Therefore, there may be a risk of stigmatizing an enjoyable practice, which, for a minority of excessive users, may be associated with addiction-related behaviors [69,70]. Przybylski and colleagues, in four survey studies with large international cohorts (N = 18,932), found that the percentage of the general population who could qualify for internet gaming disorders was extremely small (less than one percent) [71]. In such a discussion of the pathological nature of VGs, another outstanding question is whether pathological play is a major problem, or if it is the phenomenological manifestation of another pathological condition. Several studies have suggested that video game play can become harmful enough to be categorized as a psychiatric disorder, or it could be a symptom of an underlying psychopathological condition, such as depression or anxiety. Moreover, the functional impairments observed in individuals with game addictions are also thought to be similar to the impairments observed in other addictions. Neuroimaging studies have shown that the brain reward pathways which are activated during video game playing are also activated during cue-induced cravings of drug, alcohol or other type of substances abuse [72,73,74]. Some longitudinal studies [14,75,76] proved that pathological addictive behaviors, such as depression, are likely to be outcomes of pathological gaming rather than predictors of it [77,78]. Lam and Peng [79], in a prospective study with a randomly generated cohort of 881 healthy adolescents aged between 13 and 16 years, found that the pathological use of the internet results in later depression. Similarly, Liau et al. [80], in a 2-year longitudinal study involving 3034 children and adolescents aged 8 to 14 years, found that pathological video gaming has potentially serious mental health consequences, in particular of depression. In summary, attention problems and addictive behaviors in the context of VGs should be addressed in a circular and bidirectional way in which each variable can influence the others.