Study: Videogame Addiction Leads to Depression

[MiracleOfSound]

Clinical depression is a result of a variety of factors. A lack of exercise and a sedentary lifestyle can help lead to a chemical imbalance in the brain. Maybe you're not getting enough serotonin or dopamine. In that case, you can and will get depression, and no amount of "Fix your fucking problems and stop being so depressed" is going to change that.

.

I already tried to explain this to him and I was met with a wall of dogma followed by a puss-out when confronted with logic and reason.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Sorry the truth is "insensitive." That's not my fault. That's just how it is. If you can't get over yourself, like anyone else with depression, then you really are a failure.

Jesus Christ man.

You're coming off like an ignorant, judgemental asshole right now. Why all the dogma?

Do you really have have such a cold, shrivelled little heart that you feel that way about people unable to fix their minds?

I feel sorry for you.

 

[Event_Horizon]

I get really REALLY pissed off when someone says X and Y occur together, therefore X causes Y. HEY! Correlation doesn't mean causation! Even the researchers who worked on the study said that one might not cause the other. Their study showed that kids who were already depressed got worse when they played games for long periods of time. It did NOT show that a perfectly normal child became depressed by playing games.

There are plenty of other psychological studies that show depression occurring with other forms of addiction. And there are more psychological studies and case studies showing that anything which stimulates the reward circuit of the brain has the potential to be addictive. Games are nothing special in regards to addiction.

 

[Event_Horizon]

If they aren't pathetic, then how come other people can do it just as well?

Well first, you could actually look up the information in a basic level psych textbook before making wild judgements. To answer your specific question: every person's brain functions a little bit differently from everyone else's. What specific likes and fears you particularly have are different from another person. That same random dynamic, such as personal psychological thresholds, upbringing, and genetics all contribute to the prevalence and severity of depression.

Depression is NOT simply feeling sad. Sadness is not the disease, but the progressive emotional and biological symptoms. Depression is NOT simply thinking bad thoughts. Rather, those thoughts are just the symptom of a disease caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. You cannot simply turn those synapses off instantly, just like you can't switch off the anxiety caused by phobias. That being said, some people, over time in a positive environment, can indeed "get over it"; but some people can't. It's not a weakness on their part, because they cannot control the neurotransmitters of their brain just as you cannot control yours.

All the information you need to know about that is in a intro abnormal psych textbook. Or you could just go to wikipedia: "Depression is associated with changes in substances in the brain (neurotransmitters) that help nerve cells communicate, such as serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. The levels of these neurotransmitters can be influenced by, among other things, physical illnesses, genetics, hormonal changes, medications, aging, brain injuries, seasonal/light cycle changes, and social circumstances.
A 2010 review suggests that the genes which control the body clock may contribute to depression." I implore you to read a little about it before you make opinionated judgement about people you don't even know, and assume how they think when you have no clue as to their thought processes.

 

[antipunt]

Unfortunately for us gamers, the results of the study point to pathological gaming as increasing the chances of psychological disorders. "We found that in kids who started gaming pathologically, depression and anxiety got worse. And, when they stopped gaming, the depression lifted. It may be that these disorders [co-exist], but games seem to make the problem worse."

The subhead of the article (in bold) is misleading.

"It's not the chicken and the egg after all: study shows that playing games "pathologically" leads to feeling bad and not the other way around."

Despite the entire article, it still -is- chicken and egg. No causal link was identified in the study.

Well, unless you're including 'pathological gaming'. But that is kind of a no brainer. Pathological-behavior is an outlier, very much unlike the majority of sane-gamers. If you're pathological, most likely, you're depressed/anxious already. The gaming acts as a kind of fantasy, which in turns, worsens your depression/anxiety (because you don't face your problems), and presto. We see these trends. Chicken and egg still stands.

edit : I just noticed:

The conclusions Tito is supposedly drawing aren't supported by Gentile's methodology.


Tito, your subtitle is misleading

Ah OK, so I wasn't the only one . Good to know I'm still sane.

 

[TiefBlau]

I'm assuming nobody wanted to bother looking into it. They wanted to dismiss it as a cookie-cutter diagnosis. I'm just saying, if you are clinically depressed it means your brain does not produce enough of the chemicals that make you happy, or even content. The only way around that is medication, or feeding an addiction (which is never a good idea). We're blurring the line between the two, when clinical depression is the only one I'm talking about. Somebody who is just depressed because of things that have happened to them can "get their shit together" or find a hobby, get in a relationship, find a passion in life, etc. But (properly diagnosed) clinical depression is simply when the brain is having issues making serotonin.

And where exactly did you get this from?

Did you go into someone's brain and find that someone was serotonin deficient? Or are you just going to buy into what the corporate controlled medical community's word?

Eugh.

No, I guess no one can prove to you that serotonin reuptake levels decrease and result in depression. No one can prove that neurons or hormones or neurotransmitters exist. Therefore, biology is magic.

Is this what you're getting at?

Of course I can't prove any of this to you. This is because you're not a psychiatrist, a doctor, or anyone who knows the human brain well enough to grasp concepts such as these. You wouldn't understand the tests they conduct to better understand the human brain. The MRIs, the CAT scans, EETs, etc. They might as well be examining your thetan levels. You can just say that evolution/astrophysics/psychology is a huge lie, and you know what? It makes no fucking difference. People have been questioning the things they can't observe for years. The group "Flat Earth Society" comes to mind. But the fact remains that the people who believe in clinical depression are doctors and scientists who have been studying, examining, and operating on human brains for a large portion of their lives, and you are a person defending video gaming addiction on a video gaming forum.

But none of this will really convince you, would it? No amount of evidence I present will ever change your mind that clinical depression is a real problem. You survived when someone called you depressed, and this memory is so vivid in your mind that you think, "This must be how the whole world works!" and so 100 years worth of psychology and the study of neurotransmitters and mental disorders is a lie and doctors are money-grubbing rats. Okay. That's fine. You probably liken me to a mindless sheeple eagerly buying into whatever a guy with a PhD says. Because psychology isn't easily observable, so no amount of scientific changing is ever going to change your mind.

 

[Zithorio]

That was sort of aggressive... lol joined today, nearly a month after this thread.

 

[Odbarc]

A lot of things seem to lead to depression. I think Depression leads you to do a lot of random things you normally wouldn't if you weren't depressed to begin with. And you can't undo being depressed if you continue the depressing behavior.

I'm sick of reading bias studies.

 

[Nouw]

The only time I feel bad is when I'm losing. Just like when I got my ass kicked in TF2.

Could this study please clarify itself? Whenever I feel bad my mood gets uplifted by gaming 999/1000 times.

Not because of what I feel, because it doesn't look to be the brightest of the lot.

 

[Antari]

Honestly I wouldn't be so depressed if the game community wasn't ruled by two tyrants known as EA and Activision.

 

[Simon Pettersson]

A guy in Melbourne is having a similar study.
http://videogamestudies.tumblr.com/
And his asking for subjects for the study.