Lecture 3 Gaming 2024 PDF

Lecture 3 Gaming Tuesday, November 19, 2024 8:48 AM Learning goals: ✓ Understanding the relationship between gaming behavior and adolescent development ✓ Understanding of the reasons why adolescents play games ✓ Understanding of the fine line between fun and problematic gaming ✓ Understanding the r...

Lecture 3 Gaming Tuesday, November 19, 2024 8:48 AM Learning goals: ✓ Understanding the relationship between gaming behavior and adolescent development ✓ Understanding of the reasons why adolescents play games ✓ Understanding of the fine line between fun and problematic gaming ✓ Understanding the relation between gaming and youth (digital) culture First computer game Pong or tennis for two Particularly with the come of smartphones there was an increase in game playing. One of the largest game stores is recently bank rupt, you can buy everything online. Fortnite was more humoristic and not only shooting it was also popular among girls What is youth culture “A groups’ distinctive way of live, including it’s beliefs and values, it’s customs, and it’s art and technologies” Similaritites between gamers, act, dress, the norms. To some extent they share culture, but there are different aspects that to define youth culture within gaming. More in values and norms that we see that gaming is youth culture. Youth cuture: In south korea youth doesn't go out but go to pc bars. They don't go out but decide to play games to hang out with each other. They have a different world in where they develop and find friendships. They might not be exposed to other risk behaviors as drinking or going out. It is important to know what keeps them busy. Increase in gaming was seen from 2017, in primary education 10% of the boys played games more than 24 hours a week. 2021 this had increased to almost 20% Difference in boys and girls, boys play more and more problematic boys are overpresented in treatment centres for problematic gaming. Secondary education you see a similar increase, more girls playing games. Problematic gaming: having a few kind of symptoms that interfere with your daily life. Lose control, lose interest in hobby's, conflict friends and parent, signs of problematic gaming behavior. Similarities with other addictions. For a long time, gaming has been ignored, 2018 world health organization recognized gaming as a addiction. As many gaming addiction cares as alcohol. Gaming and cannabis use go hand in hand, gamers use cannabis. Depending on their primary diagnoses they are first treated for one thing Self determination theory, used to explain behavior of gaming More attention to the way it is intertwined with development of adolescents. But because of the increase in gaming behavior and social media use we know there is something going on we need to try to understand Gaming to satisfy basic psychological needs; ✓ Competence needs (“be good at something”) ✓ Autonomy needs (“in control”) ✓ Socialization needs (“connecting to others”) cutting away from parents and finding their own environment. Increase in engagement with peers and moving away from parents. Aroung 12-14 years there is a sharpp increase in gaming. The going to secondary schools, girls hang out with other girls, interact with social media. Boys tend to be slower, this sometimes results in hanging in their rooms and gaming when in your room. The parents are panicked and want to know what to do. Should I be worried as a parent. It is somewhat normal devleopment that they spend more time on their own and develop needs through online world. There are positive aspects to gaming. And identity formation, a lot of theories about this, adolescents go through a phase of exploring who they are through different activities. Sometimes they do this with playing games, going out to concerts or to an e-sport event. This to develop norms Competence needs: need to be good at something 20 years ago the games were quite difficult, games nowadays are more adjusted to the personal level of the gamer. These kinds of rewards are used to keep you involved in the game Increasing skills/meta-achievement, you get better and better, meta achievement: certain stepps you can take in the game or defeating an enemy, you achieve something bigger in a game. Become a famous e-sport player (future orientation), e-sporters earn money with gaming. This is attractive to adolescents, like football players. Belonging to the team (only accepted when you're good enough), what often happens that you play multiplayer. You need others to defeat the enemy or get to the next world. This depends on your skills if they want you in your group. The right avatar, with the right gear and skills you will be more popular. Some youngster play games more to get skills and be part of that group. Surpressing unpleasant symptoms (state of flow or hyperfocus, immersion) For people with troubles focussing, you can get flow when you are gaming (ADHD) and this can be very rewarding because you get in the immersive state. You can imagine that people with adhd have difficulties sitting still and concentrating, at some point this gives you the feeling of being incompetent. If you can focus on a game for a long time it can give you a feeling of competence. Suppressing unpleasant symptoms (sustained attention) If you have problematic gaming symptoms there is already an association between biological gaming and attention problems. Having attention problems increases your chance of biological gaming symptoms at T2 Being a male is another risk factor Similar findings, gaming addiction symptoms over time. Adolescent between 12-16 yo the higher the attention problems, the bigger the gaming addiction symptoms. Socialization needs: need to belong Covid helped increase gaming, because adolescents could meet up through gaming. Gaming saved social needs for youth in covid. Games have sports aspects Playing games to connect to others Strengthen already existing relationships, easier to meet up online  Status increasing / popularity, by playing games you can become part of a group. Fortnite dances, by showing these moves they expressed themselves and their preference. Some youth don't feel connected offline and get the enforcement online. But it does have the risk of promoting staying inside and not going out into real life Need to belong sometimes not fulfilled in real life therefore search in the virtual world. Exploring who you are and who you ant to be. Can help in search for identity, you can then apply this to your offlifne world, this needs to happen otherwise it is a reason for concern Different groupts of gamers Recreational Engaged Problematic Who is vulnerable? Boys: 3 groups Social competence refers to the amount of problems that are present Increase in social problems Girls: two groups There was a similar pattern in social problems in engaged players This suggests that having difficulties with connecting with others, making friends and staying friends could be a risk factor for playing games. For the engaged player this is okay, but for the problematic gamer this can become a problem. You need to look at other things like sleep and not knowing when to stop. Console in their room is a riks factor Bidirectional relationship Not only attention problems increase the risk of problematic gaming, combined with social competence problems this increases the risk for youth. Having poor attention and social problems can increase the risk of problematic gaming. Feelings of belonging Gamin gcan decerase the feeling of belonging, Only among the problematic adolescent gamer! Gaming can Decrease Feelings of social competence, spending a lot of time alone in their room, losing friends and feeling less connected to peers Satisfaction with life This is the most problematic, is it a way of coping with other problems. Why are they gaming? Difficulties to connect to others Games and online communities Over games Feelings of belonginess Discussion forums, tips and trics, and discussing the game. Meeting point where friendships are developed. This can help with identity formation. Like a connection to youtuber. In games Micro transactions, in game purchases, depending on what your friends do this influences your own likeliness to buy a lot in a game. If the friends get more skilled by buying more things you want to be similar in skills or avatar. Identity formation Online communities Construct and or extend identity, help developing social identity, what group do you want to be part of? Shared norms and values, what is allowed and what is not allowed, unwritten rules how you should act Peer influence (eg modeling microtransactions) Improving performance (providing tips, feedback etc), lokking at discussion forms and youtubes you will get better. Gaming and social relationships Gaming can support in Collaboration (mutual goals), develop the collaboration skills Social support, talking about your bad day online and getting support Social identity, Feelings of acceptance (by shared values/norms), when you don't get this need fulfilled in real life. You feel connected to others, share similar practices and help in connecting to others But also can amplify already existing social problems Autonomy needs; need to be in control Adolescents want to have their own say, become independent form teacher. They develop skills and the things they need to become independent young adults, use games to fulfil this need Autonomy needs; gaming and in control More difficult to be applied in game, some games tap into this control need. Building your own game: Like roblox where you can build your own game and others can build what you made. Being able to make your own storyline like in movies, fantasy games where the environment is peaceful. Where they have control in making their own storyline. Building your own avatar: this influences the gameplay and the way you connect with the character. But what about losing control? Game and rewards Rewards do something to our brain, game developers want to make adolescents play longer and make them more commited and spending money. One way of doing this are loot boxes that were introduced. Pavlov Skinner If you reward behavior you will make sure it happens again in the future. Positive and negative rewards are usefull. If you add something and make sure someone comes back angain and again in games. This is mind control Loot boxes fifa and fortnite Fortnite: they had gears, avatars and skills for sale but there was no mention of the chance of getting something. Now they have the percentage of the chance you get something when you buy a box. For young people not knowing the value of money and the long term effects of spending money on loot boxes Fifa: making the most popular players rare to get. Reward --> more play higher chance or by logging in more But you can also buy it, problem for impulsive people. They are placed in a risky environment through loot boxes. This is an unessicary risk for youngsters and precontitioning them to buy thing. Not all boxes are equally rewarding (random choice = gambling) Types of rewards in specific games Random rewards (finding a valuable sword), loot boxes, you don't know when you get them, they are just there or in the next level. Or you can buy them Contingencies rewards (log in bonus), when you log in each day, making you come back everyday and making you buy more (TEMU) Social rewards (teamplay / building guilds), extra skills or gears by teamplay, building a group or inviting others to play the game Meta-achievements (leaderboard scores), becoming the best at something Results: These factors are already known as risk factors for problematic gaming Attention/hyperactivity problems: contingencies reward Impulsivity: contingencies reward Social problems: social rewards Differences in game play Learning by gaming ○ Gamification: using games in all sorts of activities ○ Virtual reality, using it to teach or learn executive functions ○ Helping anxious people with breathing or a virtual environment that exposes you to fearful environments and you learn to expose yourself to it. ○ Guitar hero  ○ The fling: training behavioral control. Different environment you need to press on the green buttons and not press on the red to control behavior. Differences in game play The Fling: Training behavioral control Serious games: an example Experiment: increase behavioral control and decrease alcohol use Condition 1: game without training (placebo) Condition 2: traditional (long and boring) behavioral control training Condition 3: serious game training 185 students between 13-17 years Difference in behavioral control On both game training measures we saw a better performance after the gaming sesion. We saw this for all three gaming activities. The motivation to complete the training was higher in the game training than the other ones. Using a game environment can be more fun More development in designing serious games, only develop them when it had an added value. It has to fit the need of the target group.