Transcript: Shavaun Scott Interview
The Balanced Mind Foundation: Shavaun Scott is a therapist practicing in California with a specialty in addictions and technology. In 2009, along with co-author Neils Clark, she released the book, “Game Addiction: The Experience and the Effects,” which takes a neutral look at the phenomenon of video game addiction from multiple angles. Not only a therapist that does work with gaming addiction, she’s also been a gamer herself, logging in many hours on games such as EverQuest. She joins us today to talk about what to be on the lookout for, for video game addiction, and what you can do about it. Shavaun Scott, welcome to FlipSwitch.
Shavaun Scott: Thank you.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: This week, we’re talking all about the phenomenon of video game addiction. Our population, of course, deals with bipolar and depression. So, with bipolar, you have issues of impulsivity, and with depression, you have issues of isolation -- both of which are big factors or traditionally have been big factors with video games. One of the things we’ve had problems with in our studies of video game addiction is getting a clear, consistent definition of what video game addiction is and how it’s either similar or different to other forms of addiction. What is your take on the actual definition of video game addiction?
Shavaun Scott: Well, this is something that people argue and argue and argue about as I’m sure you know. And I always go back to, is it necessary to call it addiction to recognize that it can be really unhealthy overplaying? So, I come from that point of view where some people just feel that addiction is a really pejorative word -- you know, don’t call me an addict, it’s not heroin, I’m not doing something illegal -- and that’s fine. That’s completely understandable that they don’t want to be labeled, but at the same time I think everybody who plays has probably had times when they’ve overplayed and had negative consequences from that or they know people who dramatically overplay.
So when it comes to looking at those questions, addiction is usually defined as doing something that impairs your functioning. And by that I mean, is it causing you to have problems in school, is it causing you to have problems in relationships? Are you isolating, are you withdrawing from people, are you not doing the kinds of things that you used to do? You know, you’ve given up activities that you used to enjoy. Is it all you think about, is it the only thing that makes you happy, do you get a sense of adrenaline rush? We know that when people are doing drugs, they have an excessive amount of dopamine that’s released which is that pleasure hormone that everybody’s talking about with addiction. And there have been so many studies that show people have that same kind of dopamine rush when they’re gaming.
So, behavioral addictions are the new thing that’s being studied, and there are all kinds of behaviors that cause these same kinds of problems. Gambling has been looked at as a behavior that’s an addiction for a long time now. And I think just because the whole phenomenon of video gaming is so new, particularly with the MMO genre, this is just something that we’re trying to become more astute about understanding right now.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: You made the reference to gambling. Technically, gambling is a random, interval kind of reinforced gaming. And now, we’re talking about video games, and some of the developers we talk to are pretty open about using psychological tricks that are very, very akin to a casino. I guess on the spectrum, is video game addiction similar or comparable to gambling addiction?
Shavaun Scott: I think it’s very comparable, and I think, in some ways, it may be a bit more insidious. And, again, I’ve never been a gambler. I have been a gamer, so understand gaming a lot better I think than that. But I’ve had gamers tell me the same or game developers tell me the same thing. It’s that they’ve studied gambling, and they have built into the game mechanics the same kind of processes. I think the thing that happens with gaming, particularly the MMOs, is you have the social and betting quality too where you really bond with people; you have to keep up with other people in your guild. There’s that sense of “I owe folks loyalty here so I have to keep playing as much as they’re playing. I have to be at their rate or they’re going to call me on the phone”. And I think that’s one thing that keeps it in the category that’s rather unique and perhaps a bit more insidious than gambling.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: One of the traditional things that has always been disturbing about console games to parents I guess and even to the casual gamer has been that people who overplay tend to become very isolated and kind of antisocial in their own way, whereas with the invention of MMOs and even now console games are having online spaces, by definition they are social. Do you consider that truly being social? Is that kind of interaction social? Does it leave something out? And if so, do we need to modify how we think of addiction in that sense?
Shavaun Scott: I think, you know, and really when I was playing an MMO, I used to play Lineage II a lot. When it first came out, I was in beta and then played for about two years after that. And I really played for social reasons. I was rather depressed at that point in my life -- so I can certainly own the depression, vulnerability there -- and I was somewhat isolated socially. So I was really enjoying the people that I met in the game. And I would log in just to connect with them, they would log in to connect with me, and I don’t think that’s a negative thing. But is it the same as real life socialization and I don’t think so.
I just spoke with somebody last week who has been immersed in gaming his entire life. He’s 25 years old. He flunked out of high school because of gaming, but he did teach himself programming. Now, he works very successfully for a software development company, but is terrified to the point that he has panic attacks, shakes, sweats, hyperventilates when he’s meeting a real life woman. He’s fine with women in the game, but he’s never had a date in real life. And I think you could say that’s a bit of an impairment then. And so socializing in gaming, while it has value, I don’t think it’s quite the same thing.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: As technology moves forward to some extent, I guess even to the extreme player it’s hard to think of somebody becoming highly addicted to Pong or early in television, Atari games as to how easy it could be now. And certainly with the kind of movement towards overlapping of technologies where you can jump from your console to the internet, Facebook to your iPhone so easily. Is it going to become easier? Do you see it becoming easier to fall into these pitfalls going from casual gaming into too much?
Shavaun Scott: Yeah. I’m real interested in neuroscience, and I’m a psychotherapist, meaning I talk with people about their feelings and their problems. I’m not an actual brain scientist, but I study it, and I’m really fascinated with it. And when we get into the area of neuroplasticity, we’re changing brains based upon what we do lots of. And if we’re highly engaged in electronic media, our brains are developing to basically get very, very good at that and not so good at other things. And so, I think the more electronic media we become immersed in, whatever it is, we’re kind of setting ourselves up to maybe not function so well in other areas.
When I talk with people who are trying to get out of the game addiction cycle, one of the things we always work on is what are other activities you used to enjoy that you don’t enjoy anymore? And it generally gets back to things like music, playing guitar, people have been in bands. They’ve let that go. And you know again the brain has kind of changed, and so it’s a process of getting back to those other neural pathways and rediscovering, redeveloping, and kind of reformatting the brain there.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: You’ve mentioned this kind of a cycle that people go through with problematic game playing. Are there typical features that tend to overlap most people’s experience of video game addiction or playing problematically?
Shavaun Scott: Yeah. You know they skip activities that they used to enjoy, whether they be sports activities, social activities, or as they say things like playing music. They begin to prefer their online friends to the people that they knew in the real world to the point that real world friends tend to move on and leave them behind. I talk about how self-care starts to deteriorate, so a lot of people just start skipping meals to continue playing. Hygiene stops being a priority. Sleep is really important to maintaining mental health, especially if we’re talking about things like bipolar disorder and depression. And the game mechanics are really designed to interrupt normal sleep patterns. I mean people will just play all night long. I know I’ve done that you know. Academic problems, job problems, being late for school, missing classes.
I know of one person who was discharged from the army because she couldn’t get up in the morning, because she was gaming all night long. Seeming to care more about gaming than anything else -- it’s the only thing that the person thinks about. It’s the only thing that gives them pleasure or excites them. And just they don’t start accomplishing the normal development milestones like getting a drivers license. As I mentioned the other guy beginning to date, feeling comfortable with applying for jobs. Having mood changes like becoming irritable real easily when being unable to play and then a lot of people experience outbursts of anger when they’re asked to stop gaming or when they can’t game as much as they want to.
We’re really talking about a failure to of self-regulation, which is something that if we have a mood disorder we struggle with anyway. You know the ability to naturally manage our minds and bodies and healthy state of well being.
Pt II: Responsibility and the gamer, the overlapping of technology, and signs to be on the lookout for so that you or someone you care about doesn’t fall down the video game rabbit hole.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: When we talk to designers, we always ask them about their feelings on video game addiction. And they typically say the same thing,which is that it's too bad, but ultimately it’s the responsibility of the individual to overcome and kind of regulate themselves. Considering specifically teens and young adults who are in a developmental state, is there a point where that argument doesn’t quite wash as much as --
Shavaun Scott: Yeah, I don’t think that argument ever washes because no matter what age we are, by nature we’re not logical beings. The emotional limbic system is really running the show with our decision making much of the time not the logical cortex. And so games are designed to kind of bypass that logical cortex and really hit us on that emotional level.
It’s amplified in people who are younger or people with self-regulation problems and other kinds of psychological vulnerabilities, and I don’t think that argument ever wash. We like to believe in control and logic and that people can make wise choices. And I think all we have to do is look around the world and look at the mess the world is in and see this whole thing, whether it be politics, the environmental issues going on. People aren’t very logical creatures because we’re not doing what’s smart most of the time. We’re not doing what’s good for us.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: Are there any groups that you found that are more at risk or less at risk or either have some kind of built-up defense or weakened defense against falling into these little traps?
Shavaun Scott: Yeah. I think anyone with a mood disorder is more at risk because they’re struggling with self-regulation, anyway. And, again, I can own depression, and it’s far too easy when you’re depressed to just want to escape and not want to go out and have the energy to meet the challenge of work that day or whatever it is that you need to do. And gaming just helps you kind of dissociate from that and take your mind off it. And then, certainly with things like bipolar disorder where a person has lots of energy -- lots of perhaps sometimes aggressive feelings and they’re not sleeping -- they’re really at risk of just getting into a game and just kind of going crazy with it. So I think mood disorders are really predisposing conditions.
People on the Asperger’s kind of spectrum, where they don’t naturally know how to connect with other people very well in real life, also like games because there’s a fixed rule set that they can understand, and it’s always predictable for them. And so, that’s another group of people that will just kind of find a niche and game and game and game when they could be working on overcoming some of those deficits that they have in real life. But it takes energy to do that, and it’s too easy to just get caught up in the game world.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: Yeah. We entered this whole topic with kind of the horror stories you hear about the worst of the worst of the video game addicts. But as we’ve researched it, we’ve come across a lot of people who speak of the positive benefits of gaming in certain instances. What are some of the positive aspects of gaming?
Shavaun Scott: I think the ability to problem solve. I mean, even though I’ve enjoyed gaming and I’ve gamed a lot, I’m not a competitive person, and I’m not a real strong player, technically. So, I’m probably not somebody that would be highly valued in a group-
The Balanced Mind Foundation: All right.
Shavaun Scott: --necessarily, other than because I’m friendly and fun to talk to. But my sons are both amazing as far as their technical gaming abilities, and it’s really interesting to watch them be able to do problem solving in the game and use strategy. And I think sometimes those skills can be developed. The use of symbolic literacy is certainly important. So there are social things that can be fun. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as it’s not replacing real life. And people who naturally have abilities and good self-regulation can time themselves. They can pay attention to the signals from their body well-- I’m hungry, need to take a shower, I need to get some sleep, I prioritize getting to school in the morning because I do care about not flunking out here. I don’t think it’s a bad thing, and that’s my position on gaming. It’s like nothing is bad in and of itself -- it’s really the individual and the type of gaming. Can it be very destructive? Yes. For some people, it’s not, fortunately.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: If that’s the case, then what should friends and family of anybody be on the lookout for if they want to kind of keep that monster at bay, so to speak?
Shavaun Scott: Yeah. I think it’s really helpful if friends speak up, family members, particularly if it’s parents -- people tend to really resist intervention from parents. They get very hostile about it. It’s just kind of the nature of being an adolescent or in your 20s, if you still live at home, and your parents start trying to tell you what to do, people automatically resist that. But I think it’s really helpful if friends give feedback and encourage somebody and say, “Hey, come one let’s go out. Let’s do this. Let’s, you know, go out and meet some friends” or whatever the activities are. Almost anything can be better if somebody’s caught up in gaming just to get them out and get them busy. So, I think just people commenting on it --
The Balanced Mind Foundation: I guess at one point you could look at gaming as one thing, but now there are so many different types of games. There is console gaming, there are MMOs, there’s character driven stuff, and then there’s the Zynga type games which have a large female base. Is there one area of gaming that you see at least personally as a more problematic type of gaming or area that it’s more riffed with these problems than other areas?
Shavaun Scott: I get these extreme cases where there’s been domestic violence. I’ve had cases where kids have punched mom or dad or mom has hit the kid over the head with a laptop. I mean there have been these just out of control extreme kind of situations or people going 48 hours without stopping. It’s usually the MMOs. It’s not exclusively the MMOs, and, again, that has to do with the social structure, the length of time it takes to raid, and the grind involved. It’s the kind of game that you just can’t stop.
And that’s one thing that parents will say, “Just turn it off, just stop.” And I used to tell my son, “Come upstairs. Stop the game. You can pick up the game later” and they would always say, “We can’t. You know, we can’t leave.” And until I had played and understood how immersed and enmeshed you get in the process of an MMO, I could see how you can’t leave -- you can’t leave your friends -- and that’s the manipulative part of it.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: What do you see for the future of studying video game addiction? From what we’ve determined, there’s been like a lot of debate on how to approach it and even what it is. What do you see as the future of the study of it?
Shavaun Scott: I see more and more people doing research. I get contacted a lot by people working on their master’s thesis and doctoral research. So, I can’t say for certain what direction this is all going to go, but certainly with the brain imaging studies, the increasing understanding of the role of the neurotransmitter system in all kinds of addiction. I think probably in the next five years, we’re going to be a lot more aware of things than we are now.
A lot of people still don’t know what an MMO is. I’ve worked with a lot of therapist just trying to educate them on what gaming is because they tend to be over 40, over 50 years old, and they’re still thinking of Mario Brothers and console games and the kind of things that their kids played many years ago. And so, they find it kind of ludicrous to even hear the term video game addiction because how could somebody be addicted to video games? Well, they don’t understand that we’re really talking about virtual world, and developing entirely new identities in those worlds and the power of that.
So, I think in the next few years, we’re going to see a younger generation of clinical people who have a lot more insight. And we’ll know more than we do now definitively.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: One other question. Let’s say somebody actually actively has a problem and everybody kind of knows it. What can be done for that person?
Shavaun Scott: Well, there’s a lot that can be done, and it can get really slight jargony. But I like to just start with helping somebody clarify their goal. Do you want to be playing 15 hours of World of Warcraft in five years, living with mom and dad? No, of course not. Well, what do you want to do be doing in five years? Okay, then let’s break that down. How are you going to get there? How are you going to break the long term goal into little steps and what would that look like and try and give them as many specific ideas as they can in order to find out how get there.
I like to talk about the "Three S" skills: self-monitoring, self-awareness, and self-correction, which is basically being aware of what you’re doing, of what you’re feeling, of what your choices are and how to monitor when you get off track. And that’s something that you can, if you’re a counselor, actually help somebody learn to develop. It’s nice if people don’t want to give up gaming, if they can at least switch to games that aren’t, like the MMOs, the most addictive type. Switch to games that they can stop if they want to stop.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: All right.
Shavaun Scott: And if that doesn’t work, try and help them find strategies just to find other hobbies, other interests. And they need other pleasurable activities other than gaming because we’re really again talking about kind of rewiring the brain and getting back to having an identity in real life which is something people have forgotten how to do.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: One of the things we’ve heard from both parents and gamers and especially designers is that there’s a certain kind of personality type that would -- if it wasn’t gaming, it would just be something else.
Shavaun Scott: I think that’s a myth.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: Yeah.
Shavaun Scott: I think that’s a huge myth. This whole term addictive personality -- if you really research that in psychology, there is no such thing as an addictive personality. There are psychological vulnerabilities that people have, and, as you mentioned, people that are socially isolated, people that are depressed, people that have problems with self-regulation. But those can be all kinds of different people, and there isn’t one type of personality. And I know so many gamers that have never used substances. They don’t drink. They don’t smoke pot. They just have no interest in drugs and no interest in gambling. I mean, they’re not these addictive people that are just going to find one thing or another thing or another thing. Sometimes it’s just being in a vulnerable place and having the wrong kind of game -- it just takes off with a life of its own.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: Shavaun Scott, thank you so much.
Shavaun Scott: Thank you. It’s been delightful.
The Balanced Mind Foundation: Game Addiction: The Experience and the Effects