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Troubling Perspectives on Computer Game Addiction

This paper discusses two conventions pertaining to the study of computer game addiction that are rarely discussed. Traditionally when addictions are assessed, it is not customary for the researcher to be concerned with whether or not the addiction causes harm; or in other words: whether the addiction adds more to the overall life quality than it subtracts. Similarly, it is not customary to ask the addict if they believe that the way that their addiction is measured makes sense to them (i.e. whether it has face validity). This makes sense in cases where individuals seek treatment for substance abuse or disordered gambling, where the detrimental effects are obvious. This paper will argue that for game addiction (and behavioral addictions in general) these conventions need to be abandoned. To argue its point this paper will trace the history of computer game addiction and thereby illustrate how criteria for gambling and substance use disorder were applied to video games without qualitative data on the existence of the resulting disorder. The argument of this paper is that research into the prevalence (i.e., percentage of a population that meet the defined criteria) of computer game addiction should not be satisfied with the types of validity that can be measured quantitatively, but should also be concerned about those that need to be qualitatively measured. External validity abounds, as more and more studies demonstrate the prevalence of video game addiction, but internal validity (whether a test measures what it is supposed to test) is assumed rather than demonstrated. Since game studies is arguably the academic discipline that concerns itself the most with understanding digital games, this would be an ideal place to look for inspiration into the kinds of qualitative methods that could support quantitative ones.