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Video games have just been included in the classification of diseases of the WHO. Although they may cause different pathological characteristics related to substance abuse, this text focuses on the mechanism they have to create positive effects on users and highlights some features of the technological and neuroscientific debate to which they are inscribed.
The film ] Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One based on Ernest Cline's novel of the same name, depicts a dystopia in which there exists another virtual reality known as "Oasis". This was created by a bizarre and introverted genius who, to inherit control of his powerful consumer market, requires potential candidates deep knowledge of this world of pixels and binary code that only total alienation can achieve. [19659003] By the end of the day, and despite the overwhelming complexity and sophistication, the Oasis is not very different from the rudimentary Tetris in its basic premise: to offer the possibility of escape by playfulness and even, in the case of video games such as Roblox or Minecraft, offer the option of building those leaks yourself. Video games create a space in which attention is absorbed at levels that can be considered pathological, according to what the World Health Organization has recently stipulated.
Illustration: Erik Proaño
For its latest update of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), the WHO has decided to include "addiction to video games" , which describes how "Such severe gambling behavior prevails over other vital interests" stipulating the diagnostic criteria listed below:
1. That the problem persists for a period of at least 12 months, except that the symptoms are considered serious.
2. Lack of control over the game based on frequency, intensity and duration, being the person suffering from the addiction unable to put clear limits on the time and intensity that is devoted to the use of video games.
3. Increase the priority given to the game and give it priority over other vital interests and daily routines.
4. Despite the obvious damage that the pattern of behavior generates, the addict continues to play with greater frequency.
Like any other pathology of the mind, the criterion is based on the assignment of the basic elements of life and the environment of the mind. individual, such as sleep, nutrition, social life or education. The "danger" is latent for a considerable percentage of the world population and those who could be considered in a particular situation of real risk are children and adolescents. However, the use of video games and the like is a clear sign of the time, which does not prevent us from asking ourselves if we are really confronted with pathological behavior or if it is simply a adaptive response to technological change.
It has become predominant and in a new way has altered social paradigms, including that of pathology, whose criteria respond to a specific social and temporal context and which, fortunately, are flexible to changes in time – if not, homosexuality According to the Cuban psychiatrist María Caro, technology imposes new challenges in its treatment and, in the face of rapid technological progress, the human being develops and becomes a mental illness or a hysterical pathology in maladaptive women –
adaptive strategies that result in a new variety of behaviors that are not always healthy, because the same speed makes it difficult to adapt social n 1 The scientific community has studied the reinforcing effect that some usual activities such as shopping, work, play, exercise can have on some people, what q that has given birth to behavioral addictions or nontoxic "The problem is not the consumption of substances that affect health, but interference in the daily lives of those affected.
Mark Griffiths, scholar of the subject of video games, 2 any behavior that meets The following criteria will be defined operationally as dependence: salience (when addictive behavior becomes the most important), swings mood, tolerance (increase the amount of activity to achieve the previously obtained effects), experience withdrawal syndrome or unpleasant effects that occur when addictive behavior is interrupted or reduced, conflict that develops between the addict and those who surround him, with other activities or with himself and eventually relapse, that is to say back to the first patterns of activity , restore the most extreme after several years of abstinence or control.
According to this principle, any normal activity It is nice for an individual, it can become addictive behavior. A drug-free addiction for these students is a repetitive behavior that produces pleasure and tension relief, especially in its infancy, and results in a loss of control that seriously disrupts everyday, family, work or social life. Video games are a source of endless pleasure, and as their design and narrative goes through a process of cosmetics, refinement and acute sophistication, their immersive power increases and their sphere of influence increases. Extends massively
. We know that not all people are at the same risk. For these authors, the most vulnerable to problematic use of social networks and video game addiction are those who have low emotional stability, are extroverted and not accountable. 3
In addition to encouraging personality traits, the use of video games activates different regions of our brain 4 related to pleasure, such as the left ventral striatum . In this sense, it has been identified that in people who play more than nine hours a day, there is a greater volume of gray matter located in this area. In addition, when using a video game, there is a significant presence of dopamine, a chemical substance produced by the brain, whose release is abundant in the nucleus accumbens, a brain structure known to play an important role in the sensations of pleasure
. But beyond the physiological, it can be noticed, as the critic and academic Liel Leibovitz states in God in the Machine, that the logic under which video games are designed creates a state of different awareness of other fun activities, because it is a much more absorbing activity, which requires not only bodily but cognitive functions to evoke in a complex way sensations that, according to Leibovitz, are related to an experience of religious order. 5 In this perspective, the video game becomes a spiritual activity that involves more being than thinking, a complete dissociation of reality it includes another state of existence, a virtual state , such as this world imagined by Ernest Cline and rendered by Spielberg in Ready Player One . An alternative existence provides the deficiencies of reality.
However, despite the degree of sophistication that they can achieve, the use of video games remains contingent on our reality and the escape invariably ends when the electric current breaks down, when the Equipment are overheated by excessive use or simply when the body expresses fatigue, fatigue and the direct consequences of a semi-sedentary existence.
Like any other, addiction to video games involves a deterioration of the user's operation. Especially in the social and emotional field Is it wrong to choose this pathological world instead of those in which it would be described as functional? The debate is complex and rich in responses and positions, especially as recent studies, such as that of neuroscientist Michael Merzenich, indicate that video games improve the frontal lobe capabilities, particularly related to the treatment of prostate cancer. attention and executive functions. they are very useful for planning, deciding and judging morally, as well as growing evidence that intensive use of video games results in significant generalized improvements in cognitive function. 6
On the other hand, video games are based on a clear classical structure of reinforcements. They are a pure behavioral system. This allows the player to receive reinforcements in a consistent, structured and controlled manner. Therefore, the activity of the game is unequivocally linked to the feelings of well-being, control and other positive thoughts and emotions.
Therefore, it is apparently easy to influence an addiction and, in the same way, rehabilitation would be preferable. for a cognitive-behavioral therapy program that "reversed" the reinforcement scheme put in place by the video game. We already have an example of this, such as programs for the gradual reduction of behaviors that consist in reducing consumption habits in limited quantities; Cognitive behavioral therapy as a rational behavioral and emotional therapy that works on irrational beliefs and ideas, as well as integral models such as the PIPATIC program: 7 a psychotherapeutic intervention divided into six control-centric modules addictive behavior, gaining autonomy and giving adequate psychological skills.
The tilde must be set at a healthy limit for the person, which allows to incorporate the recreational and cognitive gains of the video game in the context of everyday life and at the same time the individual to build a Reality-based environment, which will be ever more complex and deserves to be explored than anything the imagination can create. The virtual world is certainly a fantastic oasis of personal projection, limited by the sea of reality.
Source: Nexos Magazine
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