3m US gamers are addicted, says study

By Ellie Gibson Published 21 April, 2009

That's 8.5 per cent of kids, mathsfans.

The lights are on, but they're not home - might as well face it, 3 million Americans are addicted to games.

That's the verdict of a study by Douglas Gentile, a researcher at the Iowa State University, as reported by the Washington Post.

He found that 8.5 per cent of gamers aged 8 to 18 showed symptoms of addiction. Symptoms include "spending increasing amounts of time and money on video games to feel the same level of excitement" and "irritability or restlessness when play is scaled back".

Other symptoms are escaping problems through gaming, skipping chores or homework, lying about the length of gaming sessions, stealing games or money to play more, your heart sweats, your body shakes, another kiss is all it takes.

Gentile identified 11 symptoms in total, stamping a big fat "pathological" on anyone who reported experiencing six or more. These addicts, Gentile reported, performed worse in school and were twice as likely to report attention-deficit disorder.

He calculated that of the 45 million Americans aged 8 to 18, 88 per cent play games. Show us how it's done, Carol: that means more than 3 million children and teens are in deep.

"It's not that the games are bad, it's not that the games are addictive," said Gentile. "It's that some kids use them in a way that is out of balance and harms various other areas of their lives."

Gentile, by the way, is director of research at the National Institue on Media and the Family - the media monitoring group Jack Thompson claimed to have the support of, but didn't.

Are you addicted to games, readers? Is Oblivion all you crave? Or do you like to think you're immune to the stuff, whoa yeah?

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ArcMonkey #1 3 years ago

    No.

  • robson_wii #2 3 years ago

    Did Ellie don the tight black dress, slick back her hair and put on some bright red-lipstick for this article?

  • LazyDan #3 3 years ago

    Ban all games. Close down Blizzard, Microsoft, Nintendo and all branches of Sony and execute all their employees - purge this world of the scourge of gaming right this moment because if we follow current trends, gaming will start nuclear wars. Our kids will be starting nuclear wars. And they'll all be paedophiles. Nuclear paedophiles. All because of gaming.


    EDIT: Madeleine Diana Immigrants Jade Goody Credit Crunch
    Edited by 1 at 21/04/09 @ 09:21

  • stodgypudding #4 3 years ago

    my name is john and I'm addicted to games.

  • skillian #5 3 years ago

    My inability to keep my eyes open at work this morning tells me that yes, I am.

    Who else but a hopeless junkie would go to bed at 4am when they need to get up at 7:15?

  • ArcMonkey #6 3 years ago

    Lazydan you are showing irritability and restlessness. You're doomed!

    Besides, he said its not the games, its how people play them...if anything, a call for parents to wake up and do some parenting!

  • university_zippy #7 3 years ago

    And here was me thinking that this article was going to be about kids and Heroin

  • Jasugun #8 3 years ago

    >> skipping chores or homework, lying about the length of gaming sessions
    Yeah, right, that surely is an addiction symptom.... of alcoholism. This guy is mixing alcoholics who hide to drink and teens who lie to parents to have more fun than allowed...
    'Of course mom, i did all my homework and did not play three hours in a row!'.
    'Oh my gawd, my son is an addict!!'

  • GreatUncleBaal #9 3 years ago

    So the report starts by Gentile showing 8.5% of kids aged 8 to 18 show symptoms of addiction, then later says "it's not that the games are addictive". Eh?
    Closer to the truth I'd say they can't get enough, y'know they're gonna have to face it...

  • Korpers #10 3 years ago

    I had to choose between my girlfriend and Halo 3 when it first came out....

    .....she had to move out around my controllers, big telly, and perfectly gaming optimised front room.

    Shortly after I thought I may have a slight problem....shortly after that I got COD4 and thought...'fuck it...gaming might not make my tea and cuddle me at night, but it sure makes me feel all warm and gooey inside'...
    Edited by 1 at 21/04/09 @ 10:15

  • kendoji #11 3 years ago

    I really dislike the way the term 'addicted' is used in studies like this. It's hugely disempowering, and harkens to the outdated model of addiction as 'disease' i.e. that those afflicted are powerless victims. Telling an alcoholic that he has an incurable disease is much less empowering than saying 'dude you drink too much'. So why don't we just say 3m US gamers are probably gaming too much?

  • Azazel #12 3 years ago

    I'm addicted to love, but I can't get no satisfaction.

  • kipper #13 3 years ago

    Ellie's articles are always funny - fact.

    Robert Palmer's music videos were cooler than you could ever hope to be as a teenage boy of the 80's. - fact.

    Someday I will replace my cassettes with cds, maybe.

  • Doctor_What #14 3 years ago

    Working full time makes me irritable and display many of the other symptoms. Perhaps I should quit.

  • Skandalle #15 3 years ago

    Hes just listed my best traits

  • Bluetooth #16 3 years ago

    I just lurrrrvvve sex!

  • scouserfuller9 #17 3 years ago

    Was addicted to games in the N64 days but got a job, made mates and got myself out and about instead of sitting indoors repeatedly playing through games. Can on the odd occasion buy a game that has me on it for more than someone my age (25) normally would be. Zelda I often spend a lot of time playing until I've finnished but it's not as if that's released every month.
    Not surprised how many American's are addicted. All these speed runs I've seen them do on the net plus the fact they spend days outside a shop just to get a new game amazes me!

  • kangarootoo #18 3 years ago

    I wonder how many kids in the US are addicted to eating too many chips and being fat? And I wonder how many kids are addicted to television.

    We are all addicted to stuff in one sense or another. I am addicted to caffeine in so far as my body craves it at times, and responds noticeably when it gets it and when it is deprived of it. But its under control, I rarely drink more than two cups a day, and it affects my life not one bit.

    The definition of addiction refers specifically to a loss of control, i.e we fail to exert complete and total free will because the addiction influences out decisions. With that in mind it could even be said I am addicted to lieing in my comfy bed for a few more minutes when my alarm goes off every morning.


    EVERY study conclusion is only as reliable as the assumptions of the study allow it to be.

  • JahB #19 3 years ago

    I would wholehaertedly agree with all of you, be it not for one single game:

    World of Warcraft

    I"ve never played it myself, but I've seen what it does to people; i've had friends that were just casually into gaming, but after picking up WoW, they started cancelling parties, going out and other social activities with excuses like "I have a raid tonight" and spending double-digit hours a day playing this game. Nearly all of them gained quite some weight and it certainly had a detrimental effect on them, so there you go: video game addiction can be a real problem

  • MonsieurToni #20 3 years ago

    I guess that admitting the problem is the first step. Atleast that's what they say in all those movies.

  • Turrican #21 3 years ago

    There's no need to make a study of addictive gaming, just watch the Warcraft South Park Episode, that nails it spot on.

  • RedSparrows #22 3 years ago

    I think I'm mildly addicted. I can 'break' it quite easily (i.e. not play for several weeks), but I really enjoy going back.

    I think I'm also addicted to music, in that case. I 'use' it all the time!

  • Alphonz #23 3 years ago

    I play games to avoid revision

    does that mean i'm an addict?

    who cares any way?

    games are entertaining is that such a crime?

    thats enough questions for this post

  • Ryze #24 3 years ago

    If they were addicted to reading or football - would the same language be used in describing this, I wonder?

    If you read crap regularly, then you aren't exercising, socialising or learning anything. If you play football all the time, then this could be considered anti-social, and does nothing for your academic or family life.

    Such scaremongering nonsense.
    Edited by 1 at 24/04/09 @ 13:32