September 10, 2021 • 53 mins
In the span of just a few decades, video games have moved from a niche pursuit to the mainstream, growing into a multibillion dollar, continually-evolving industry. As technology also continues to involve, becoming increasing immersive -- and, according to some critics, invasive -- more and more critics are concerned video games may be built to be dangerously, purposely addictive.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. My name is Noel. Our pal Matt is
on adventures but will be returning soon. They call me Ben.
We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission
controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you. You are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Uh.
Some of our fellow conspiracy realists listen to this show
(00:48):
while playing a few of their favorite video games. And
if you happen to fall into this category, don't stop
because this this is gonna be a perfect episode for you.
You might learn some things about the game you're playing.
Uh No, you know, like billions of other people around
the world. Uh you Matt doc. Uh maybe Paul, we
(01:10):
haven't talked too much about it, and myself are are
fans of video games. You know what, what have you
been playing recently? Yeah? I would certainly consider myself like
a fair weather gamer. Like I don't really I kind
of have like a handful of games that I play
regularly that aren't like big long haul games, and then
maybe one or two a year that are like big
immersive games, and I oftentimes will get distracted and like
(01:33):
it takes me ages to fit to finish those games,
Like I still haven't finished Fallout four. I think that
game is like four years old at this point. But
I love playing like Smash Bros. And you know, um
Mario Kart and things like that, and just like you know,
for fun here and there. M h yeah, And and
that might be the similar pattern for many people. You know.
(01:54):
There are also people who say, I wouldn't really consider
myself a video gamer, but I love this one app
on my phone and I play that pretty much, you know,
whenever I have some idle time. There are other people
who might say, uh, you filthy casuals. I am a
ranked champion in StarCraft, you know, and this or StarCraft
(02:15):
to excuse me, and this, This idea for this episode
came about. It was a long time coming, but it
was most recently inspired by a strange news segment we
did a while back where we explored the Chinese government's
newest bands or not outright bands, but limits on gaming
in uh for for younger demographics, and what they did
(02:37):
essentially was they took rules that some people might have
grown up within their own in their own home, like
parents saying, hey, you can only play games for like
a few an hour or two after you've finished your
homework or it's the weekend. The Chinese government did this
on a national level. They made it a law, so
if you're under a certain age I believe you're under eighteen,
(02:58):
if you're a minor, you and only play video games,
in very online games in specific instances. And they portrayed
this as a response to a domestic crisis, which they
said was profound. They were implying that video games are
dangerous addiction with wide ranging consequences, and this prompted us
(03:19):
to ask, well, our video games actually addictive. It's interesting,
it's a very interesting question. We're going to get into
a lot of opinions about this because it's certainly something
that's a relatively new question. I believe the World Health
Organization only started to acknowledge this as a potential, you know,
mental health issue very recently. But as far as the
(03:40):
Chinese band, I didn't realize that China is considered the
world's largest video game market. In terms of users, in
terms of players, and they have been struggling or attempting
to kind of control this for a long time. I
didn't realize until we started looking into this that they
actually banned consoles for I think of teen years, um,
(04:01):
and that is what led to the explosion of the
mobile game phenomenon. So I think one of the companies
is called ten Cent that is considered one of the
largest gaming operations in the world. Um, huge in these
online you know phone games that are like things like
League of Legends is one similar I believe the one
they have is because something like Clan of Kings or something.
(04:23):
I'm not that's not my particular bag those games. But um,
it's literally was a reaction to consoles being essentially outlawed.
Um and it's a much lower barrier to entry for
playing those phone games. Yeah, and this is a natural
evolution of something that makes sense. But this is an
evolution there's also accelerated over time in a way that's
(04:45):
going to be uh pretty easy to track. Like you
can start at the beginning. Here are the facts video
games have literally changed the world. Historians generally agree that
the first thing we would call an act double video
game was invented way back in which might surprise some people.
(05:05):
Who was a physicist named WILLIAMS. Higgin, both of them,
who made a very very very bare bones version of
electronic tennis while he was working at a place called
the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Yeah, sort of as on a lark,
kind of with like sort of what would be considered
this emerging technology of computers um and computer programming. But
(05:27):
it became very very popular and folks you know, in
and around the lab would would come and show up
and play the game. Yeah. Yeah. He originally like he
didn't have this grand plan. He wasn't thinking this game,
which i'll call tennis for two is going to change
the world. He thought, you know, every October we have
(05:47):
an open house at Brookhaven and we have all these
people come to visit us. And Higgan, both of them,
said to himself, I think it's a snooze fest. I
want to show off what I'm doing with the instrumentation group.
And he's like he had the logic of a a
kid who disguides to build a volcano for Science Fair.
He's like, I want my exhibit the pop so I
(06:09):
need some interactive and it will also prove to people
that all our egghead research we're doing can have real
relevance to society. And so he, uh, he partnered up
with the technician and they actually they built uh what
is technically the world's first video game console, that's right, um.
And it was a pretty low tech you know, I
(06:32):
mean considering what we have today device that really foreshadowed
another researcher or another like huge force and gaming development
named Ralph Bear, who came out with something called Ralph
Bears brown Box UM in nineteen seven that ultimately went
on to become the Odyssey, which is the very first,
um even pre atari home video game console. Yeah. Yeah,
(06:56):
and the Odyssey did not do very well in the
market the browd. It was called the Odyssey when Magnavox
bought it from Bear. And that's this is the first,
like you said, the first home video game console. And
today it's regarded as a collector's item, right for any
student of video games. That's what happened. And there were
(07:17):
a couple of other little things just a few years
before Higginbottom and his technician Robert Vorak, And there was
a British professor named A. S. Douglas who made a
kind of tic tac toe as part of his dissertation
at Cambridge. But still, you could look at this stuff
and unless you were a very future minded person you
would think, all right, flash in the pan. Uh. If
(07:40):
you were somebody who thought that, however, you would be wrong.
Today video games are they've they've become mainstream, you know
what I mean. It doesn't sound weird for someone to
talk about a game that they like playing. And part
of that is because increasingly successive generations have grown up
with video games. You know, eighties kids all remember some
(08:03):
version of Super Mario, at least in the West. Oh yeah,
and if if you mean we're not gonna focus too
much on the history of video games today, but if
you wanted to, there's a really cool Netflix documentary called
high Score that I think we've all seen that that
covers a lot of this. And one of the very
early games to right around the same time that we're
talking about was called Space War. I just wanted to
bring it up because the Space War exclamation mark, and
(08:25):
that was developed at M I T, along with a
handful of other kind of low fi games that went
on to be the predecessor for things like Pong, and
you know, Space Invaders and that kind of side scrolling
the game that we think of today that became you know,
things like Mario Brothers and all of that, and so
we talked about video games today. What we're seeing is
(08:45):
this transformation. Something that was once often regarded as a
niche interest, like kind of on the same level of
I don't know, water polo or something, or an amusement
for children like hop scotch has blossomed. It is a
global fid and on. It's reaching nearly every aspect of
the world of entertainment. As of just for a snapshot,
(09:07):
the video game industry alone is worth an estimated one
hundred and fifty nine point three billion dollars. The number
is going to continue growing because there's somewhere around two
point six nine billion gamers and that's going to probably
be two point seven billion within the very near future. Yeah,
(09:30):
and it's a massive, massive industry that doesn't show any
signs of slowing down, especially given you know, the last
couple of years with the pandemic and folks being kind
of cooped up. I mean, it's uh, I've probably been
a banner handful of years for the gaming industry. Um,
but you know, most gamers, whether you're maybe folks like
us that are casual gamers of a particular app or
(09:52):
you know, maybe you play a handful of switch games
something like that, or if you're one of these e
sports folks that really goes super hardcore or and takes
it very seriously in high level competitions, you can actually
make a living, whether it be um streaming yourself playing
games on Twitch or actually winning big cash prizes in
these competitions. Um, the fact of the matter is it's
(10:14):
just another form of media that is ultimately entertainment, but
it can also incorporate education and of course at the
end of the day, it's supposed to ultimately be fun.
Mm hmm. And uh, this is this is something I
want to hit you know. It's it is important to
understand video gaming as exactly a new form of media.
(10:35):
I'd like to do a companion episode for this in
the future called the Future of Video Games, which is
not necessarily what you think it might be. Uh, But
either way, we know the ins and out of the
gaming industry, like any other industry, might have some skeletons
in their digital closet. But if you're like most people,
(10:56):
playing a video game, you don't feel directly impacted by
those things. You know, you're you want to get your
gold star, or you're after you're on the continual quest
for that blue shell, because that will make the difference
in the race. However, we do spend collectively a lot
of time playing these admittedly brilliant games. As a matter
of fact, this is a statistics surprise me. I don't
(11:19):
know if it will surprise anybody else. As of this year,
the average gamer is believed to spend about eight hours
and twenty seven minutes playing something each and every week.
So for a lot of people, that's like, okay, you know,
do you as long as it's not impact in your life.
For some critics, however, this raises concerns about problems on
(11:40):
the horizon. And when we say critics, we're not just
talking about parents who are mad at their kids xbox habit. Uh. Instead,
we're talking about people, psychologists, experts, medical professionals who believe
gaming could represent a new kind of danger. Well, and
not to mention, you know, entire governments, in the case
of China, governments that actually are able to enforce some
(12:04):
pretty draconian measures. And then as we've seen with the
history we're talking about at the top of the show,
have been doing that for for some time and are
just not the US is not because we are not
what you would consider a totalitarian government. I mean, there's
certainly we have our moments, but all in all, we
we are still a democracy, and we don't take particularly
kindly to being told we can and cannot do in
(12:26):
our free time. Um, even if it's about children, you know,
with it with the best intentions. So, I mean, in
the recent past, we've certainly seen in the United States
politicians raise concerns about violence in video games. Um, the
notion that perhaps it could desensitize children who are maybe
spending a little too much time playing Call of Duty
(12:46):
and you know, sniping people, and this notion that, uh,
it kind of removes the empathy quotient from the act
of killing. This is debatable, but it's certainly has. There's
been a lot of spilled over this and a lot
of you know, um discussions in the halls of government
around this as well. Yeah, that's the thing. So I
(13:09):
dug into this because it's a convenient boogeyman for politicians
to say, Hey, this new thing, this new fangled thing
is the downfall of insert civilization here. And if you're
a fan of video games, you can easily see how
this may not always be a good faith argument. It
(13:29):
can sound like just another tired iteration of other moral
panics like oh, heavy metal makes you crazy, where D
and D makes you worship satan? Uh. These are things
straight out of like Jack Chick comic strips. If anybody
wants a fun, trippy read later, the actual research, at
least the stuff I found says, shows that the situation
(13:52):
is not as cut and dry. Things like the American
Psychological Association will conduct met us studies, meaning they're studying
other studies that have been conducted, and what they found
is video games might be a contributing factor in a
rise in violent behavior. It may even may even be
(14:15):
a contributing factor in like immediate short term aggressive thoughts,
but that would happen on an individual level and then
totally one of many, many possible variables. So you might
play Call of Duty, you know, slam some monster energy
or in Matt's case, Dr Pepper's Eero sugar and then
(14:37):
say that might be a risk factor for you for
a little bit. You might feel kind of amped. But
playing that game doesn't automatically mean you're gonna say, okay,
it's time to knock over a Walmart, right, It's I think,
I mean, I think most people at this point in
the in the discussion you know that we've been having
for many, many years as a culture, would probably see
(14:58):
that side of it, where Okay, maybe there is a
a child who's experiencing other risk factors, whether it's you know,
in maybe mental health issues that are outside of video games,
or problems at home, or you know, just some undiagnosed
um psychological issues that could then be triggered or exacerbated
(15:18):
by excessive video game playing. Um that certainly makes sense,
but there are other factors that could you know, figure
into that as well, like violent movies or reading violent literature.
I mean, it's interesting that we never talk about violence
in books, you know. I mean, I know that we
have in the past, for sure, but it certainly doesn't
seem to be as big of a controversy as it
(15:40):
is with video games, because for some reason, books are
seen as more innocuous because you have to use your imagination,
it's not showing it all to you on a screen.
But I would argue that books could maybe even be
more dangerous and in terms of giving people ideas that
they then act on, because it really does get right
inside your head as opposed to giving you kind of
a fac simile of violence. Throughout human history since the
(16:05):
dawn of writing, books have been some of the most
dangerous technology the humans have ever invented. There's a reason
some folks are so fond of burning them. Uh, they've
at least been a danger to a status quo. But
you you make a good point here, Noel, and the
pearl clutching one always kills me about this is the
pearl clutching about violence in some form of media is
(16:26):
a tail as old as time. I would not be
surprised if there was like some outcry when Gregorian chants
supplanted old Rome chant and people were like, oh, these Gregorians,
it's the end of the world. Uh. The real danger here,
according to the critics, is not is not the old
(16:48):
dead horse of violence and media. Instead, critics are alleging
it's not that video games are violent, it's that they
are addictive and dangerously. So what are we talk think about.
We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor here's
(17:09):
where it gets crazy. So it was in that the
World Health Organization or in the w h O, officially
recognized something it is currently calling gaming disorder. And they
defied this condition in I don't know what I thought
was a pretty reasonable way. I thought it was. It
was a it was like a mad Lib definition of
(17:33):
addiction with gaming slotted in. Yeah, they describe it as
a condition quote characterized by impaired control over gaming. Um,
not in terms of the inability to use your controller,
but the inability of you to control your behavior, a
compulsion towards gaming to continue, with the quote increasing priority
given to gaming over other activities to the extent that
(17:56):
gaming takes precedence over other interests, and daily activity, and
continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.
So you your your partner broke up with you, you
lost your job, right and each of and your your
car got repossessed if you got a car, and each
(18:17):
of those things just sort of pushes you to spend
more time play playing a game. That would be a
loose definition of what they're talking about. And they're not
the first people to do. The first organization at least
to describe this. The American Psychological Association beat them to
the punch. They already cited something similar. They called it
Internet Gaming disorder and the d S M five, which
(18:39):
is like the collection of what it considers to be
conditions or disorders. And I think the specificity of Internet
gaming disorder is interesting that nuance. Well, we'll see why
in a second. Uh. But before anybody panics, before you go,
don't if you have kids, don't go grab your kids
(19:00):
video games letter we have fun because the A P
A and the W h O both note and they
take pains to note, the gaming as an addiction if
you look at it through this lens, likely only affects
a very small amount of gamers. The vast majority are
just enjoying a hobby. It's just they're kicking it with
(19:21):
some recreation, that's right. UM. It goes back to kind
of what we're talking about at the top, where ultimately
psychologists UM have figured out that these these these triggering
behaviors that could be caused by violent video games or
other media are likely only affecting a small percentage of
individuals rather than the culture at large UM, and those
(19:44):
individuals are likely suffering from other conditions to begin with
that are then being exacerbated or triggered by you know,
the other stimuli you know from from games or what
would have you. So it's a very similar situation. Um,
You're not instantly going to be someone who's has an
addictive personality for anything. Um. Some people can drink socially,
(20:06):
smoke socially, even partaken drugs socially, um and not ever
go full bore over the cliff of addiction. Yeah, just said. Look,
you know, if you're in a spoilers, but if you're
in a part of Super Mario where you jump on
Yoshi and betray him to jump a little bit further,
(20:27):
that doesn't mean you're gonna automatically say I should kill
every lizard. I should just ride this out. This is
my thing now, I am the lizard Army gedding. That's
that's preposterous to frese it in that manner, and unfortunately,
at times when convenient, some public figures have done just that.
(20:47):
So this is this is where we get to what changed.
So for a long time, the concerns about this were
relatively overblown. There wasn't the kind of technology in place
that would enable this to occur. On on a large scale.
It shouldn't be a surprise. We got to defend video
games and video gamers and the people who create these
(21:10):
should not be a surprise that companies and designers want
to make games compelling. After all, you're asking people to
give the most valuable currency in the modern day. They're
free time. So you wanted to feel like they're doing
something enjoyable. And it's tough to blame game creators. I
would say it's ridiculous to blame game creators for trying
(21:30):
to do a good job. That's kind of dumb, it is,
But but it's also, like you said, games have changed
the world, and games are continuing to change as technology advances.
So where it used to be you'd get the game
and the game was the game, now you know you're
going to get all of these micro releases that that
(21:52):
accompany the game, that that often goes on for months
and months and months of additional content, um, you know,
added bonus levels or you know, downloadable content DLC is
what they call it, of course. Um But with these
phone games and in general, the stuff from the phone
kind of made its way into console games. Those were
all based on their like free to play uh, and
(22:12):
then you get these little rewards um, whether for you know,
time spend or whatever it might be. And some of them,
you know, do cost money, and that's how these companies
make their money. But a lot of them are just
kind of little ways to give you an extra little
endorphin boost. And this is what you might call, I guess,
the freemium approach to gaming design, right then, yeah, it
(22:33):
is the freemium approach to gaming design. Mean, it is
free to play, but if you want to do well
in the game, then you are going to be spending
either a ton of time or you're going to be
spending real money, preferably a combination of both to make
some progress. And just for a perspective there, in the
(22:54):
world of mobile gaming, as of just a few years ago,
I think it was a very small proportion of gamers
in the mobile space, only about point one five bring
in fifty of the profits for those developers. They're called whales,
and you can see why. So a lot of things
in mobile gaming are our numbers. Game meant to get
(23:18):
a piece of the that one point five percent of
the game playing population's wallet. And so much stuff goes
into this, so much thought and time, the people who
are very well versed in psychology are increasingly going to
be game developers, uh, and they're going to be working
(23:39):
with behavioral psychologists in particular. The average person might be
kind of surprised to learn just how much thought goes
into designing games specifically defeat upon and exploit what we
know about human psychology. And that's why we're talking about
how video games and slot machines share these core common manalities.
(24:01):
It's weird. There was a great article I read. It
was older, but it's it's still very much it's still
very much relevant. By a guy who's working at Microsoft,
and he talks not in terms of making a fun game,
but in terms of mapping out what he calls patterns
of activity from a structural level. So he takes three things,
(24:23):
the amount of time you spend, your activity, what you're doing,
and your reward what you get for that. Uh. This
activity plus time equals reward and together this kind of
equation creates what he called a contingency. And the idea
admittedly owes a ton to B. F. Skinner. Uh. He
is the one who's often credited with discovering the power
(24:45):
of stimulus and reward and so if you're not a
big fan of video games, you might say, well, I mean,
what's the point. Sure, you make a game, and you know,
somebody typically has to spend X amount of hours doing
why amount of things before they get you know, the
magic sword of Blah baduppa or whatever. If we're still
doing we are okay, good forever. If you don't play games,
(25:09):
you might say, like you might have a conversation with
a friend or a loved one who was like, oh, man,
I finally got the sword of Bla ba duppa and
you're like, well, it's it's not a real sword. Well
it's a sword of the mind though, right, And I
mean to your mind, it is absolutely a real sword.
And these are the same kinds of things that we saw,
uh and never read about. But specifically in the Netflix
(25:31):
documentary The Social Dilemma that talks about the design of
social networks, um they and and phones. Even the interface
of a smartphone operates on the same principles. It's trying
to keep you engaged on that device or in that
network for as long as humanly possible. In order to
do that, it games a lot of these psychological systems
(25:53):
or these systems in your brain um that are stimuli
and reward. Oh yeah, it does. Yeah, it does, because
here's the thing. When you have dedicated times to something,
if you are a human being, your brain becomes convinced
that you have earned it, the same way that your
brain when you just make yourself laugh. Your brain can't
(26:15):
tell the difference between that and genuine laughter, at least
when you're doing it. That's why laughter therapy is such
a big thing, because it actually reward gives you a
sense of positive vibes. I guess that you can kind
of impose on yourself. I'm not not a psychological term,
but the idea is that if you make yourself laugh
or just choose to laugh uncontrollably, it has a positive
(26:36):
reward um effect on the brain, but not necessarily in
the same kind of more cracky kind of stimuli ways
that we're talking about with games and social networks. Not quite. Yeah. Likewise, saying,
the caveat I always add when I when I tell
people about that is you are probably very good at
sensing fake laughter into others, just not in yourself. So
(26:59):
don't don't go to I to be slick. Okay, unless
it's really worth it. But in the in the sense
of this in this context video games, because the human
brain will become convinced kind of like a type of
sunk cost fallacy. They'll say, well, we've spent twenty hours
getting this amazing sword or this armor or this gold
(27:20):
um gold shoulder pad or whatever. Sure, so your brain
says you've earned it, and therefore, because you have earned it,
it is worthwhile. And you still get those good vibes,
those endorphins. Uh, you like, getting a sword in in
the game for your brain feels equivalent to getting one
in real life. And it shouldn't be dismissed because, as
(27:42):
far as you know, if we're gonna believe in Descartes
and I think therefore I am, as far as your
internal thoughts and experiences, both swords are equally real and valid. Sure,
or there's other philosophers I believe Leibnitz. Maybe there's one,
and there's a whole school of them. But the idea
of what is perception, you know, is this all just
(28:03):
kind of like a simulation, not not simulation theory, but
the idea that the universe as we perceive it, or
are surroundings that we perceive it. Um, there's really not
much difference between the way our brain perceives it and
the way our brain perceives a simulation of it, because
as far as our brain is concerned, it's kind of
all the same, right. And so if we go back
to the work of BF. Skinner, and this is this
(28:26):
is going somewhere, this is worthwhile. So imagine a mouse.
This mouse is in a cage. This cage has a button.
Let's say, let's say, uh, the mouse is named Rupert,
and whenever Rupert pushes Rupert's little mouse button, he gets
a treat. There are so many, their innumerable variations on
this type of experiment. But in the case of video games,
(28:49):
from the designer's perspective, you are the mouse. If you
are the player, and the cage is the game, and
the lever is the controller your means of an action,
and instead of food, you receive whatever that particular game
defines is an award every time, you know, depending on
the combination of moves you make with your lever controller.
(29:12):
Unlike those poor poor rodents in the world of Skinner experiments,
you are able to leave the cage. You can turn
off the game, and so game creators spend a lot
of time trying to figure out how to make sure
you don't. Exactly that all changed once online gaming started, Oh,
in a huge way, because, as we said, um, it
(29:33):
became much more about how can we keep you in
this game environment for as long as possible? And the
answer that is, what if we designed a game that
never ended? You know, instead of just the game is
the game? Well, now the game just goes on forever,
and there's other people you're interacting with, and it's essentially
just this world that you've immersed yourself in that short
(29:55):
of bodily functions and needing to maybe eat and drink
and stuff, you don't really ever have to leave because
it's certainly checking the box for a lot of your
social interactions, and it's giving you that reward system. So
you just feel so good. Who would ever want to leave? Yeah? Exactly. Uh,
not to date anybody in the crowd, but some folks
listening today are old enough to remember when the process
(30:17):
of gaming was this. If you didn't go to an arcade.
If you're playing a game at home, you bought it.
It's probably a cartridge or maybe a CD or something,
and you played until you gave up. You got bored.
Or you won, and then sometimes you'd fall in love
with the game. You might play it again in a
second third or multiple times, but mostly when you reach
the end of a game, you were pretty much done
(30:37):
with it. There wasn't really an option to like just
keep walking around and when like you said no. With
m M orpgs in specific, massive multiplayer online role playing games, uh,
these games didn't have to end. And then there was
a tremendous profit opportunity. Now instead of having somebody pay
you know, their fifty bucks or whatever for a game,
(31:00):
they pay an ongoing subscription fee and then just like
a mobile gaming, they can pay more for various perks, items,
cosmetic improvements, and so to maximize someone's involvement, designers had
to do something different. They had to change the game
of making games. They had to make sure the game
didn't just continue forever, but that it also had the
(31:22):
patterns of reward, the contingency structured such that, uh, the
the game itself was compelling enough to keep people coming
back even when there wasn't necessarily new amazing stuff to do.
This is where we get the concept of grinding. You
just say if I you know, like um. For example,
in the Skyrim. If you want to level up your blacksmithing,
(31:44):
you just make the easiest blacksmithing item over and over
and over, which is a dagger, right. It's also a
way to just level up your character to like there
and there and like you, you figure out different tricks
and um you know, to to get the path of
least resistance to getting the most XP in the shortest
amount of time. But then you have people like you know,
there are certain games where to maybe folks like you
(32:05):
or I've been, we'd be pretty satisfied just completing the game,
like a Red Dead redemption. But within a game like that, um,
there are all of these little um like awards or
what do you call them, like medals done, achieve achievement exactly,
achievement unlocked. Uh, and they don't really give you anything
other than just the bragging rights of saying you one
(32:27):
d percent finished the game, um and and and and
then if you start adding in all of this downloadable
content and extra stuff there, it might be absolutely um
impossible to ever say completed the game. But some people's
brains are constantly seeking out that one completion, so that
part of their brain is totally being gamed and hijacked
(32:50):
by the gaming companies continuing to add more stuff to it,
and people eat it up. They don't look at it
as a negative. They look at it as a feature. Yeah,
I'm getting more already paid, now I'm getting more stuff.
And let's be honest, I think I can't be the
only one who's had this experience. You might have been
playing a game and you've got some sort of notification
that you've achieved a badge, you've gotten a trophy, or uh,
(33:13):
some sort of kudos for something you never imagined possible.
It's like, a, ha, you've got the bird watcher badge
because you have seen every bird in this game at
some point, even if you don't care. People love feeling accomplished,
so you're like, oh, yeah, I guess I have. And
they get really niche to really specific, like oh, you
killed one thousand, five hundred enemies using a long range
(33:38):
sniper weapon with the laser scope and there you know,
there are these for every type of weapon, for every environment,
for every type of enemy, for every type of piece
of armor. I mean, there's got to be a whole
division of these game companies that all they do is
come up with those types of achievements, such a fun
idea for a job, you know, and they've got funny
titles to like. You might get one that says, creepster,
(34:01):
you have touched two hundred elbows the same game, and
you're like, well, I didn't know. That's really more on
the controls than as on me. Jeez, guys. But but
this is true. This is um this is a strategy
that works. And again, this does not make the game
developers in any way evil. There are people trying to
(34:22):
do a good job at their job. And this doesn't
mean that the people playing these games are suckers. They're
enjoying what they're doing. And again we are. We are
in that ladder group. We enjoy playing these video games.
But there was opportunity created with the concept of the
never ending game. There was opportunity both for exacerbating possible
(34:46):
problems with addiction, and it was of course the opportunity
to get a little bit deeper into people's wallets. And
then another plot twist came about. It's one that you
and I talked about briefly off air, which is so
nineteen or so. Online gaming is the thing. There's some
people who only play games online, right, they're like, I
(35:07):
don't really like games, but I love World of Warcraft
or League of Legends or Fortnite. And then a pandemic hits, right,
it sure did, um, which I think is the ultimate
plot twists here um and again a very recent one
that we still haven't seen the other side of. Mean,
we're still in it. The coronavirus kept tons of people
(35:27):
at home. Um. The idea of like, you know, away
time from your gaming system became at least temporarily a
thing of the past. Right, the idea of go play outside,
go play with your friends, you know, go see people. Well,
all of a sudden, anyone who maybe was inching towards
being a bit of a gaming recluse almost had like
(35:47):
a pass, a free pass to just go all in. Um.
Because school went online, um, and and leisure really became
something that if your parents weren't being very active and
regulating the time spent on screens, he could easily fall
down that rabbit hole, especially considering that it was now
(36:08):
school was like one in these little boxes, and accountability
was a lot harder, Like I I have a kid
and uh. During the beginnings of the pandemic, when she
was in school. It was really hard to make sure
she was on task because I can't be there looking
over her shoulder every second. Um. And it was also
a very new thing for the teachers, so there was
(36:29):
a lot of new technology and software they were using,
and it was chaos. Uh. And you know, there's a
whole South Park episode about it where Cartman would just
literally put up a picture of himself and he would
just play video games or do whatever he wanted and
just pretend to be in school. So a lot of
any opportunistic kids that maybe tried to skirt their school responsibility,
this was like absolute, you know, fantasy land for them. Yeah.
(36:53):
I I haven't made it a secret. I have a
lot of teachers in my life. I'm immensely privileged to
say I'm friends with a lot of educators, and they
are some of the most important people in any civilization,
and they're often, unfortunately, some of the most put upon
people in any civilization. Uh. And this was enormously stressful
(37:17):
for everyone involved, the kids, the parents, the teachers, the educators.
And one thing a lot of people didn't acknowledge in
the beginning was if you're working from home, Yeah, it's
great to have a job, but you're also really taking
work into your house. You're turning your home into an office,
and you don't usually have kids in the office right
(37:41):
at your your job probably and uh, school and daycare
become unviable. People are looking for a way to keep
these kids entertained without you know, everybody having cabin fever
and biting each other's heads off. And that's when you
come to researchers like a psychologist from Maryland, Edwards Specter,
who says that this has shifted already. The rough demographic
(38:03):
of what he would see is people likely to have
gaming addiction or develop it. He said, one, you know,
it's always a small minority. But once, once upon a time,
pre pandemic, this demographic tended to be people of college age,
and now do largely, he argues, to the pandemic, this
demographic has shifted toward teenagers or even younger children. And
(38:26):
while this pandemic will pass, another one will definitely come. Sorry,
it's true, it does doesn't mean these kids are going
to be able to instantly unplug, you know what I
mean and go back to life as it was before.
I don't think anyone will. No, And again, like you said,
it shifted that age, um too, started to cause it
to skew much younger, I mean, And then this op
(38:47):
ed PC Root for the Washington Post, Spencer talks about
how it even has shifted to like infants, you know,
and I've seen it. Uh, it's no better babysitter than
the old iPad for a small child, with like shows
like Coco Melon and things that are you know, cute
and maybe a little bit educational in some small way,
but at the end of the day, totally sinister. But like,
(39:10):
you know, there's also games that are designed for very
very small children. And when you start really looking in
the psychology of it, you're introducing that kind of reward
system and that instant gratification of like, give me the
good feels while your brain is still developing. Um, that's
exactly kind of bad news, right, because it starts to
(39:30):
make it where like you're only good at something if
it instantly rewards you, And it starts to kind of
reward you for not putting in the time to actually
get good at a skill. Because I don't know, I'm
not meaning the soapbox here, but I've just I've definitely
seen it, and it's troubling. Um, it's troubling. It's also troubling.
(39:52):
I mean it's troubling from experiential level for many people.
I imagine it's also troubling in that there hasn't been
enough time to conduct rigorous science on these long term effects.
It's it's gonna take a long time, like decades for
people to know what was affected and to what degree.
But that's the lay of the lands. We're gonna pause
(40:14):
for word from our sponsor. I hope it's a video
game company. Will be right back to unpack what this
all means. We've returned in some Yes, there is a
kind of conspiracy afoot, Yes, Virginia, and there is a
conspiracy Santa clause here leveraging what we understand about human psychology.
(40:39):
Using the exact same knowledge so effectively leveraged in the
world of gambling and the world of advertising. Game developers
know what makes your reward system tick. They know how
to scratch you right behind the cognitive ears, and just
like Skinner with some mice, they can teach you to
do tricks for treats. Totally I wanted to earlier. Just
(41:00):
something that's really big in these types of games are uh,
what's called loot boxes where you get like a kind
of a blind box of like it's got stuff in it,
but you don't know what it is, and the monetary
value like in you know, in like in game currency
or whatever for one of the items could be really
high or it could be just some run of the mill,
(41:21):
you know, widgets that you get to maybe give you
one ups or something like that. But that um gamble
is something that affects your brain, like you really does
feel like you're gambling, uh, and that just adds to
the impulsivity of it all and then the need to
keep trying again so maybe you'll get the good loot
this time, you know. UM. So they are very aware
of what they're doing, and you know that extends to
(41:43):
even like things in the physical world. There's like blind
boxes where you can buy it for a set price
and maybe you get the special uh gilded pokemon or
whatever mystery funky. Yeah, this is something you're You're right.
Game developers know this and they are doing it, and
that that mystery is part of it. Because human beings
(42:06):
in um in this sort of scenario tend to think
a little bit less about all the times they wasted
money on something, whether a slot machine or a loop box,
and remember the times they hit it big and psychologists,
at least in the world of gaming developers have figured
out what the acceptable wind to loss ratio is that
(42:29):
will keep you going, that'll keep you hooked. Uh again,
this is the thing that gets me. It is not
necessarily evil, it's not inherently malevolent. I mean, I was
trying to think of a good analogy. Think of it
this way, fellow conspiracy reels. If game developers were making
shoes instead of games, wouldn't they want the shoes to
(42:50):
be comfortable. If you're making shoes, don't you want to
make the kind of shoes that people like to wear
and walk around in. That's that's kind of the same thing.
Won a game that people like to live in and
like to spend time with. And this is this is
all again. This is not to say that every video
(43:10):
game manufacturer, every mobile game manufacturers intentionally trying to get
people addicted, but it does set the stage for addiction
to occur. And one big part of this problem, the
reason that's been ignored for a while, is that there
are a lot of misconceptions about addiction, and I appreciated
no when you pointed out just a couple of those.
(43:32):
But first, I feel like we shouldn't even have to
say this, But just to be very clear, addiction is
in no way a moral failing. It is the result
of many different factors, and it also doesn't necessarily need
a physical component. It doesn't even need a physical dependence, right. No,
I mean honestly, in many cases, the psychological dependence can
(43:54):
be more powerful than the physical dependence, and the physical
dependence is just kind of a byproduct of that. I
think many would argue that marijuana, for example, is not
physically addictive. If you smoke marijuana, then you stop. You're
not gonna like get the shakes or something or like
have some sort of you know, like nausea or like withdrawals, Right,
But Uh, it is very psychologically addictive. And if people
(44:16):
are convinced that they are better or they're happier when
they're in this state, then that psychological component is hugely powerful. Uh.
And the same goes with any kind of addiction, including games. UM.
It's interesting Robert West who's the editor in chief of
the scientific journal Addiction UM. He says that it's really
more about what you do how you act. You know,
(44:39):
once you are quote unquote addicted or what. Rather, it's
a spectrum, and more severe addictions are accompanied by self
damaging behavior or behavior that can really cause problems in
people's social lives and family lives and uh and work lives.
Something that can lead to negative outcomes is the way
(45:00):
put it. And this guy is the editor in chief
of the scientific journal Addiction, so he is he's such
an expense. Yeah, so yeah, you know, he knows what
he's talking about. But this, this leads us to something else.
You know, when when we're talking about behavior that's something
that people get addicted to. Ritual is can be addictive
(45:24):
to folks because it is predictable, it is comforting, it
reminds you of how you felt the last time you
engaged in it. And the newest definitions of gaming disorder
or Internet gaming disorder, whichever term you prefer, seemed to
fit well within that understanding. There's not a silver bullet
one size fits all description, Like you cannot automatically say
(45:45):
somebody is addicted to gaming or a game just because
they like it. They might play tons of games, they
might spend tons of time on a single game, and
I say, this is a guy who did get to
a percent completion on Skyrim. It took forever. I'm never
going to do that again with a game. But that
same person may not be addicted because it isn't having
a negative consequence on their life. It's just something they
(46:07):
really enjoyed doing. And that's where we have to ask
ourselves that question at the beginning, Is this to some
degree of moral panic? The answer seems honestly in some
cases yes, Like the best research finds that maybe one
to three percent of gamers and this is the best
current research, um one to three percent of gamers are
(46:30):
quote at risk for addiction. And these are real people,
and this can be a real problem. But that doesn't
mean that everyone who got super into Minecraft during the
RNA is suddenly hugged up on what a couple of
reporters have even described as digital heroin, you know. And
then you can feel attacked. There there are people who
are like I my, if I have one vice, it's
(46:53):
a video game. I don't drink, I don't smoke. You know,
I'm out, I'm not out wilding. I'm I'm at home
working on you know, my newest play through g T
a uh that you can feel like you're being intact
as though your hobby is being stigmatized. But here's what
the who is really saying. I keep put calling who,
(47:14):
but who is really saying this is they're listing this
and acknowledging it as just a way of defining, understanding
the problems so that they can take better steps and
understanding how to address it. So don't worry. Big government's
nott coming for your PS four. Not just yet totally,
I mean at least big government here, um and in China,
(47:35):
you know they're they're certainly. We've read a few op
eds from psychologists that we've one of which we sighted
the Edward Specter one for the Washington Post that kind
of criticizes the approach that the Chinese government is taking. Um,
they are treating it, in the opinion of some of
these researchers, as a moral panic. And I love the
way Spector puts it where he makes the point it's
(47:56):
similar to the case with any prohibition or outright um,
you know, outlawing or banning of a thing that people
like to do. Is uh. You know, when you tell
someone they can't do something, they're just gonna spend twice
as much energy trying to figure out how to do
it anyway. UM. So with kids, for example, you know,
we've we've done ads for these like VPNs you know,
(48:17):
um or are huge where you can trick UH systems
that would maybe be designed to cut you off after
a certain amount of playtime. UM you can just reroute
it and make it seem like you're in a different
country that is in subject to the same you know,
UM conditions, or use a parent or grandparent or older
brothers account. UM. And you know this company ten Cent
(48:39):
that we talked about, the online gaming company that's massive
out of China, they're working on technology that uses facial
recognition to really take this to the next kind of surveillance,
nanny state kind of place. But again, um Spector argues
that it's more about media UM awareness and kind of
having this conversation and figuring out how to kind of
(49:00):
just like limit yourself and then have a more of
like a healthy balanced diet of media, rather than you know,
outright banning kids from playing these games because they're they're smart.
Kids are smart and they're just gonna figure out how
to get around it, or they'll just watch other people
play on YouTube, Like, how do you are you gonna
also filter Twitch streams so that kids can't watch other
(49:22):
people play. That's still triggers similar um endorphin responses, even
if you're not the one pressing the button, and that's
why those are so popular. Yeah, so all good points,
Like I'm saying, no big government is coming for your
PS four just yet, But if they were coming for
your PS five, I assure you it's only because they
couldn't get their hands on one themselves. That's still incredibly ridiculous.
(49:44):
But just as real as the micro trip shortage is.
The problem looming on the horizon is itself real, and
there's not an effective way to legislate it on a
large scale, At least in the US. It would be
virtually impossible because what would you be doing at that point.
You would either be restricting people's personal freedoms or you
(50:04):
would be what making some sort of law that says,
if you're a game developer, you can't make your game
entertaining or compelling in a certain way. That's a lot
like saying, hey, shoemakers the world, these shoes are too comfortable,
start making them kind of crappy. You know, for the
greater good exactly, just like have them come with like
pebbles in the bottom of them that you can't take out,
(50:26):
you know, or a thumbtack or something. Um, it's true.
And and you know, as I said, even in China,
the technology isn't quite all the way there for them
to really do this and the way they're wanting to
do it, and you're they're going to need the assistance
of these game developers. Um. And there's even calls in
the States for game developers to maybe start helping out
(50:48):
with some of these problems a little bit. Make it
easier for parents to you know, at their own discretion,
limit screen time, make it a little harder for kids
to get around that stuff. But the legislation, of course,
as it always does, inevitably lags behind technology. So it
is ultimately up to the developers to kind of spearhead
(51:08):
this stuff. And uh, this is the same thing that's
happening in the world of gambling and in the world
of advertisement. With this in mind, we do hope that
you check out our future episode on the future of
video games, which will definitely have to have Matt Frederick
in four. And the last thing we want to end
(51:30):
on whenever we do an episode touching on topics like addiction,
is this If you are struggling or someone you care
about is struggling with addiction of any sort, there is
help out there. You are not alone. It might sound
corny when people say it, but it only sounds corny
because it is true. If you struggle with addiction, UH,
(51:50):
if you you know, let's be honest, rates of certain
vices and problems have skyrocketed during the RNA. So if
you find yourself affected by this, don't as tape. Please
reach out to any of the many helplines and resources
that are available for you and for free. You are
worth it. I always like to recommend the Substance Abuse
(52:11):
and Mental Health Services Administration here in the US SAMSA UH.
Their national help line twenty four hours day, seven days
a week is one eight hundred six six two four
three five seven. That's one six six to help. H
g LP definitely a great resource if you're finding yourself
in a situation where you do feel alone and you
(52:32):
need someone to talk to UM. But let us know,
is this something that you struggled with UM during the
pandemic or otherwise? Is this something that you even think
is an issue. You can reach us in all of
the usual Internet places of note, that's right. You can
find us in places like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, uh, and
if you say, you know, I'm more of a phone person,
(52:52):
I would much rather prefer just to leave a message.
We've got you covered there too. We have a real
life phone number. That's right, it's one eighth three s
t d W y t K. You've got three minutes
to leave your voicemail and let us know what to
call you, give yourself a killer nickname, or just let
us know what you're comfortable with. We can also go
with anonymous. And if you're cool with us using your
(53:13):
message on air, and you may hear yourself in one
of our weekly listener mail episodes. And if that's not
your bag any of those things, you can also contact
us somewhat old fashioned way. You can send us a
good old email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com.
(53:47):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. My name is Noel. Our pal Matt is
on adventures but will be returning soon. They call me Ben.
We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission
controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you. You are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Uh.
Some of our fellow conspiracy realists listen to this show
(00:48):
while playing a few of their favorite video games. And
if you happen to fall into this category, don't stop
because this this is gonna be a perfect episode for you.
You might learn some things about the game you're playing.
Uh No, you know, like billions of other people around
the world. Uh you Matt doc. Uh maybe Paul, we
(01:10):
haven't talked too much about it, and myself are are
fans of video games. You know what, what have you
been playing recently? Yeah? I would certainly consider myself like
a fair weather gamer. Like I don't really I kind
of have like a handful of games that I play
regularly that aren't like big long haul games, and then
maybe one or two a year that are like big
immersive games, and I oftentimes will get distracted and like
(01:33):
it takes me ages to fit to finish those games,
Like I still haven't finished Fallout four. I think that
game is like four years old at this point. But
I love playing like Smash Bros. And you know, um
Mario Kart and things like that, and just like you know,
for fun here and there. M h yeah, And and
that might be the similar pattern for many people. You know.
(01:54):
There are also people who say, I wouldn't really consider
myself a video gamer, but I love this one app
on my phone and I play that pretty much, you know,
whenever I have some idle time. There are other people
who might say, uh, you filthy casuals. I am a
ranked champion in StarCraft, you know, and this or StarCraft
(02:15):
to excuse me, and this, This idea for this episode
came about. It was a long time coming, but it
was most recently inspired by a strange news segment we
did a while back where we explored the Chinese government's
newest bands or not outright bands, but limits on gaming
in uh for for younger demographics, and what they did
(02:37):
essentially was they took rules that some people might have
grown up within their own in their own home, like
parents saying, hey, you can only play games for like
a few an hour or two after you've finished your
homework or it's the weekend. The Chinese government did this
on a national level. They made it a law, so
if you're under a certain age I believe you're under eighteen,
(02:58):
if you're a minor, you and only play video games,
in very online games in specific instances. And they portrayed
this as a response to a domestic crisis, which they
said was profound. They were implying that video games are
dangerous addiction with wide ranging consequences, and this prompted us
(03:19):
to ask, well, our video games actually addictive. It's interesting,
it's a very interesting question. We're going to get into
a lot of opinions about this because it's certainly something
that's a relatively new question. I believe the World Health
Organization only started to acknowledge this as a potential, you know,
mental health issue very recently. But as far as the
(03:40):
Chinese band, I didn't realize that China is considered the
world's largest video game market. In terms of users, in
terms of players, and they have been struggling or attempting
to kind of control this for a long time. I
didn't realize until we started looking into this that they
actually banned consoles for I think of teen years, um,
(04:01):
and that is what led to the explosion of the
mobile game phenomenon. So I think one of the companies
is called ten Cent that is considered one of the
largest gaming operations in the world. Um, huge in these
online you know phone games that are like things like
League of Legends is one similar I believe the one
they have is because something like Clan of Kings or something.
(04:23):
I'm not that's not my particular bag those games. But um,
it's literally was a reaction to consoles being essentially outlawed.
Um and it's a much lower barrier to entry for
playing those phone games. Yeah, and this is a natural
evolution of something that makes sense. But this is an
evolution there's also accelerated over time in a way that's
(04:45):
going to be uh pretty easy to track. Like you
can start at the beginning. Here are the facts video
games have literally changed the world. Historians generally agree that
the first thing we would call an act double video
game was invented way back in which might surprise some people.
(05:05):
Who was a physicist named WILLIAMS. Higgin, both of them,
who made a very very very bare bones version of
electronic tennis while he was working at a place called
the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Yeah, sort of as on a lark,
kind of with like sort of what would be considered
this emerging technology of computers um and computer programming. But
(05:27):
it became very very popular and folks you know, in
and around the lab would would come and show up
and play the game. Yeah. Yeah. He originally like he
didn't have this grand plan. He wasn't thinking this game,
which i'll call tennis for two is going to change
the world. He thought, you know, every October we have
(05:47):
an open house at Brookhaven and we have all these
people come to visit us. And Higgan, both of them,
said to himself, I think it's a snooze fest. I
want to show off what I'm doing with the instrumentation group.
And he's like he had the logic of a a
kid who disguides to build a volcano for Science Fair.
He's like, I want my exhibit the pop so I
(06:09):
need some interactive and it will also prove to people
that all our egghead research we're doing can have real
relevance to society. And so he, uh, he partnered up
with the technician and they actually they built uh what
is technically the world's first video game console, that's right, um.
And it was a pretty low tech you know, I
(06:32):
mean considering what we have today device that really foreshadowed
another researcher or another like huge force and gaming development
named Ralph Bear, who came out with something called Ralph
Bears brown Box UM in nineteen seven that ultimately went
on to become the Odyssey, which is the very first,
um even pre atari home video game console. Yeah. Yeah,
(06:56):
and the Odyssey did not do very well in the
market the browd. It was called the Odyssey when Magnavox
bought it from Bear. And that's this is the first,
like you said, the first home video game console. And
today it's regarded as a collector's item, right for any
student of video games. That's what happened. And there were
(07:17):
a couple of other little things just a few years
before Higginbottom and his technician Robert Vorak, And there was
a British professor named A. S. Douglas who made a
kind of tic tac toe as part of his dissertation
at Cambridge. But still, you could look at this stuff
and unless you were a very future minded person you
would think, all right, flash in the pan. Uh. If
(07:40):
you were somebody who thought that, however, you would be wrong.
Today video games are they've they've become mainstream, you know
what I mean. It doesn't sound weird for someone to
talk about a game that they like playing. And part
of that is because increasingly successive generations have grown up
with video games. You know, eighties kids all remember some
(08:03):
version of Super Mario, at least in the West. Oh yeah,
and if if you mean we're not gonna focus too
much on the history of video games today, but if
you wanted to, there's a really cool Netflix documentary called
high Score that I think we've all seen that that
covers a lot of this. And one of the very
early games to right around the same time that we're
talking about was called Space War. I just wanted to
bring it up because the Space War exclamation mark, and
(08:25):
that was developed at M I T, along with a
handful of other kind of low fi games that went
on to be the predecessor for things like Pong, and
you know, Space Invaders and that kind of side scrolling
the game that we think of today that became you know,
things like Mario Brothers and all of that, and so
we talked about video games today. What we're seeing is
(08:45):
this transformation. Something that was once often regarded as a
niche interest, like kind of on the same level of
I don't know, water polo or something, or an amusement
for children like hop scotch has blossomed. It is a
global fid and on. It's reaching nearly every aspect of
the world of entertainment. As of just for a snapshot,
(09:07):
the video game industry alone is worth an estimated one
hundred and fifty nine point three billion dollars. The number
is going to continue growing because there's somewhere around two
point six nine billion gamers and that's going to probably
be two point seven billion within the very near future. Yeah,
(09:30):
and it's a massive, massive industry that doesn't show any
signs of slowing down, especially given you know, the last
couple of years with the pandemic and folks being kind
of cooped up. I mean, it's uh, I've probably been
a banner handful of years for the gaming industry. Um,
but you know, most gamers, whether you're maybe folks like
us that are casual gamers of a particular app or
(09:52):
you know, maybe you play a handful of switch games
something like that, or if you're one of these e
sports folks that really goes super hardcore or and takes
it very seriously in high level competitions, you can actually
make a living, whether it be um streaming yourself playing
games on Twitch or actually winning big cash prizes in
these competitions. Um, the fact of the matter is it's
(10:14):
just another form of media that is ultimately entertainment, but
it can also incorporate education and of course at the
end of the day, it's supposed to ultimately be fun.
Mm hmm. And uh, this is this is something I
want to hit you know. It's it is important to
understand video gaming as exactly a new form of media.
(10:35):
I'd like to do a companion episode for this in
the future called the Future of Video Games, which is
not necessarily what you think it might be. Uh, But
either way, we know the ins and out of the
gaming industry, like any other industry, might have some skeletons
in their digital closet. But if you're like most people,
(10:56):
playing a video game, you don't feel directly impacted by
those things. You know, you're you want to get your
gold star, or you're after you're on the continual quest
for that blue shell, because that will make the difference
in the race. However, we do spend collectively a lot
of time playing these admittedly brilliant games. As a matter
of fact, this is a statistics surprise me. I don't
(11:19):
know if it will surprise anybody else. As of this year,
the average gamer is believed to spend about eight hours
and twenty seven minutes playing something each and every week.
So for a lot of people, that's like, okay, you know,
do you as long as it's not impact in your life.
For some critics, however, this raises concerns about problems on
(11:40):
the horizon. And when we say critics, we're not just
talking about parents who are mad at their kids xbox habit. Uh. Instead,
we're talking about people, psychologists, experts, medical professionals who believe
gaming could represent a new kind of danger. Well, and
not to mention, you know, entire governments, in the case
of China, governments that actually are able to enforce some
(12:04):
pretty draconian measures. And then as we've seen with the
history we're talking about at the top of the show,
have been doing that for for some time and are
just not the US is not because we are not
what you would consider a totalitarian government. I mean, there's
certainly we have our moments, but all in all, we
we are still a democracy, and we don't take particularly
kindly to being told we can and cannot do in
(12:26):
our free time. Um, even if it's about children, you know,
with it with the best intentions. So, I mean, in
the recent past, we've certainly seen in the United States
politicians raise concerns about violence in video games. Um, the
notion that perhaps it could desensitize children who are maybe
spending a little too much time playing Call of Duty
(12:46):
and you know, sniping people, and this notion that, uh,
it kind of removes the empathy quotient from the act
of killing. This is debatable, but it's certainly has. There's
been a lot of spilled over this and a lot
of you know, um discussions in the halls of government
around this as well. Yeah, that's the thing. So I
(13:09):
dug into this because it's a convenient boogeyman for politicians
to say, Hey, this new thing, this new fangled thing
is the downfall of insert civilization here. And if you're
a fan of video games, you can easily see how
this may not always be a good faith argument. It
(13:29):
can sound like just another tired iteration of other moral
panics like oh, heavy metal makes you crazy, where D
and D makes you worship satan? Uh. These are things
straight out of like Jack Chick comic strips. If anybody
wants a fun, trippy read later, the actual research, at
least the stuff I found says, shows that the situation
(13:52):
is not as cut and dry. Things like the American
Psychological Association will conduct met us studies, meaning they're studying
other studies that have been conducted, and what they found
is video games might be a contributing factor in a
rise in violent behavior. It may even may even be
(14:15):
a contributing factor in like immediate short term aggressive thoughts,
but that would happen on an individual level and then
totally one of many, many possible variables. So you might
play Call of Duty, you know, slam some monster energy
or in Matt's case, Dr Pepper's Eero sugar and then
(14:37):
say that might be a risk factor for you for
a little bit. You might feel kind of amped. But
playing that game doesn't automatically mean you're gonna say, okay,
it's time to knock over a Walmart, right, It's I think,
I mean, I think most people at this point in
the in the discussion you know that we've been having
for many, many years as a culture, would probably see
(14:58):
that side of it, where Okay, maybe there is a
a child who's experiencing other risk factors, whether it's you know,
in maybe mental health issues that are outside of video games,
or problems at home, or you know, just some undiagnosed
um psychological issues that could then be triggered or exacerbated
(15:18):
by excessive video game playing. Um that certainly makes sense,
but there are other factors that could you know, figure
into that as well, like violent movies or reading violent literature.
I mean, it's interesting that we never talk about violence
in books, you know. I mean, I know that we
have in the past, for sure, but it certainly doesn't
seem to be as big of a controversy as it
(15:40):
is with video games, because for some reason, books are
seen as more innocuous because you have to use your imagination,
it's not showing it all to you on a screen.
But I would argue that books could maybe even be
more dangerous and in terms of giving people ideas that
they then act on, because it really does get right
inside your head as opposed to giving you kind of
a fac simile of violence. Throughout human history since the
(16:05):
dawn of writing, books have been some of the most
dangerous technology the humans have ever invented. There's a reason
some folks are so fond of burning them. Uh, they've
at least been a danger to a status quo. But
you you make a good point here, Noel, and the
pearl clutching one always kills me about this is the
pearl clutching about violence in some form of media is
(16:26):
a tail as old as time. I would not be
surprised if there was like some outcry when Gregorian chants
supplanted old Rome chant and people were like, oh, these Gregorians,
it's the end of the world. Uh. The real danger here,
according to the critics, is not is not the old
(16:48):
dead horse of violence and media. Instead, critics are alleging
it's not that video games are violent, it's that they
are addictive and dangerously. So what are we talk think about.
We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor here's
(17:09):
where it gets crazy. So it was in that the
World Health Organization or in the w h O, officially
recognized something it is currently calling gaming disorder. And they
defied this condition in I don't know what I thought
was a pretty reasonable way. I thought it was. It
was a it was like a mad Lib definition of
(17:33):
addiction with gaming slotted in. Yeah, they describe it as
a condition quote characterized by impaired control over gaming. Um,
not in terms of the inability to use your controller,
but the inability of you to control your behavior, a
compulsion towards gaming to continue, with the quote increasing priority
given to gaming over other activities to the extent that
(17:56):
gaming takes precedence over other interests, and daily activity, and
continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.
So you your your partner broke up with you, you
lost your job, right and each of and your your
car got repossessed if you got a car, and each
(18:17):
of those things just sort of pushes you to spend
more time play playing a game. That would be a
loose definition of what they're talking about. And they're not
the first people to do. The first organization at least
to describe this. The American Psychological Association beat them to
the punch. They already cited something similar. They called it
Internet Gaming disorder and the d S M five, which
(18:39):
is like the collection of what it considers to be
conditions or disorders. And I think the specificity of Internet
gaming disorder is interesting that nuance. Well, we'll see why
in a second. Uh. But before anybody panics, before you go,
don't if you have kids, don't go grab your kids
(19:00):
video games letter we have fun because the A P
A and the W h O both note and they
take pains to note, the gaming as an addiction if
you look at it through this lens, likely only affects
a very small amount of gamers. The vast majority are
just enjoying a hobby. It's just they're kicking it with
(19:21):
some recreation, that's right. UM. It goes back to kind
of what we're talking about at the top, where ultimately
psychologists UM have figured out that these these these triggering
behaviors that could be caused by violent video games or
other media are likely only affecting a small percentage of
individuals rather than the culture at large UM, and those
(19:44):
individuals are likely suffering from other conditions to begin with
that are then being exacerbated or triggered by you know,
the other stimuli you know from from games or what
would have you. So it's a very similar situation. Um,
You're not instantly going to be someone who's has an
addictive personality for anything. Um. Some people can drink socially,
(20:06):
smoke socially, even partaken drugs socially, um and not ever
go full bore over the cliff of addiction. Yeah, just said. Look,
you know, if you're in a spoilers, but if you're
in a part of Super Mario where you jump on
Yoshi and betray him to jump a little bit further,
(20:27):
that doesn't mean you're gonna automatically say I should kill
every lizard. I should just ride this out. This is
my thing now, I am the lizard Army gedding. That's
that's preposterous to frese it in that manner, and unfortunately,
at times when convenient, some public figures have done just that.
(20:47):
So this is this is where we get to what changed.
So for a long time, the concerns about this were
relatively overblown. There wasn't the kind of technology in place
that would enable this to occur. On on a large scale.
It shouldn't be a surprise. We got to defend video
games and video gamers and the people who create these
(21:10):
should not be a surprise that companies and designers want
to make games compelling. After all, you're asking people to
give the most valuable currency in the modern day. They're
free time. So you wanted to feel like they're doing
something enjoyable. And it's tough to blame game creators. I
would say it's ridiculous to blame game creators for trying
(21:30):
to do a good job. That's kind of dumb, it is,
But but it's also, like you said, games have changed
the world, and games are continuing to change as technology advances.
So where it used to be you'd get the game
and the game was the game, now you know you're
going to get all of these micro releases that that
(21:52):
accompany the game, that that often goes on for months
and months and months of additional content, um, you know,
added bonus levels or you know, downloadable content DLC is
what they call it, of course. Um But with these
phone games and in general, the stuff from the phone
kind of made its way into console games. Those were
all based on their like free to play uh, and
(22:12):
then you get these little rewards um, whether for you know,
time spend or whatever it might be. And some of them,
you know, do cost money, and that's how these companies
make their money. But a lot of them are just
kind of little ways to give you an extra little
endorphin boost. And this is what you might call, I guess,
the freemium approach to gaming design, right then, yeah, it
(22:33):
is the freemium approach to gaming design. Mean, it is
free to play, but if you want to do well
in the game, then you are going to be spending
either a ton of time or you're going to be
spending real money, preferably a combination of both to make
some progress. And just for a perspective there, in the
(22:54):
world of mobile gaming, as of just a few years ago,
I think it was a very small proportion of gamers
in the mobile space, only about point one five bring
in fifty of the profits for those developers. They're called whales,
and you can see why. So a lot of things
in mobile gaming are our numbers. Game meant to get
(23:18):
a piece of the that one point five percent of
the game playing population's wallet. And so much stuff goes
into this, so much thought and time, the people who
are very well versed in psychology are increasingly going to
be game developers, uh, and they're going to be working
(23:39):
with behavioral psychologists in particular. The average person might be
kind of surprised to learn just how much thought goes
into designing games specifically defeat upon and exploit what we
know about human psychology. And that's why we're talking about
how video games and slot machines share these core common manalities.
(24:01):
It's weird. There was a great article I read. It
was older, but it's it's still very much it's still
very much relevant. By a guy who's working at Microsoft,
and he talks not in terms of making a fun game,
but in terms of mapping out what he calls patterns
of activity from a structural level. So he takes three things,
(24:23):
the amount of time you spend, your activity, what you're doing,
and your reward what you get for that. Uh. This
activity plus time equals reward and together this kind of
equation creates what he called a contingency. And the idea
admittedly owes a ton to B. F. Skinner. Uh. He
is the one who's often credited with discovering the power
(24:45):
of stimulus and reward and so if you're not a
big fan of video games, you might say, well, I mean,
what's the point. Sure, you make a game, and you know,
somebody typically has to spend X amount of hours doing
why amount of things before they get you know, the
magic sword of Blah baduppa or whatever. If we're still
doing we are okay, good forever. If you don't play games,
(25:09):
you might say, like you might have a conversation with
a friend or a loved one who was like, oh, man,
I finally got the sword of Bla ba duppa and
you're like, well, it's it's not a real sword. Well
it's a sword of the mind though, right, And I
mean to your mind, it is absolutely a real sword.
And these are the same kinds of things that we saw,
uh and never read about. But specifically in the Netflix
(25:31):
documentary The Social Dilemma that talks about the design of
social networks, um they and and phones. Even the interface
of a smartphone operates on the same principles. It's trying
to keep you engaged on that device or in that
network for as long as humanly possible. In order to
do that, it games a lot of these psychological systems
(25:53):
or these systems in your brain um that are stimuli
and reward. Oh yeah, it does. Yeah, it does, because
here's the thing. When you have dedicated times to something,
if you are a human being, your brain becomes convinced
that you have earned it, the same way that your
brain when you just make yourself laugh. Your brain can't
(26:15):
tell the difference between that and genuine laughter, at least
when you're doing it. That's why laughter therapy is such
a big thing, because it actually reward gives you a
sense of positive vibes. I guess that you can kind
of impose on yourself. I'm not not a psychological term,
but the idea is that if you make yourself laugh
or just choose to laugh uncontrollably, it has a positive
(26:36):
reward um effect on the brain, but not necessarily in
the same kind of more cracky kind of stimuli ways
that we're talking about with games and social networks. Not quite. Yeah. Likewise, saying,
the caveat I always add when I when I tell
people about that is you are probably very good at
sensing fake laughter into others, just not in yourself. So
(26:59):
don't don't go to I to be slick. Okay, unless
it's really worth it. But in the in the sense
of this in this context video games, because the human
brain will become convinced kind of like a type of
sunk cost fallacy. They'll say, well, we've spent twenty hours
getting this amazing sword or this armor or this gold
(27:20):
um gold shoulder pad or whatever. Sure, so your brain
says you've earned it, and therefore, because you have earned it,
it is worthwhile. And you still get those good vibes,
those endorphins. Uh, you like, getting a sword in in
the game for your brain feels equivalent to getting one
in real life. And it shouldn't be dismissed because, as
(27:42):
far as you know, if we're gonna believe in Descartes
and I think therefore I am, as far as your
internal thoughts and experiences, both swords are equally real and valid. Sure,
or there's other philosophers I believe Leibnitz. Maybe there's one,
and there's a whole school of them. But the idea
of what is perception, you know, is this all just
(28:03):
kind of like a simulation, not not simulation theory, but
the idea that the universe as we perceive it, or
are surroundings that we perceive it. Um, there's really not
much difference between the way our brain perceives it and
the way our brain perceives a simulation of it, because
as far as our brain is concerned, it's kind of
all the same, right. And so if we go back
to the work of BF. Skinner, and this is this
(28:26):
is going somewhere, this is worthwhile. So imagine a mouse.
This mouse is in a cage. This cage has a button.
Let's say, let's say, uh, the mouse is named Rupert,
and whenever Rupert pushes Rupert's little mouse button, he gets
a treat. There are so many, their innumerable variations on
this type of experiment. But in the case of video games,
(28:49):
from the designer's perspective, you are the mouse. If you
are the player, and the cage is the game, and
the lever is the controller your means of an action,
and instead of food, you receive whatever that particular game
defines is an award every time, you know, depending on
the combination of moves you make with your lever controller.
(29:12):
Unlike those poor poor rodents in the world of Skinner experiments,
you are able to leave the cage. You can turn
off the game, and so game creators spend a lot
of time trying to figure out how to make sure
you don't. Exactly that all changed once online gaming started, Oh,
in a huge way, because, as we said, um, it
(29:33):
became much more about how can we keep you in
this game environment for as long as possible? And the
answer that is, what if we designed a game that
never ended? You know, instead of just the game is
the game? Well, now the game just goes on forever,
and there's other people you're interacting with, and it's essentially
just this world that you've immersed yourself in that short
(29:55):
of bodily functions and needing to maybe eat and drink
and stuff, you don't really ever have to leave because
it's certainly checking the box for a lot of your
social interactions, and it's giving you that reward system. So
you just feel so good. Who would ever want to leave? Yeah? Exactly. Uh,
not to date anybody in the crowd, but some folks
listening today are old enough to remember when the process
(30:17):
of gaming was this. If you didn't go to an arcade.
If you're playing a game at home, you bought it.
It's probably a cartridge or maybe a CD or something,
and you played until you gave up. You got bored.
Or you won, and then sometimes you'd fall in love
with the game. You might play it again in a
second third or multiple times, but mostly when you reach
the end of a game, you were pretty much done
(30:37):
with it. There wasn't really an option to like just
keep walking around and when like you said no. With
m M orpgs in specific, massive multiplayer online role playing games, uh,
these games didn't have to end. And then there was
a tremendous profit opportunity. Now instead of having somebody pay
you know, their fifty bucks or whatever for a game,
(31:00):
they pay an ongoing subscription fee and then just like
a mobile gaming, they can pay more for various perks, items,
cosmetic improvements, and so to maximize someone's involvement, designers had
to do something different. They had to change the game
of making games. They had to make sure the game
didn't just continue forever, but that it also had the
(31:22):
patterns of reward, the contingency structured such that, uh, the
the game itself was compelling enough to keep people coming
back even when there wasn't necessarily new amazing stuff to do.
This is where we get the concept of grinding. You
just say if I you know, like um. For example,
in the Skyrim. If you want to level up your blacksmithing,
(31:44):
you just make the easiest blacksmithing item over and over
and over, which is a dagger, right. It's also a
way to just level up your character to like there
and there and like you, you figure out different tricks
and um you know, to to get the path of
least resistance to getting the most XP in the shortest
amount of time. But then you have people like you know,
there are certain games where to maybe folks like you
(32:05):
or I've been, we'd be pretty satisfied just completing the game,
like a Red Dead redemption. But within a game like that, um,
there are all of these little um like awards or
what do you call them, like medals done, achieve achievement exactly,
achievement unlocked. Uh, and they don't really give you anything
other than just the bragging rights of saying you one
(32:27):
d percent finished the game, um and and and and
then if you start adding in all of this downloadable
content and extra stuff there, it might be absolutely um
impossible to ever say completed the game. But some people's
brains are constantly seeking out that one completion, so that
part of their brain is totally being gamed and hijacked
(32:50):
by the gaming companies continuing to add more stuff to it,
and people eat it up. They don't look at it
as a negative. They look at it as a feature. Yeah,
I'm getting more already paid, now I'm getting more stuff.
And let's be honest, I think I can't be the
only one who's had this experience. You might have been
playing a game and you've got some sort of notification
that you've achieved a badge, you've gotten a trophy, or uh,
(33:13):
some sort of kudos for something you never imagined possible.
It's like, a, ha, you've got the bird watcher badge
because you have seen every bird in this game at
some point, even if you don't care. People love feeling accomplished,
so you're like, oh, yeah, I guess I have. And
they get really niche to really specific, like oh, you
killed one thousand, five hundred enemies using a long range
(33:38):
sniper weapon with the laser scope and there you know,
there are these for every type of weapon, for every environment,
for every type of enemy, for every type of piece
of armor. I mean, there's got to be a whole
division of these game companies that all they do is
come up with those types of achievements, such a fun
idea for a job, you know, and they've got funny
titles to like. You might get one that says, creepster,
(34:01):
you have touched two hundred elbows the same game, and
you're like, well, I didn't know. That's really more on
the controls than as on me. Jeez, guys. But but
this is true. This is um this is a strategy
that works. And again, this does not make the game
developers in any way evil. There are people trying to
(34:22):
do a good job at their job. And this doesn't
mean that the people playing these games are suckers. They're
enjoying what they're doing. And again we are. We are
in that ladder group. We enjoy playing these video games.
But there was opportunity created with the concept of the
never ending game. There was opportunity both for exacerbating possible
(34:46):
problems with addiction, and it was of course the opportunity
to get a little bit deeper into people's wallets. And
then another plot twist came about. It's one that you
and I talked about briefly off air, which is so
nineteen or so. Online gaming is the thing. There's some
people who only play games online, right, they're like, I
(35:07):
don't really like games, but I love World of Warcraft
or League of Legends or Fortnite. And then a pandemic hits, right,
it sure did, um, which I think is the ultimate
plot twists here um and again a very recent one
that we still haven't seen the other side of. Mean,
we're still in it. The coronavirus kept tons of people
(35:27):
at home. Um. The idea of like, you know, away
time from your gaming system became at least temporarily a
thing of the past. Right, the idea of go play outside,
go play with your friends, you know, go see people. Well,
all of a sudden, anyone who maybe was inching towards
being a bit of a gaming recluse almost had like
(35:47):
a pass, a free pass to just go all in. Um.
Because school went online, um, and and leisure really became
something that if your parents weren't being very active and
regulating the time spent on screens, he could easily fall
down that rabbit hole, especially considering that it was now
(36:08):
school was like one in these little boxes, and accountability
was a lot harder, Like I I have a kid
and uh. During the beginnings of the pandemic, when she
was in school. It was really hard to make sure
she was on task because I can't be there looking
over her shoulder every second. Um. And it was also
a very new thing for the teachers, so there was
(36:29):
a lot of new technology and software they were using,
and it was chaos. Uh. And you know, there's a
whole South Park episode about it where Cartman would just
literally put up a picture of himself and he would
just play video games or do whatever he wanted and
just pretend to be in school. So a lot of
any opportunistic kids that maybe tried to skirt their school responsibility,
this was like absolute, you know, fantasy land for them. Yeah.
(36:53):
I I haven't made it a secret. I have a
lot of teachers in my life. I'm immensely privileged to
say I'm friends with a lot of educators, and they
are some of the most important people in any civilization,
and they're often, unfortunately, some of the most put upon
people in any civilization. Uh. And this was enormously stressful
(37:17):
for everyone involved, the kids, the parents, the teachers, the educators.
And one thing a lot of people didn't acknowledge in
the beginning was if you're working from home, Yeah, it's
great to have a job, but you're also really taking
work into your house. You're turning your home into an office,
and you don't usually have kids in the office right
(37:41):
at your your job probably and uh, school and daycare
become unviable. People are looking for a way to keep
these kids entertained without you know, everybody having cabin fever
and biting each other's heads off. And that's when you
come to researchers like a psychologist from Maryland, Edwards Specter,
who says that this has shifted already. The rough demographic
(38:03):
of what he would see is people likely to have
gaming addiction or develop it. He said, one, you know,
it's always a small minority. But once, once upon a time,
pre pandemic, this demographic tended to be people of college age,
and now do largely, he argues, to the pandemic, this
demographic has shifted toward teenagers or even younger children. And
(38:26):
while this pandemic will pass, another one will definitely come. Sorry,
it's true, it does doesn't mean these kids are going
to be able to instantly unplug, you know what I
mean and go back to life as it was before.
I don't think anyone will. No, And again, like you said,
it shifted that age, um too, started to cause it
to skew much younger, I mean, And then this op
(38:47):
ed PC Root for the Washington Post, Spencer talks about
how it even has shifted to like infants, you know,
and I've seen it. Uh, it's no better babysitter than
the old iPad for a small child, with like shows
like Coco Melon and things that are you know, cute
and maybe a little bit educational in some small way,
but at the end of the day, totally sinister. But like,
(39:10):
you know, there's also games that are designed for very
very small children. And when you start really looking in
the psychology of it, you're introducing that kind of reward
system and that instant gratification of like, give me the
good feels while your brain is still developing. Um, that's
exactly kind of bad news, right, because it starts to
(39:30):
make it where like you're only good at something if
it instantly rewards you, And it starts to kind of
reward you for not putting in the time to actually
get good at a skill. Because I don't know, I'm
not meaning the soapbox here, but I've just I've definitely
seen it, and it's troubling. Um, it's troubling. It's also troubling.
(39:52):
I mean it's troubling from experiential level for many people.
I imagine it's also troubling in that there hasn't been
enough time to conduct rigorous science on these long term effects.
It's it's gonna take a long time, like decades for
people to know what was affected and to what degree.
But that's the lay of the lands. We're gonna pause
(40:14):
for word from our sponsor. I hope it's a video
game company. Will be right back to unpack what this
all means. We've returned in some Yes, there is a
kind of conspiracy afoot, Yes, Virginia, and there is a
conspiracy Santa clause here leveraging what we understand about human psychology.
(40:39):
Using the exact same knowledge so effectively leveraged in the
world of gambling and the world of advertising. Game developers
know what makes your reward system tick. They know how
to scratch you right behind the cognitive ears, and just
like Skinner with some mice, they can teach you to
do tricks for treats. Totally I wanted to earlier. Just
(41:00):
something that's really big in these types of games are uh,
what's called loot boxes where you get like a kind
of a blind box of like it's got stuff in it,
but you don't know what it is, and the monetary
value like in you know, in like in game currency
or whatever for one of the items could be really
high or it could be just some run of the mill,
(41:21):
you know, widgets that you get to maybe give you
one ups or something like that. But that um gamble
is something that affects your brain, like you really does
feel like you're gambling, uh, and that just adds to
the impulsivity of it all and then the need to
keep trying again so maybe you'll get the good loot
this time, you know. UM. So they are very aware
of what they're doing, and you know that extends to
(41:43):
even like things in the physical world. There's like blind
boxes where you can buy it for a set price
and maybe you get the special uh gilded pokemon or
whatever mystery funky. Yeah, this is something you're You're right.
Game developers know this and they are doing it, and
that that mystery is part of it. Because human beings
(42:06):
in um in this sort of scenario tend to think
a little bit less about all the times they wasted
money on something, whether a slot machine or a loop box,
and remember the times they hit it big and psychologists,
at least in the world of gaming developers have figured
out what the acceptable wind to loss ratio is that
(42:29):
will keep you going, that'll keep you hooked. Uh again,
this is the thing that gets me. It is not
necessarily evil, it's not inherently malevolent. I mean, I was
trying to think of a good analogy. Think of it
this way, fellow conspiracy reels. If game developers were making
shoes instead of games, wouldn't they want the shoes to
(42:50):
be comfortable. If you're making shoes, don't you want to
make the kind of shoes that people like to wear
and walk around in. That's that's kind of the same thing.
Won a game that people like to live in and
like to spend time with. And this is this is
all again. This is not to say that every video
(43:10):
game manufacturer, every mobile game manufacturers intentionally trying to get
people addicted, but it does set the stage for addiction
to occur. And one big part of this problem, the
reason that's been ignored for a while, is that there
are a lot of misconceptions about addiction, and I appreciated
no when you pointed out just a couple of those.
(43:32):
But first, I feel like we shouldn't even have to
say this, But just to be very clear, addiction is
in no way a moral failing. It is the result
of many different factors, and it also doesn't necessarily need
a physical component. It doesn't even need a physical dependence, right. No,
I mean honestly, in many cases, the psychological dependence can
(43:54):
be more powerful than the physical dependence, and the physical
dependence is just kind of a byproduct of that. I
think many would argue that marijuana, for example, is not
physically addictive. If you smoke marijuana, then you stop. You're
not gonna like get the shakes or something or like
have some sort of you know, like nausea or like withdrawals, Right,
But Uh, it is very psychologically addictive. And if people
(44:16):
are convinced that they are better or they're happier when
they're in this state, then that psychological component is hugely powerful. Uh.
And the same goes with any kind of addiction, including games. UM.
It's interesting Robert West who's the editor in chief of
the scientific journal Addiction UM. He says that it's really
more about what you do how you act. You know,
(44:39):
once you are quote unquote addicted or what. Rather, it's
a spectrum, and more severe addictions are accompanied by self
damaging behavior or behavior that can really cause problems in
people's social lives and family lives and uh and work lives.
Something that can lead to negative outcomes is the way
(45:00):
put it. And this guy is the editor in chief
of the scientific journal Addiction, so he is he's such
an expense. Yeah, so yeah, you know, he knows what
he's talking about. But this, this leads us to something else.
You know, when when we're talking about behavior that's something
that people get addicted to. Ritual is can be addictive
(45:24):
to folks because it is predictable, it is comforting, it
reminds you of how you felt the last time you
engaged in it. And the newest definitions of gaming disorder
or Internet gaming disorder, whichever term you prefer, seemed to
fit well within that understanding. There's not a silver bullet
one size fits all description, Like you cannot automatically say
(45:45):
somebody is addicted to gaming or a game just because
they like it. They might play tons of games, they
might spend tons of time on a single game, and
I say, this is a guy who did get to
a percent completion on Skyrim. It took forever. I'm never
going to do that again with a game. But that
same person may not be addicted because it isn't having
a negative consequence on their life. It's just something they
(46:07):
really enjoyed doing. And that's where we have to ask
ourselves that question at the beginning, Is this to some
degree of moral panic? The answer seems honestly in some
cases yes, Like the best research finds that maybe one
to three percent of gamers and this is the best
current research, um one to three percent of gamers are
(46:30):
quote at risk for addiction. And these are real people,
and this can be a real problem. But that doesn't
mean that everyone who got super into Minecraft during the
RNA is suddenly hugged up on what a couple of
reporters have even described as digital heroin, you know. And
then you can feel attacked. There there are people who
are like I my, if I have one vice, it's
(46:53):
a video game. I don't drink, I don't smoke. You know,
I'm out, I'm not out wilding. I'm I'm at home
working on you know, my newest play through g T
a uh that you can feel like you're being intact
as though your hobby is being stigmatized. But here's what
the who is really saying. I keep put calling who,
(47:14):
but who is really saying this is they're listing this
and acknowledging it as just a way of defining, understanding
the problems so that they can take better steps and
understanding how to address it. So don't worry. Big government's
nott coming for your PS four. Not just yet totally,
I mean at least big government here, um and in China,
(47:35):
you know they're they're certainly. We've read a few op
eds from psychologists that we've one of which we sighted
the Edward Specter one for the Washington Post that kind
of criticizes the approach that the Chinese government is taking. Um,
they are treating it, in the opinion of some of
these researchers, as a moral panic. And I love the
way Spector puts it where he makes the point it's
(47:56):
similar to the case with any prohibition or outright um,
you know, outlawing or banning of a thing that people
like to do. Is uh. You know, when you tell
someone they can't do something, they're just gonna spend twice
as much energy trying to figure out how to do
it anyway. UM. So with kids, for example, you know,
we've we've done ads for these like VPNs you know,
(48:17):
um or are huge where you can trick UH systems
that would maybe be designed to cut you off after
a certain amount of playtime. UM you can just reroute
it and make it seem like you're in a different
country that is in subject to the same you know,
UM conditions, or use a parent or grandparent or older
brothers account. UM. And you know this company ten Cent
(48:39):
that we talked about, the online gaming company that's massive
out of China, they're working on technology that uses facial
recognition to really take this to the next kind of surveillance,
nanny state kind of place. But again, um Spector argues
that it's more about media UM awareness and kind of
having this conversation and figuring out how to kind of
(49:00):
just like limit yourself and then have a more of
like a healthy balanced diet of media, rather than you know,
outright banning kids from playing these games because they're they're smart.
Kids are smart and they're just gonna figure out how
to get around it, or they'll just watch other people
play on YouTube, Like, how do you are you gonna
also filter Twitch streams so that kids can't watch other
(49:22):
people play. That's still triggers similar um endorphin responses, even
if you're not the one pressing the button, and that's
why those are so popular. Yeah, so all good points,
Like I'm saying, no big government is coming for your
PS four just yet, But if they were coming for
your PS five, I assure you it's only because they
couldn't get their hands on one themselves. That's still incredibly ridiculous.
(49:44):
But just as real as the micro trip shortage is.
The problem looming on the horizon is itself real, and
there's not an effective way to legislate it on a
large scale, At least in the US. It would be
virtually impossible because what would you be doing at that point.
You would either be restricting people's personal freedoms or you
(50:04):
would be what making some sort of law that says,
if you're a game developer, you can't make your game
entertaining or compelling in a certain way. That's a lot
like saying, hey, shoemakers the world, these shoes are too comfortable,
start making them kind of crappy. You know, for the
greater good exactly, just like have them come with like
pebbles in the bottom of them that you can't take out,
(50:26):
you know, or a thumbtack or something. Um, it's true.
And and you know, as I said, even in China,
the technology isn't quite all the way there for them
to really do this and the way they're wanting to
do it, and you're they're going to need the assistance
of these game developers. Um. And there's even calls in
the States for game developers to maybe start helping out
(50:48):
with some of these problems a little bit. Make it
easier for parents to you know, at their own discretion,
limit screen time, make it a little harder for kids
to get around that stuff. But the legislation, of course,
as it always does, inevitably lags behind technology. So it
is ultimately up to the developers to kind of spearhead
(51:08):
this stuff. And uh, this is the same thing that's
happening in the world of gambling and in the world
of advertisement. With this in mind, we do hope that
you check out our future episode on the future of
video games, which will definitely have to have Matt Frederick
in four. And the last thing we want to end
(51:30):
on whenever we do an episode touching on topics like addiction,
is this If you are struggling or someone you care
about is struggling with addiction of any sort, there is
help out there. You are not alone. It might sound
corny when people say it, but it only sounds corny
because it is true. If you struggle with addiction, UH,
(51:50):
if you you know, let's be honest, rates of certain
vices and problems have skyrocketed during the RNA. So if
you find yourself affected by this, don't as tape. Please
reach out to any of the many helplines and resources
that are available for you and for free. You are
worth it. I always like to recommend the Substance Abuse
(52:11):
and Mental Health Services Administration here in the US SAMSA UH.
Their national help line twenty four hours day, seven days
a week is one eight hundred six six two four
three five seven. That's one six six to help. H
g LP definitely a great resource if you're finding yourself
in a situation where you do feel alone and you
(52:32):
need someone to talk to UM. But let us know,
is this something that you struggled with UM during the
pandemic or otherwise? Is this something that you even think
is an issue. You can reach us in all of
the usual Internet places of note, that's right. You can
find us in places like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, uh, and
if you say, you know, I'm more of a phone person,
(52:52):
I would much rather prefer just to leave a message.
We've got you covered there too. We have a real
life phone number. That's right, it's one eighth three s
t d W y t K. You've got three minutes
to leave your voicemail and let us know what to
call you, give yourself a killer nickname, or just let
us know what you're comfortable with. We can also go
with anonymous. And if you're cool with us using your
(53:13):
message on air, and you may hear yourself in one
of our weekly listener mail episodes. And if that's not
your bag any of those things, you can also contact
us somewhat old fashioned way. You can send us a
good old email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com.
(53:47):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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