PAP: Scientific Reports recently published your team's research results concerning video game addiction. What exactly was the subject of your analysis?

Agnieszka Strojny, PhD, Institute of Applied Psychology, Jagiellonian University: We are interested in gaming disorder, or gaming addiction. In the general population, approximately 3% of people are at serious risk from this problem, and among young people, this percentage is higher, at 6-7%. We want to investigate the difference between healthy and unhealthy gaming.

PAP: How can you tell if gaming has become an addiction?

A.S.: Gaming disorder has been included in the ICD-11 classification as a behavioural addiction lasting at least 12 months. There are three diagnostic criteria. First: impaired control over gaming. For example, people lie about their involvement - they say they played for three hours, when in reality they spent five. Second: giving gaming an increasing priority. In order to play, they give up other important activities. And third: continuing to play despite perceiving negative consequences - loss of friends, poorer performance at school or at work. We look for behavioural indicators, specific behaviours that, for example, could be a red flag for a parent.

PAP: Is it not enough to just look at the clock and see if someone is spending too much time at a computer or console?

A.S.: No. Gaming time alone is not reliable. In the case of alcohol, a higher dose almost always means a higher risk of addiction. In gaming, this relationship is weak. This is because games fulfil many important psychological functions and can be valuable entertainment. They are not always addictive.

PAP: In Scientific Reports, you write about the phenomenon of rage quitting. What exactly is it?

A.S.: The first author of the publication, Natalia Michałkiewicz, while still a master's student, noticed situations when a player would start cursing, throwing objects, and would abruptly interrupt the game. In gambling, we talk about 'tilt' - the moment when cards are thrown or the table is overturned. We decided to investigate whether rage quitting could be a warning sign of addiction.

PAP: Let me give you an example of ancient rage quitting: when I was a few years old, I furiously bit my Soviet electronic game when I was losing. It had a lot of teeth marks on it.

A.S.: Young children can experience rage for any reason, for example, because their soup bowl was the wrong colour. We do not study them. We focus on teenagers. In our research, we wanted to determine whether rage quitting was simply a way to vent or perhaps a symptom accompanying a growing problem. This is especially true for adolescents, whose emotion regulation processes and control functions in the prefrontal cortex are still developing. In heated situations, such as failure or conflict in the game, they have difficulty controlling their reactions.

PAP: What did the research show? Should aggressively quitting a game really be a red flag?

A.S.: I would say it is a yellow flag. We observe that more rage episodes are accompanied by more symptoms of behavioural addiction.

The most important conclusion, however, is different: we showed that rage quitting is not 'quitting' in the strict sense of the word. We examined what happens to someone who quits the game in this way. It turns out that although the player physically steps away from the computer or console, their mind remains in the game world. Such individuals find it difficult to shift their attention to walking the dog or other responsibilities. This increases impulsivity and hinders functioning in other areas of life. If we are dealing with healthy gaming, after a session we engage in other activities, and thoughts about the game cease. Meanwhile, gamers who leave their desks and throw the controller away, remain  mentally stuck in the competition.

PAP: How should a parent react when they see their child rage quitting?

A.S.: First of all, it is important to understand that at this point, the child's nervous system has lost its balance. Rational conversation is impossible. Reprimanding or asking what happened will only make matters worse. It is like pulling a drowning person out of a pool and, instead of drying them, yelling at them. You need to let the child cool down first. Only then, without judgment, is it worth talking about what happened. If it was a one-time incident, so be it. However, if such episodes become increasingly frequent, it is best to consult a specialist. This could be a sign that the child has a problem with addiction, but also perhaps with impulse regulation, or is struggling with disorders like depression or ADHD, which often co-occur with gaming addiction.

PAP: In addition to rage quitting, have you also investigated the reasons why people start gaming. Which of these lead down a dangerous path?

A.S.: The most disturbing motivation is escapism - but it is not so much about escaping the world, but escaping from myself. If the world is difficult, but I feel competent in it, I will play a game to relax and return to it after a while. However, if I feel like something is wrong with me,  I have nowhere to go after I turn off the computer - I return to my unaccepted self. The second disturbing motivation is playing out of boredom, habit, stemming from a lack of meaning. It is playing just for 'something to happen', without a specific goal. In contrast, achievement-related motivations - the desire to level up or create something in the game - rarely cause problems.

PAP: So as long as a child talks about their successes in the game, we should not worry about screen time?

A.S.: Gaming can be treated as a replacement for the old days of building sandcastles or running around the playground with a stick. The problem begins when the driving force behind playing is emptiness, meaninglessness, or a lack of self-acceptance. Then, gaming, as a very powerful stimulus, it causes a person to stop thinking about their problems.

PAP: Do you have any hypotheses about the source of this emptiness in young people?

A.S.: We have created a reality in which young people have little room for autonomy; they make few decisions on their own. They are heavily controlled offline, but weakly so online. Games, on the other hand, are an environment where three essential needs are reinforced: autonomy, competence, and relationships. I can go there alone, make my own choices, feel like I am developing, and meet people - even if they're bots - and feel important. The gaming industry capitalizes on this perfectly: games are designed to satisfy these needs. Interestingly, scientific tools for studying the fulfilment of these needs - before they became widely available to researchers - were being purchased by gaming companies for a long time.

PAP: That is sad. Does this mean that young people fulfil their needs in games because they cannot do that in real life?

A.S.: Not entirely. Gaming addiction does not correlate highly with the game meeting my needs, but rather with the frustration of the needs within the game. A healthy individual should stop playing when they see that it does not improve their well-being. Meanwhile, with addiction, even though I do not feel good while playing the game at all, I continue playing because my emotional regulation and executive functions are failing.

PAP: What is the most important message from your work?

A.S.: Games are not bad. They serve many valuable functions. However, our goal is to identify where the 'red flags; appear, signalling that needs are not being met.

I would like parents to approach games with greater calm and curiosity. If we start a conversation with a child about games with prohibitions and distrust, we will build a barrier. Then we will not hear the answer to the question: why does my child play? Listen to young people, because only by understanding their motivations can we truly help the few percent of people for whom gaming truly becomes a problem.

Interview by Ludwika Tomala (PAP)

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