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Naz Erdeger

Dr. McLaughlin

English 1001

December 1 2017

How Video Game Addiction Can Lead to Negative Health Effects

Abstract:

My topic of interest is the negative effects of playing video games on children and

teenagers. Some video game usage can be helpful in reducing stress. While some video game

usage can be healthy, too much of it will do more harm than good. The rapid popularity of video

games increases the chance of children possibly getting addicted. Even if your child isn’t

necessarily addicted, the prolonged use of video games leads to health consequences.

Consequences such as depression, anxiety, aggression, and obesity. Mental health is very

important in a developing child and teenager. Depression and anxiety can affect the ability to

participate in healthy behaviors and even academic performance. Video game addicts can also

lose very important social skills and can be faced with social isolation. I would like to investigate

the negative effects that video game addiction has on children and teenagers. Specifically

focusing on depression, anxiety and social isolation. In this study, I have conducted two

interviews as well as a survey.

Introduction:

I am studying the effect of prolonged use of video games on the mental health of children

and teenagers. A parent’s worst nightmare is to watch their child struggle with depression and

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anxiety. But why are children developing these disorders? Out of many possible causes, I am

investigating the effects of video game usage in children and teenagers. Many parents and

caretakers might not be aware of the severity of the risks that come with children playing video

games. Risks such as disconnection from family and friends, severe addiction, aggression, and a

lack of communication and social skills. Families and caretakers need to open their eyes and

recognize the risks before it is too late.

In this generation, the popularity of playing video games is through the roof. This is very

dangerous for parents and caretakers. Without setting the proper rules in place, it is easy for your

child to be subjected to these detrimental consequences of playing video games. It is important

that all parents and caretakers have the correct information for your children to be happy and

healthy. Serious consequences such as depression, social isolation, anxiety, aggression, and

addiction can turn into reality for your child. Therefore, this is important information for families

and caretakers to possess.

Prior research has given insight on the mental and physical health risks that children are

exposed to while engaging in video game play. Existing research does not provide the

perspectives of children and teenagers that have faced these health consequences. In my own

research, an interview with a person having gone through these consequences will provide a

more personal insight.

I will conduct a personal interview as well as a survey to get a broad target audience.

Personally, I have had a family member struggle through a video game addiction. To gain insight

on what that was like for him, I interviewed him based on his mental health during that time.

Unlike interviewing a stranger, a family member will be more comfortable in being honest in the

interview. This will add a very personal and intimate touch to the interview which will make it

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stronger. To avoid possible bias, I interviewed another person who is male and around the same

age frame (18-20-year-old). In my survey, I am asking questions pertaining to the mental health

of video game players. This survey introduces quantitative as well as qualitative data to my

research. It was also posted on several types of social media to attract a larger survey population.

Furthermore, the qualitative and quantitative data have been analyzed to see if there is a

connection between prolonged video game usage and children/teenagers developing mental

disorders.

Literature Review:

Different types of video games display several kinds of effects on children and teenagers.

The following literature will contribute information that will help the understanding of this topic.

Are all video games necessarily bad? How does video game addiction affect the mental health of

children and teenagers?

Not all games are bad. Games that are pro-social seem to have a positive effect on

children and teenagers. In the article “The Impact of Video Games” from Sutter Health, Andrea

Norcia discusses the positive and negative impacts of video games on children in 2014. Norcia

has received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Child and Adolescent Development from the

San Jose State University. Norcia writes “When a video game is “pro-social” and rewards

players for building a town or helping others, children tend to show more empathy and

helpfulness in their daily lives”. This statement is supported by a 2014 study by Douglas Gentile,

Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Iowa State University. 

Children and teenagers also lose important social skills. According to the article

“Comparing the Social Skills of Students Addicted to Computer Games with Normal Students”

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Zamani et al. recalls “…children addicted to computer games tend to play more and avoid social

relationships” (2010). This can be related to children with addictions to video games as well.

When children and teenagers are playing video games all day, they miss opportunities to play

outside and make new friends. Among children and adolescents, the biggest parts of social

developments are communicating and interacting with people and in situations that are in the real

world.

Anxiety and depression are major health consequences for children and teenagers.

Typically, some game playing does not result in anxiety and depression in children. In 2011, a

study by East Carolina University found that casual use of video games eased anxiety and

depression in people with clinical depression. Casually, video games can be a great way to

destress. But in excessive use of video games, it causes negative consequences. In an article from

International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, Loton et al. states “Poorer mental health in

terms of higher prevalence of symptoms of stress, depression and anxiety has been repeatedly

associated with measures of video game addiction in studies across countries” (2015). Just like

any other type of addiction, it will have serious consequences for your loved ones.

The article from International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction contributes a

significant amount to the understanding of this topic. Loton et al. has studied video game

addiction and has concluded that higher levels of stress, depression, and anxiety have been

present in video game addicts.

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Methodology:

To understand how video game addiction affects the mental health of children and

teenagers, a survey and interview have been conducted. Since both a survey and interview have

been conducted, this study is a mixed method of both qualitative and quantitative data. To collect

quantitative data, I conducted a survey of around five questions. The purpose of the survey will

be to collect responses from a wide variety of people. The short length of the survey will help to

get more people completing it. The survey will be targeted towards teenagers that have had or

has a video game addiction. This survey provides questions that are more specific and closed-

ended. With the questions being specific and closed-ended, I am easily able to analyze the results

and compare them. The survey was created on the website Survey Monkey, where the results are

analyzed automatically. The potential limitations of using this approach would be that the survey

question answer options could lead to unclear data because certain answer options may be

interpreted differently by respondents. An addition to this is there could be a lack of respondents.

This insures a less accurate sample in which to draw conclusions from.

To collect the qualitative data, two interviews have been conducted. One of the

interviewees is a family member. To avoid possible bias, I have also interviewed another person

with a video game addiction. I chose to interview a family member because he can give more

honest responses if he trusts the interviewer. The two interviewees are 18-20-year-old males. The

other interviewee is an acquaintance from high school. One interview has been done on

Facebook and the other through email. This is due to the location differences of the interviewees

and interviewer. The purpose of doing an interview is to collect responses that are more open-

ended. The survey is less personal due to the closed-ended responses and the short length of the

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questionnaire. The interview consists of a longer list of more personal, open-ended questions.

This aspect of the interview will allow the interviewees to reflect on their personal experiences in

dealing with a video game addiction. The interview contains similar questions to the survey in

addition to questions that will give us more of an understanding to the feelings of the

interviewees. In existing research, there is a lack of qualitative data. Using this research method,

I can contribute new qualitative data to the existing research. By listening to a person’s thoughts

and experiences first hand, we are better able to understand the effect that video game addictions

have on a person’s mental health. Although this may be true, there are some limitations to this

research method. A limitation of this interview could be that the interviewees do not represent all

the people that are addicted to video games. Some people could have different experiences with

video game addiction.

Results:

To observe the effect that video game addiction has on the mental health of children and

teenagers, a survey was conducted. 25 people that have or had a video game addiction have taken

the survey.

For question #3, 60% of the respondents answered that they did not have any rules or

restrictions set in place for playing video games. The other 40% responded with yes.

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For question #4, 56% of the respondents voted that violence/action games are their

favorite video game category. 36% of the respondents voted that adventure games are their

favorite video game category. Lastly, 8% of the respondents voted that sports games are their

favorite video game category.

For question #5, 56% of the respondents voted that they have felt social

isolation/depression/anxiety indirectly or directly from their video game addiction. The rest of

the respondents voted no.

Figure 1: Statistics for Question #3

Figure 2: Statistics for Question #4

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On November 10th, 2017 two personal interviews were conducted. Both interviewees are

18-20-year-old males that have had or has a video game addiction. One of the interviewees is an

acquaintance from high school. Jack Matthews is an 18-year-old male that is currently addicted

to video games. The following interview was carried out by messaging on Facebook. The partial

transcript provided below shows the questions that are most pertinent to the subject matter.

Interviewer: Has your video game addiction affected your grades and performance in school?

Interviewee: My video game addiction completely affected my grades and the way I pay

attention in school. I was very focused on video games and less excited about school.

Interviewer: Do you feel like video games distracted you from school work and family time?

Figure 3: Statistics for Question #5

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Interviewee: I very much so feel this. I think I was so focused on the virtual world and my online

friends that I didn’t take enough time to focus on my schoolwork or family.

Interviewer: Have you ever felt socially isolated from other children?

Interviewee: No, I am pretty outgoing and confident and make friends easily.

Interviewer: Has your video game addiction directly or indirectly contributed to depression or

anxiety? If so, how?

Interviewee: It has affected my depression. Sometimes if I’m inside all day playing video games

I get really depressed and I don’t want to get up or move. I feel like everyone is out doing things

while I’m stuck inside.

The partial transcript provided below describes the interview with my brother, Mert

Erdeger. He is 20 years old and has had a video game addiction. This interview was carried out

by email.

Interviewer: Has your video game addiction affected your grades and performance in school?

Interviewee: Yes, because I procrastinate doing my school work by playing video games. It has

been very hard because my parents expect a lot from me but I don’t have as much motivation to

try to do well in school.

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Interviewer: Do you feel like video games distracted you from school work and family time?

Interviewee: Yes. I would rather play video games than do my homework. I was less interested

in hanging out with family because I couldn’t wait to get on my Playstation and talk to my online

friends.

Interviewer: Have you ever felt socially isolated from other children?

Interviewee: Not at all, I’ve always had great friends.

Interviewer: Has your video game addiction directly or indirectly contributed to depression or

anxiety? If so, how?

Interviewee: Yes. I often feel anxiety when I procrastinate things by playing video games

because I start doing bad in school. It affected my depression as well because I was inside all day

and not being productive.

Discussion:

The results from the survey indicates that most of the respondents believe that their

video game addiction contributes to social isolation, depression, and anxiety. The broadness of

the question limited the audience to just a yes or no answer. Some respondents could have just

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struggled through depression and not any of the other effects. There is a limitation of this

question because we do not know which types of effects video game addicts are dealing with. On

the other hand, my goal was to observe if any of these effects were present in a large group of

video game addicts. The results show that 56% of respondents felt social isolation, depression,

and/or anxiety from their video game addiction (Figure 3). From Figure 2, the results show that

56% of video game addicts favor violence/action type games overall. In Figure 1, 60% of video

game addicts did not have any rules/restrictions set in place by a parent or guardian. The results

from Figure 1 and 2 do not contribute to answering my research question but it is more for the

parents and caretakers of children/teens. Knowing that most video game addicts did not have any

rules in place for playing video games might influence a parent to set rules in place for their own

child or teenager. Previous research shows that pro-social games have a positive effect on

children and teenagers (Norcia). My own research shows an overall favor of violence/action type

games (Figure 2). Using this information, parents and caretakers can strive to buy more pro-

social video games for their children to play. On the other hand, parents and caretakers should

still let children and teenagers play the games they enjoy because the casual playing of their

favorite game can reduce stress (Study by East Carolina University).

From the interviews, I’ve discovered that video game addiction had no social effect on

the interviewees. Existing research by Zamani et al., as mentioned above, shows a decrease of

social skills in children with video game addictions. However, the interviewees claim that

they’re normally very outgoing so their addiction to video games did not affect their social skills.

According to both interviews, video game addictions have impacted their performance in school.

Both interviewees felt that they were distracted from schoolwork and engaging in family time.

Jack Matthews says, “My video game addiction completely affected my grades and the way I

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pay attention in school”. This can negatively impact a child or teenager while growing up.

Children and teenagers feel a lot of stress and anxiety when they are not doing well in school.

Mert Erdeger states “I often feel anxiety when I procrastinate things by playing video games

because I start doing bad in school”. Both interviews have shown increased stress and anxiety

due to low performance in school caused by video game addiction. In addition to this, Jack and

Mert both said they felt depressed by being inside and playing video games all day and not being

productive. Both interviews show a connection between developing depression and anxiety in

video game addicts. On the other hand, there was not enough data to support that having a video

game addiction effects the social skills of children and teenagers.

Conclusion:

Based on the results, there is no strong evidence that supports social isolation to be an effect

of video game addiction. However, there is a connection to developing depression and anxiety

within video game addicts. It is very scary for parents and caretakers to have their child possibly

struggle through a video game addiction. Video game addiction is serious and according to the

survey, most people are 7-10 years old when they are first addicted. This new research helps

bridge the gap in existing research by providing a new perspective to the subject. A new

perspective that is more personal to the struggle of video game addicts themselves. Both

interviewees open up about their struggles in living with a video game addiction. Imagine if that

was your child. Mental health is as important as physical health and should be taken seriously by

parents and caretakers.

To prevent video game addiction, parents and caretakers should set rules in place to regulate

the video game usage of their children. From the results of the survey, most video game addicts

did not have any rules set in place for playing video games. By regulating video game play,

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hopefully children and teenagers will be less dependent on video games. In the long run, children

and teenagers will be more focused in school and be less likely to develop depression/anxiety

from video game addiction.

Works Cited

Loton, Dan & Borkoles, Erika & Lubman, Dan & Polman, Remco. (2015). Video Game

Addiction, Engagement and Symptoms of Stress, Depression and Anxiety: The

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Mediating Role of Coping. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. .

10.1007/s11469-015-9578-6.

Norcia, Andrea. “The Impact of Video Games.” Parenting Teens and Preteens, June 2014,

www.pamf.org/parenting-teens/general/media-web/videogames.html.

Zamani, Eshrat et al. “Comparing the Social Skills of Students Addicted to Computer Games

with Normal Students.” Addiction & Health 2.3-4 (2010): 59–65. Print.