How to save a child from gaming addiction. Computer game addiction. The consequences of the game dependency very depressing

Gambling (Ludomania) refers to the number of the most popular problems of modernity. It suffers from people of different social status and different age categories.

According to the degree of seriousness, ludomania is equal to narcotic and alcohol dependence. This powerful element conquers human minds around the world. A bright example of the growth of the game trend is the number of users of the game "World of Warcraft". Owners of the official version has become more than 4,000 million people. It remains only to assume how many gamers use pirate versions Gaming platforms.

People with gaming dependence lose the feeling of reality. Tracting to the game prevents them from performing everyday tasks. All the thoughts, aspirations and intentions of the game are directly related to computer or gambling.

A person loses interest in the world around the world, close to people, professional activity and study. They forget about the duties in front of loved ones, throw their own goals, directing all efforts to find themselves in the game world. It is impossible to cover your eyes. Credit passion can grow into a serious psychological problem. We can not pay attention to the problem for a long time if it does not apply to our relatives and loved ones. Awareness comes when young people are losing interest in school, sports, music. Game dependence in adults threatens the loss of work and family.

Treatment of gaming addiction

But if the playman is a favorite husband, native child or reliable comrade? What to do if the relationship go under the slope, and the person close to you turns into zombies? Output one is awareness of the problem in order to get rid of it. Treatment of gaming may be a difficult task. Like any pathological addiction, it is firmly rooted in the life of a playing person. Knowing how to get rid of gaming addiction, you can save the human psyche and fate.

How to get rid of gaming addiction?

The treatment of gaming addiction involves the use of different psychological techniques and methods. We list the most effective of them.

1. Prevention of gaming addiction.

   Make sure that the casino and online machine guns from entertainment transformed into a terrible problem. Do not let yourself or a close person play more than 3-5% of your monthly income. Do not go out for these borders. Do not attempt to "recoup." Then you will not come across the question, how to get rid of gaming when everything has already gone too far. As for the computer games, there must also be tough measures. You can enable the child or play half an hour to distract. But after this time there should be no excuses. The gameplay should be completed unconditionally. Blocking an increase in gambling interest is the principle that pursues the prevention of gaming addiction.

2. Awareness of the problem is the first and most difficult step in the treatment of gambling.

   A visit to the casino, the game in gambling online or the lottery We are supporting the desire to improve your financial well-being. Computer game dependences are perceived by the game, as a way to distract and nicely spend time. In fact, it was not possible to get hidden in this way. And addiction to computer games takes all the free time of the game, takes all his thoughts, interferes with self-realization. While you will not understand that gambling is a serious problem, you will stay in ignorance and will be stepdown to destroy your psyche and life.

3. Treatment of gaming dependence by strong emotions.

   Gambling is a source of adrenaline. The process of computer game fills the dopamine hormone reserves. Find another lesson that will be the source of happiness and pleasure for you. New passion will help easier and painlessly displace the dependence on slot machines.

4. Suppression of the desire to play.

   It is necessary to consciously approach the situation. Awareness that the game for you is a care from reality - already the first step towards getting rid of gaming addiction. In the most difficult cases, the techniques for the suppression of a subconscious desire to play. The most effective techniques are hypnosis, suggestion.

5. Motivation.

   You are in finding a response to the question, how to get rid of the game addiction? Then find a powerful one. Without strong purposes and powerful installations, it will be difficult to get rid of the problem. Give your brain to the target installation to action. Think what you are deprived of yourself, spending time in the game. Warn the new goal in life, without leaving the time to strengthen dependence.

6. Remuneration.

   Encourage yourself with something nice for success. Buying a new thing, trip to the movies, travel, delicious food - those small prizes that you can afford. So dependence on gaming machines will be extended by something more enjoyable. From the lack of a gameplay will be replaced by new positive emotions. Of course, to this issue you need to be consciously: it is impossible to replace the game dependence of alcohol or begin to overdo it in food.

7. Employment.

   People with gaming addiction should not suffer from. It is the main reason for gaining dependence. Idleness can provoke a breakdown. Load yourself with work, sports, music. Look for new classes. Start raising professional competencies. Do everything so that you do not have free time. If we are talking about a child, then take it by any possible methods. Secure the duty at home for him, write down on the sports section. Do not forget about encouragement.

   Clear objectives and control over the problem will help get rid of this dependence. Surround a close man with warmth and care. Do not forget about motivation and promotion. The main thing is to return the person to life, make it forget him about a detrimental habit. And the basic rule in the question, how to get rid of the game dependency: Show Gameman, how much is interesting there is in life for enjoying and joy, let it feel.

Computer dependence, otherwise called gaming, today is recognized as one of the most common varieties of psychological dependencies and is an independent form of non-chemical behavioral addictions. A detrimental addiction to network video games is no less dangerous by their negative consequences, such as drug addiction or alcoholism.
The game dependence characterizes the presence of an obsessive insurmountable attraction to the games on various devices: computers, laptops, game consoles, tablets or smartphones. A person becomes absorbed without a measure by the game itself. It increases the time frame, conducted by entertainment in the virtual world. He loses the ability to resist his annoying attachment to the game.

It has been established that most often the most strong dependence of network multiplayer role-playing online games of different genres and styles. The main difference is such games - the presence of a huge number of players around the world and their close interaction within the framework of the virtual space.
As a rule, the participant of the browser game elects a certain character for himself and manages it with a variety of actions to achieve some kind of purpose. The selected character, most often, is a representative of a non-existent, fantastic world.

What is fraught with gamemen: "surprises" depending on computer games
Computer addiction creates a number of significant problems for the individual. The main danger of gaming is the rapid development of psychological addiction. Computer dependence in its development takes three stages.
In the initial phase - the stage of adaptation - a person is experiencing easy internship with browser games. It opens up for himself a new carefree virtual world, where it finds explicit advantages over his gray daily.

The second stage can be called a phase of severe passion. In this period, the time that Gamer spends on the game is growing. It is already determined with any specific game And chooses a character for himself by hanging it in fantasy with some specific qualities.
The third stage of computer dependence - phase of stable attachment. The subject is aware that the pastime in the game is useless, but it is not able to independently abandon the gameplay. In this period, a person experiences significant dissatisfaction with the real circumstances of his life, so it becomes increasingly "refuge" in the virtual space in which he allegedly achieves some success.

The smallest evil from gambling is a useless loss of time on classes that are not able to bring any favor to the subject and cannot contribute to the full development of person. A person with gaming addiction ceases to effectively manage its time.
Often, excessive activity in online games deprives the person of the opportunity to fully interact in society. Gambling prevents establishing and maintaining friendly relations, becomes a serious obstacle to ensure normal contacts in the family.

Virtual Time Eater does not allow a person to develop his abilities, receive new knowledge, wrap professional skills. Mass browser games forced the person to sacrifice pleasant and useful leisure for the sake of active participation in network events.
Finding into a game dependence, a person begins to completely identify his identity with a selected hero. The person who absorbed a computer dependence, ceases to perceive objectively existing reality, assessing the criteria for the virtual world actually.

The subject loses its individuality and gradually degrades as a person.
What is so captive network games? One of the reasons for the development of computer dependence is the following circumstance. Solving everyday problems involves the application of certain efforts and psychological costs. At the same time, as communication in the game space does not require intense physical, moral, mental work. Therefore, it's easier for a person and more conveniently to overcome the vital obstacles to ignore them, using "teleportation" in the virtual world.
Unresolved structurally, the problem begins to grow as a snowball. As a result, the ball of unresolved difficulties force a person simply "move" to the virtual world. He loses the meaning of life and ceases to perceive natural human values.

Another satellite computer addiction is frequent mood swings. If the gamer does not have the opportunity to go to the game, he begins the real "breaking". He worsens the mood. It becomes evil and aggressive. He has nervousness and irritability. Panic alarms may occur. In order to quickly get into the world of the game, it is capable of various immoral actions.
As soon as a person has access to a virtual space, it is experiencing a state similar to bliss. It improves the mood, ease and energy appears. The person feels a happy man and is ready to conquer the whole "virtual" world.

According to doctors, a computer addiction can give a launch of dementia, since most virtual entertainment lead to a constant and excessive excitation of the central nervous system. Lack of braking processes contributes fast development Lyubimy. Thinking the patient loses flexibility. His attention dissolves, the memory deteriorates. Significantly spawns the quality of recognition and assimilation of information.
Degradation of mental abilities also occurs due to the fact that due to excessive addiction to games, a person ceases to be interested in the events occurring in environmentAnd it significantly reduces the horizon. In the structure of the patient's motivation, destructive motives and primitive motives associated with the plot of games are dominated.

In people depending on network gamesThe risk of developing depressive states is increasing, in particular: bipolar disorder. A gamer eventually acquires a variety of social phobias that lead to its isolation from society. Often, gaming is turning around that the person is unable not only to fully fulfill his duties, but cannot simply serve himself.
Dependence on computer games awards a person with a mass of unpleasant physical symptoms. He worsen eyesight. There are frequent headaches. Over time, problems arise with sleep. Intensive pain in the wrist area of \u200b\u200bthe working hand may appear.

How to get rid of computer addiction: overcome gaming
The main conditions for a successful and complete disposal of computer dependence - awareness of a person who has a serious problem has a serious problem, the presence of sincere desire to overcome the harmful craving for the time in the virtual space. However, in most cases, gaming gamer does not understand what a dangerous paunch absorbed him, and that the player has a problem, they beat his close relatives to Nabath. It is this factor once again proves the similarity of computer dependence with other forms of addictive behavior - drug addiction and alcoholism.

Therefore, it is extremely difficult to tactfully, but at the same time persistently offer to a person with a computer addiction to visit a clinical psychologist or psychotherapist for advice. An experienced specialist will help the gamer to look at the existing picture of his life without a pelleh created by stay in the virtual world. The primary consultation of the psychologist will allow the player to gain motivation to start treating from computer addiction. Also, a specialist is a conversation with the relatives of the patient and tells them a constructive model of behavior with a person who fell into captivity of Gaming.

At the first stage of treating dependence on computer games, it is extremely important to determine the cause of giving a push of gaming. To this end, the psychotherapist uses a variety of tests to establish dominant charts of the gamer, determine the level of anxiety, confirm the presence of depressive disorder. If a provocative of computer addiction is depression, it is advisable to carry out pharmacological treatment to stabilize the emotional status of the gameimer.

However, in most cases, medication therapy is not required to overcome gambling, since the root of the problem is often hidden in unresolved psychological problems of the gamer. To eliminate the destructive model of thinking, converting damage damage to positive personal qualities, it is recommended to conduct hypnosis sessions, visiting the gamer of individual psychological consultations and participation in group training.
During such classes, a person acquires the skills of functional interaction in society, gaining knowledge, how to build relationships with colleagues and loved ones. He recognizes how without compromising the psyche needs to overcome difficulties. During the psychotherapeutic sessions, he acquires a faithful self-esteem, gets rid of inferiority complexes, forms new life values \u200b\u200bfor itself and opens useful hobbies.

How to overcome a computer addiction without resorting to the help of doctors? The main task of relatives of a gambling game is to attract it to activities that are not related to game processes. Need to show a person that in real world There are classes that can bring the sea of \u200b\u200bpositive emotions.

What can we offer a person suffering from playing?

Many positive sensations will bring long-term hiking through forests.

We can invite gameimers on winter fishing or arrange a real hunt for him.

Survive the thrill will help descents on the river on kayaks, mountaineering, snowboarding and skiing.

A less adventurous person can be invited to the cycling or roller.

Very useful mass games, imitating battles in virtual space, for example: paintball.

To obtain the ocean of positive will help watching high-quality film, visiting theatrical ideas.

If finance allowed, bring invaluable benefit organization to some exotic countries or departures on tour of the attractions.

The main task of relatives of the game is to think over leisure in such a way that the dependent person has received new, previously uncharted impressions and discovered the luxurious possibilities of reality.

Another important step to overcome the computer addiction, which should be performed by the relatives of the gamer - election of a faithful behavioral strategy with patients. In no case can not be reproached and root a gambling player for its detrimental dependence. Such actions are only angry with a sick person and will be forced to completely "move" to the virtual world.
It is necessary to show the addicted person as an indispensable and beloved person it is. We need to contact him for advice, ask to provide all the assistance, correctly impose certain responsibilities for it. In short, relatives should help a person to increase self-esteem and gain self-esteem. The sincere praise, addressing the patient for the slightest achievement, is greater in the treatment of dependencies.

A huge mistake that many close patients perform is an intentional disabling of the Internet or deprivation of his right to use gadgets. Instead of useless prohibitions, we can offer the gamer to him independently set the time for computer fun. Hint that he is a strong volitional person, which is capable of managing time itself.

However, it should always be remembered that the computer addiction is a severe form of addictive behavior, which is amenable to treatment only thanks to the intervention of the psychotherapist. Therefore, to snatch a person from the virtual world and return to reality, you need to seek medical help as soon as possible.

Head from the book "I can not stop. Where are the obsessive states come from and how to get rid of them "Sheron running around how addiction from different computer games is arranged - from Candy Crush Saga to World of Warcraft.

Compulsive passion for video games differs from all other compulsions. Most people do not become pathological collectors, patients with OCD, compulsive bass, bodybuilders or shopaholics. By virtue of his psychotip, they do not risk falling into a black hole of such behavioral schemes, since they have a sufficiently high resistance to painful alarm.

But video games and other electronic temptations exploit the universal sides of human psychology. As I already noted, the compulsive human behavior does not mean that he is crazy. On the contrary, an adaptive response to the alarm, which would be differently unbearable, completely normal.

Nothing is manifested so bright as in Gambling. Video games are extremely attractive, as their creators have learned to use the universal aspects of the functioning of our brain. therefore almost anyone can feel the attraction to the games and the inability to resist. John Daerr, the famous venture capitalist from the silicon valley, which invested money in the developer company Zynga, said in 2011 in an interview with the Vanity Fair: "True, these games are not for everyone, but they are closer to this than anything, me famous. "

I was hoping for the reasons for this will be able to explain the gamedizainers and scientists who devoted themselves to the new field of research - the psychology of the game. But before it was to make sure that the games satisfy the mandatory condition - the ability to reduce the alarm - to be a subject of a compulsion, and not, let's say, addiction.

In 2012, in the article in New York Times Magazine, the critic consultant Sam Anderson spoke about his compulsive need to play Drop7 - released by Zynga in 2009. The game like Sudoku, where you need to manipulate balls falling down in a grid of 7x7 squares.

"I played, instead of washing dishes, bathe children, communicate with relatives, read the newspaper, and most importantly, write, - Anderson admitted. "The game has become an anesthetic, emergency rescue capsule, a breathing apparatus, Ksanaks."

The game has become digital sedative. He realized that with her help he was engaged in "self-treatment", enough for Drop7 "In any extreme situation", for example, "after a conversation on elevated tones with his mother; As soon as I learned that my dog \u200b\u200bmay die of cancer. "

One of the online commentators confirmed that video games, in any case, for him, are inseparable from a compulcility. "They reduce my anxiety, and I confirm that I play Bejeweled for this purpose," he wrote. - I did not pay attention to how much time I dedicate this game, while once did not realize that I play it at an exercise bike during physiotherapy "- before you fall from him.

Screenshot from the game bejeweled.

Neil Heyman described this state in the poem of 1990 "Virus":

Play - tears in the eyes,
Whistle's whistle
Musks hunger ... And after - everything goes. Or - everything except the game.
In my head now - only the game and nothing more *.

Tens of millions of people could subscribe under these words.

In May 2013, Dong Nguyen, the unknown creator of Games from Vietnamese Hanoi, has released to anyone. FLAPY BIRD.The next year told reporters next year: "It was perhaps the simplest idea that he could have come to mind."

The game turned out to be an embodiment of the "stupid toys despised by serious gamers, in which the lack of a plot, external attractiveness and full-fledged development is compensated only by the perfect frequentness of the process. In the Flappy Bird, the player pokes his finger to the screen, trying to make the barely animated bird (she does not even wave with stuffed wings - in fact, they are barely visible) to fly into the clearance between vertical green pipes.

However, despite stupidity - or, on the contrary, thanks to her, the game became a sensation. In early 2014, she headed the lists of the most popular downloads, both Apple and Android, to the perfect perplexity of the Creator.

"It is not clear to me why Flappy Bird is so popular," said Nguyen in an interview with Washington Post. Ian Bogos, Professor of Interactive Computer Systems of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Gaimdizainer, wrote that countless players "amazes and oppresses the fact that they simultaneously hate this game and captured by it."

Video Games: Normal or Dependency?

Of course, the games are played also in order to reset the tension after a difficult day, to experience at least a bit of pride for their achievements or simply relax and disconnect from everything. And not every action that is paid too much time, compulsively. Excessiveness is not a sign of a compulsiveness (even if you leave aside the question that the very concept of "excessiveness" is subjective).

There are many reasons why people play video games at the expense of other classes and to the detriment of work, for example, get rid of boredom or pulling time, avoid communicating or cope with loneliness. But, as evidenced by the above examples, as well as the study of the phenomenon of the psychological attractiveness of the video game, for some people this occupation is still becoming a compulsion, including destructive.

From the first decade of the XXI century in South Korea and China, "reboot camps" are open to the treatment of children who are unable to resist the compulsive need for hours to sit for video games.

From this, however, it does not follow that the compulsice is a mental illness. A group of experts who determined which disorders should be included in the last edition of the "diagnostic leadership" of the American Psychiatric Association, studied about 240 studies designed to describe "painful dependence on online games."

As a result, they decided not to include a gaming compulsion in the number of mental illness officially recognized by science, having only taken on the fact that this problem deserves additional study. To date, science with certainty claims one thing: even a person with a completely sound reason can tighten a compulsive game.

Stream, Intermittent Reinforcement and Angry Birds

Nikita Micros is an interview in the wet from Pot T-shirt and with a helmet under the arm, Katya next to her bike. We agreed to meet in an old warehouse building on the shore in Dambo - Hipster district of Brooklyn, the kingdom of cobblestone bridges and coffee shops.

Micros, video game developer and arcade from the 1990s, offered me to spend the morning in his company and learn a lot of interesting things. For example, why a puzzle Candy Crush Saga from the Giant Mobile gaming applications King Digital Entertainment gathered 66 million players in 2013, Alec Baldwin allowed to plant himself from an airplane, ready to take off, just not to break away from Words with Friends **, Zynga, and Tetris, according to the results of the voting, turned out to be the most exciting game of all times and peoples.

Word With Friends.

"We learned a lot about how to make games seductive," I wrote a micros by email. "Unfortunately, from some tricks I am very urgent."
The micros rapidly leads me to the premises of its Tiny Mantis game developer. These are just two rooms and a dozen workstations. Among the gamers, the Micros was famous for creating such things like Dora Saves The Crystal Kingdom, Dungeonsand Dungeons and Lego Dino Outbreak.

The premises are forced by flat monitors surrounded by disposable cups from under coffee, the entourage is put on the universal visiting communications, painted brick walls, holes in the ceiling and posters with Mr. Spock and Panda.

The micros is per minute and returns in a fresh T-shirt - black, depicting the mona Lisa, which bleeds. I tuned all the morning to watch how it cuts into Diablo and Angry Birds.But he loads the presentation that prepared for me. Instead of producing monsters intestines, we are immersed in the idea Micah Chixentmichia.

Psychologist Chixentmikhai offered the idea of \u200b\u200b"stream" - the state of mind characterized by a complete unity with the current activities.

In a state of flow, you are so shipped in what you do that the outside world almost does not penetrate your consciousness, no other thoughts overcome your mind, disappears a sense of time, even hunger and thirst are not felt. Having been "in the stream", many are amazed: "Mother is honest, where time did and why do you want to eat?"

The best game developers explains the micros, the players are introduced into the stream state: "Forget yourself, a sense of time is changing. You start to play, and you yourself will not notice how it happened, but - opa! - it's morning already. Feelings from the game become an endwrithe. But each person has a flow zone has its own dimensions. If you put too many difficulties before players, they are experiencing an extralarge and surrender, and if everything is too simple, then they bounce and throw the game.

But being in the central zone, they are completely immersed in the process. " The flow is so attractive that the experience of his experience is chosen in the soul, and it is very difficult to abandon him.

One way to keep players of different levels "in line of flow", according to the micros, is to constantly adjust the complexity. This method was used in the classics of the 1980s. Crash Bandicoot *. If the player turned out to be fatally unable, let's say, jump into the moving shelves, the game showed mercy, not killing too far to the beginning in the event of the death of the character and simplifying navigation in complete obstacles to the environment.

On the other hand, it was worth gaining experience, and it became more difficult to play. "Some like it," the micros told. "Once I play everything better, they argue, let the tasks become more complicated, otherwise it's just a walk."

Another way to keep the player in the flow state is to, for example, crush the monster by applying a new skill against it, and in several subsequent situations use only this skill.

"Your capabilities are growing, now you can defeat the monster, who used to be invulnerable," the micros explained. - Good developers lead you a narrow corridor in the flow zone, increasing the complexity and immediately giving a little easier task, again increasing the level of complexity and again offering something simpler. "

I confess that I do not see anything special in creating games holding us in the stream. Obviously, the game should possess these characteristics to be attractive (since she needs to keep the player's attention long enough for him to have to draw), but this condition seems necessary for me, but insufficient. The universal recipe does not exist, the Micros agrees: "If we knew exactly what you need to do, each game would turn into Angry Birds."

For 4 years since the release of this game, Rovio Entertainment was downloaded 2 billion times.

It seems that people are not able to oppose the temptation using the virtual capabilities to throw a furry poultry in the pumping eggs green pig! Why? There are many reasons explaining why play angry birds fun: This is a simple game, no learning curve to you, and with a direct hit, the pig explodes, to delight any inner preschooler.

But the reasons for the unequality of the game are deeper. If the action is guaranteed to be guaranteed (successfully threw the bird - the pig exploded), then in the brain, the Dopamine Development System is launched. It was previously that its only purpose was to cause a subjective feeling of rewards or pleasure, but it turned out that the system acts more difficult: it calculates the likelihood that the action will ensure the remuneration and adjusts the expectation module in our brain accordingly.

"The presence of dopamine gives the brain the signal that the remuneration is expected to be expected - for example, the luxurious spectacle of the houses of the houses from glass and wood - in 2011 he wrote Michael Horost's psychologist at Psychology Today (removed Angry Birds from his phone to get rid of a compulsive need to play ). - However, the brain does not know how big will be a remuneration.

Bird just slides over the surface or cares right in the apple? This insecurity generates stress, and the brain is eager to relieve. As a result, you will go to everything to find this relief. " For example, you will again and again go into the course of virtual right.

It is not surprising that many people who are unable to stop playing bejeweled or even in Freecell, have far from pleasant feelings. They feel coercion, the impossibility of breaking out of the game and unwitting continue to play, almost not having fun, with the exception of rare moments of success.

Video games in some way "connect" to the depth properties of our psyche, forcing us to expect pleasure, cause us unpleasant experiences and forced to constantly repeat the experience, although we know that frustration and annoyance are inevitable.

Games can be attractive, not being especially fascinating because their developers exploit 2 Very effective psychological tricks: variable and intermittent (or probabilistic) reinforcement.

Reinforcement is intermittent with a variable probability of receipt of remuneration: sometimes for their achievement you get a prize (for example, a game trophy or transition to the next level), and sometimes ... nothing - for the same action.

Variable reinforcement - This is a remuneration system in which the value of the award for this achievement changes. Slot machines are quintessence of variable and intermittent reinforcement. Playing, every time you make a single action - pull over the knob of the one-armed bandit, - or, with the transition from mechanical devices to the electronic, press the button. Sometimes you win, sometimes lose - but in most cases lose. The input signal is the same, the output changes from the jackpot to ruin. It is not surprising that the sensational image of the lover of slot machines is a person chained to the car, as if hypnotized, mechanically fuel fourths in the iron closet. The compulsively playing, until everything declines, and forced to return home by bus.

Like a gaming machine, "Diablo uses variable remuneration, and this is one of the reasons why it delays it," the micros explained. I will explain for non-deployment: Diablo is a release of 2012 in the framework of the gaming franchise, founded in the long-standing 1996 Blizzard Entertainment.

All three releases are a role-playing game in the genre "action" with a focus on the mass extermination of opponents in the near combat (the so-called Hack-and-Slash, or simply "Rubilovo"). Player, he is the hero, leads his avatar through the Kingdom of Handuras, fighting with vampires and other enemies to end with the authority of the Dyablo, the lord of horror.

If you manage to go through 16 levels of dungeons and get to hell, the hero will come down with Dyablo in the final battle. On the way, the player moves the spells, receives weapons and other utility and interacts with various characters - warrior, robber, wizard and other.

At the beginning of the game of remuneration, in fact, fixed: you kill the monster, and something good happens, say, lift to the level or increase of "experience" (in fact, combat power). However, as the game is passing, the probability of obtaining an effective new weapon or another tool contributing to survival and advance, decreases, but the value of remuneration increases.

"You still expect it, but you get no time," the Micros says. - You are already accustomed to the destruction of this demon or monster will provide you with something useful, say, gold, special sword or onion. But now you do not know whether you will get anything and waiting for this moment with impatience, even with anxiety. "

Game developers call this effect of a compulcia loop. It is rooted in the peculiarities of our brain and allows you to understand the essence of the hybrid nature of the games. Like other electronic bait like mail and messaging services, video games are a textbook example of a classes in which addiction and compulsice flow into each other, as if a demon changing.

Game dependencies: access to dopamine

Addiction feeds the desperate need for another dose of pleasure. The reason for this is that addiction is born of pleasure - the initial experience is always a pleasant, exciting, delivering joy and buff. These sensations are formed in the so-called reward system in the brain.

The system is activated when we are enjoyed, and consists of neurons that are connected to the network under the influence of dopamine. The "connection to the neural network" lies in the fact that the electrical signal, reaching the end of one neuron, passes through the synaps to the next neuron due to the fact that the first neuron has been released into a synaptic dopamine slot.

Dopamine overcomes the gap between two neurons and is assembled by a recipient neuron, as MCS modules are collected space ship "Union". The "Gateway" of Neuron is called dopamine receptor. The fact of the docking contributes to the advancement of the electrical signal along the entire length of the recipient's neuron, and the process is repeated multiple times until we perceive as pleasure - a subjective feeling caused by food, sex, alcohol, nicotine, cocaine and the destruction of monsters in Diablo.

That is why all these substances and classes, being sources of deep euphoria, have a pronounced reinforcement effect.

However, the processes flowing in the brain turned out to be more difficult than the scientist was originally presented, and the dopamine production is not an exception. The activities of the Center for Pleasure is easier to understand if we consider it as a waiting mechanism: it forms the forecasts of how pleasant will experience.

To better figure out how video game developers use the Dopamine Development System, I turned to Jamie Madigan, doctor of psychology, for many years worked in the company that creates the game. Madigan became famous in the world of gamers thanks to the site of Psychologyofgames.com, where the materials on the topics of interest to me, including the Dopamic Parish, with which, on their own confession, he himself hardly coped, playing in Diablo.

At the end of Diablo, he told, "you complete the storyline", concluded in the extermination of vampires and monsters, in order to get to Dyablo and fight him, "and get more and more efficient trophies to kill more monsters and get more stronger trophies. " Levels more than ten, "and what best gear You acquire, the more the monsters become the lives. This is not the end. Gradually, I realized that I was doing the same thing for 3 hours every evening, and I was no longer happy. If I, who knows what elements of the game make it adhering, caught on the hook ... "It is silent.

But what are these elements provoking a compulsion? Nick Micros led another sensational example of a game, which, like Diablo, operates a system of variable / intermittent remuneration. This is a superpopular World of Warcraft, also known for its ability to put the players in a compulsion, offering them unpredictable and unexpected finds.

World of Warcraft.

Mass multiplayer network role-playing game (MMORPG), released in 2004, it has more than 10 million subscribers, each of whom chooses a character and passes the quest for many levels of the virtual world. In World Of. Warcraft players Choose a profession, such as a blacksmith or mining, and can master any of the four secondary skills (archeology, cooking, fishing or first aid).

They are combined to perform tasks, or situationally, or within the framework of permanent associations - guilds, inviting each other through the messenger built into the game, group "text channels" or, in some games, voice communication systems.

In guilds, players get access to the toolkit, which will come in handy in quests - missions forming the storyburn game and give players experience experiences, useful objects, skills and money. In addition, World of Warcraft and other MMORPG make the opportunity to escape into a carefully worked, complex, interesting world, where there are no parental hitters, self-masted chiefs or ungrateful spouses. They are expressing our desire for achievements, let the achievements - the defeat of the enemies, the destruction of monsters, the salvation of the princesses, the accumulation of wealth or the increase in the status and the transition to higher levels is not quite real.

This, however, is obvious psychologically and relatively innocuous factor in attraction of multiplayer games. Jamie Madigan was a victim of another mechanism. Once he virtuously destroyed the bandits in World of Warcraft, earning a chance to replenish the arsenal of armor, weapons or other consumables - trophies, which will be useful in subsequent battles and quests.

Trophies are of different quality, which reports the color of the accompanying text: gray - the weakest, white - a little more valuable, then green, blue, purple and orange. A character that the player chooses as an avatar also has a certain place in the hierarchy. "Classes" - monks, fraudsters, shamans, warriors and druids - have their own behavior style defined by them with weapons and protective techniques, as well as skills, forces and magic that are earned by the passage of all sorts of steps.

His character did not excel his character and hardly could hardly count on valuable acquisitions, so Madigan "was shocked by the treasured trophy - a rare pair of" blue "mittens, which ideally answered the needs of my class at that time," he remembers. For the grassland character "Find a blue item on a random enemy is a unique case, and I decided that there is a tremendous jerk.

More importantly, at the same time an acute desire arose to continue the game and kill more bandits. " Intermittent remuneration in the form of a rare trophy maintains passions of passions, like no expected and predictable prizes. "This is an incredibly effective way to hold people in the game due to the features of the functioning of the Dopamic Remuneration System," explained Madigan.

As you remember, "dopamine neurons" anticipate a splash of pleasure from a pleasant experience, igniting even before receipt of remuneration (for example, when the microwave signal tells you that your favorite dish is ready). "But this is just one of the reasons for the enormity of games based on the collection of trophies, he continued. - The main thing is that dopamine neurons are simply ignited as soon as your brain will learn to predict the event, but literally go to the ambulance, having received an unexpected, unpredictable dose of dofamin, and will harde you even stronger. Something like " Blimey! Another portion is unexpectedly niggy! Go on doing what you are doing while we are trying to figure out how to achieve repetition! " And you continue to play».

That with the fact that the rational brain convinces you to stop! If you are on an emotional platoon - for example, when you exterminate villains in an online shooter or rush along the Gran Turismo devilish tracks, squeezed with a screech of the tires, do not remember that they should take care of the bread of urgent, prepare for tomorrow's presentation or finish the course.

« All intentions dictated by common sense are powerless - you already think another brain, after some kind of smell beat your record in the shooter either you yourself made a stunning feat in another game, - explained Madigan. - The rationality crawls, prying the tail, and you suddenly understand that now there is a quarter to three and ahead of the working day, but still mirketing, you will pay one more, and that's all ...»

Nick Micros is not delighted with the fact that video game developers have learned to use the dopamine system. It seems half of the groundrooms in Brooklyn occupied by geimdizainers that embed a compulsion loop in their creations. However, not all people of this profession are proud of this, brought to perfection, the skill of colleagues.

"My hair stands from the games that are the material embodiment of the Skinner's drawer, the microson is admitted under the curtain. - I'm not so I want to make games, not in order for people to get food. I clicked on the lever, got a granule. I doubt that this is the way to the progress of mankind. "

Homegrown Neyronauca

I began to seem that I am going to the quest in Halo in the hope that the next room in which I entered is the next expert who will take an interview, will reveal the remaining secrets of a compulsive game. My next location was the Center for the Development of Games of New York University.

He so recently settled in the Metrotech business center in Brooklyn, that his director Frank Lance, who met me from the elevators, did not work the key card from the office. (We have reversed a student-diploman.) Monitors in the rest room were still wrapped with cellophane, the boxes were brown everywhere. The Center for the Development of Games, founded in 2008 as the School Department of Arts, offers a two-year-old master program to create computer games.

Lance is a legend in the game world. He is the co-founder of Area / Code (acquired Zynga in 2011), which has developed such Facebook games like CSI: Crime City and Power Planets ("Manage the fate of your own miniature planet. Building a building to ensure a happy life of the inhabitants, and ... Create Energy sources to support the development of their civilization ").

He made many games for the iPhone, including Drop7. In Sharkrunners, created by him for the "Shark week" of the Discovery 2007 channel, players can feel like sea biologists interacting in the ocean with real sharks to which GPS sensors are attached to supply the game by telemetry data.

Lanz sat for an almost empty table (his things were not yet unpacked) and expressed satisfaction with the fact that the gamedesign was finally recognized as a full-fledged academic discipline, especially since in this area there are ideas from such heterogeneous spheres as architecture and literature. "Most game creators pursue creative goals, and this is a stronger motive for them than the desire to make the game, from which players will not be able to refuse," he said.

However, if the developers are guided by aesthetic and other exalted considerations, game sellers' sellers as never before seek to get a unwilling game for their investments. In the old years, the teenager would post $ 59.95 for Gran Turismo, and it would be the latter that Sony could earn it on it. If the player lost interest, it did not care anyone.

In 2000 Another business model has established: instead of paying forward, gamers received free free access, often in the form of downloading on mobile deviceBut then they were appointed "Micropovum". For example, in Farmville you can buy a magic that restores the harvest (conceived because of your negligence, the hell would these homework!) Or accelerating it ripening (so that you have time to collect vegetables before you drive sleep).

Farmville constantly encourages players to return to virtual fields, because it has a timer: the harvest is dying, if not to spend it quite often. Many people tolerate cannot lose the extracted, and this effect is so strong that psychologists gave him the name - "rejection of losses".

Other games offer you to pay $ 1 or $ 2 for going around the obstacle, access to a more exotic part of the game world, a steep catch for your avatar or virtual food and drinks for virtual inhabitants Cityville.

In the microwave model, the adepebility - the appeal is so strong that the gamers are unable to stop playing, is Alpha and Omega. "A commercial operation is built into the game," says Lantz. - This causes truly serious disputes around the gamedizayne, as some techniques are perceived as manipulative. They are designed not to improve the player's impression or embody the developer's vision, and push you to microwaves. I doubt that gamedizaners are prolonged by the techniques of behavioral psychology to force the players stick to the game. Very few developers know that they create a compulcia mechanism. They want people, assessing the impressions of the game, they said it was cool and fun. Nevertheless, they understand what they are based on the knowledge of psychology. "

And it is gently told. The method of trial and error or during a targeted search, Irrodeli reached frightening power in creating undiscovered games. According to Lance, it also contributes to this elementary thing as a table of records, awakening desire to get into it and, thus, operating our deep need for high status, to satisfy which we are ready to play and play until we break into the first hundred (or We do not seek fingers).

Or, for example, "nested" goals. In the 1991 video game, Civilization participants, running in turn, "built an empire able to withstand the test of time", as the announcement said. In the role of the ruler of the future empire, everyone began his way to 4000 BC. From the only warrior and several commoners who could move to organize settlements. By studying new lands, diplomacy and wars, players developed their civilizations, the building of the city, accumulating knowledge (what would you invent certainly, pottery or alphabet?) And mastering the surrounding areas.

"Why is it so tightened? - Lanz picks up my question. - Because urgent goals are converged here: say, peasant resettlement or successful passing by your quest character, medium-term, which should be achieved for the next 3-4 stroke, for example, the creation of a city, and long-term, calculated on 10-15 moves [achieving the heyday of civilization] . The game is permeated with rhythm, and when the nearest goal is achieved and the mind could relax, you already reflect on several upcoming moves. Overlapping, or "attachment", near, medium and distant planning horizons is incredibly fascinating. In the real world, we often do not even suspect what is connected with. "

Let's say, we do not know what a momentary achievement could flow into something more. The digital world of video games gives certainty: from "A" must be "b".

Another method of developers, allowing you to make a computer game with adultery, is instant reward. "You commit some kind of action, and the character jumps," Lance explained. - It is very attractive, because in the real world many buttons are broken. " You click on the "Stubborn Learning at School" button, but as a result you do not fall into the elected college, as promised, or press the "Terms of College", but it does not help get a good job.

In video games, the button works as promised, "What makes them such attractive". World of Warcraft, provoking a compulsive game with a variable / intermittent remuneration, has another psychological bait, as in a good novel, detective or thriller. "That's why you open a" war and peace "every evening to read the next chapter," says Lantz. - You want to know what will happen next. " Ignorance is alarming - that is the most that makes the compulsively play. "Not so easy to dive into the plot, trace it to the end and able to part with him" - overcome a compulsion.

In that not everyone, it was forces, he was convinced Ryan Wang Cleve. Neborn Ryan Anderson, in 2006 he accepted a new name borrowed from World of Warcraft.

In 2007, on the eve of the New Year, his passion for the game was barely turned into a tragedy. Wang Cleve, Professor College, Poet and editor, was deprived of a teaching position due to a compulsive game: he played up to 80 hours a week and completely distinguished himself from his wife and friends. On December 31, he told his wife, which escapes the candies from cough, but instead I went to the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, where I was thinking to jump. Slipping, he almost fell in icewate Potomak, but she spook at the last moment and managed to spray from the edge. In 2010, he published a book "Get out of a virtual: My journey into a dark world of dependencies from video game" (Unplugged: My Journey Into The Dark World Of Video Game. ADDICTION), where described his drop in gaming hell. The game became the most important in his life, to the detriment of the rest: the wife threatened to leave, the children hated him, and parents refused to come to visit. "I deeply plunged into the virtual worlds, - wrote Wang Cleve, - that I barely remember what happened in real life. Almost everything went past me. "

Lanca is bitter aware that the skill and the creativity he sees in the gamedizayne can become the cause of such tragedies. "I think the development of games is something like homegrown psychology or neuroscience" on the knee, "he said. - Emotional experience is constructed, so, of course, developers take into account psychology. Long before the appearance of games with a free installation existed a goal to provide gamers an exciting experience, but under this it was understood as the creation of a suitable game, and not just a slot machine.

Developers know that if rising the necessary players resources: strength, opportunities, life, weapons - for example, in every 4th trash can, it will force people to continue to examine drawers. Such is the power of intermittent remuneration. "

"In all this, there are many shamanism," Lanz summed up. - We still do not know the exact cause of the popularity of Angry Birds. It is just something inexplicable. " Going to leave, I asked what his favorite game he had. It turned out, go - an ancient Chinese board game, in which you need to make the moves with black and white stones on a 19x19 cell board.

Dependence on Games: Digital Drug

The emergence of a compulsion at the video game fan is possible in the interval resembling a narrow mountain peak: it is worth come down one side in one direction from the top, and you will find yourself in the valley of excessive simplicity, to another - in the abyss of excessive difficulty. We throw too simple or complex games because of boredom or disappointment, so the gamedizers use adaptation to stay in the Gamer's "zone zone" (in astronomy the habitability zone, or a zone of life. The conditional area in space defined in the calculation that the conditions On the surface of the planets in it, the planets will be close to the conditions on Earth and will ensure the existence of water in the liquid phase).

One of the first such examples was Tetris. In this geometric puzzle From the top of the screen, blocks of different shapes are falling to the bottom - in the form of letters L, T, I, 2x2 cell squares, - and the player must have time to turn out and shift them in such a way that they formed a solid wall at the bottom, and the filled bottom rows disappear as the upper increments.

« It was called the Pharmitron, this electronic thing that affects the brain as a narcotic drug "Tom Stafford, Specialist in Cognitive Science of Sheffield University. According to him, Tetris is incredibly adultery, including because it uses a psychological phenomenon - the so-called zeigarnic effect.

Once, sitting in the Berlin cafe, psychologist Blush Zeigarnik (1901- 1988) noticed that the waiters perfectly remember orders that were not yet delivered to customers. But as soon as the order is executed, he is immediately forgotten. "It is remembered in progress," said Stafford, "and Tetris enjoys greatly. This is the world of endless unfinished affairs. With each completed line, new blocks fall on top. Each block that you put in place creates a new space where you can attach the following block. "

We remember unresolved tasks, and it causes us a need to finally make a business and anxiety until it is completed. "The Tetris game is ingeniously exploit the property of memory to engage for unfinished things and draws us into a compulsive helix of the tasks and creating new ones, Stafford continues. "The desire to complete the next case makes playing infinitely."

If we started doing something, have taken certain steps to goal, we feel obliged to finish. However, incomplete actions are mastered by our mind not only due to the effect of Zeigarnik. There is also an effect of non-refundable costs: we can not endure the case in which time and strength have already invested. If you have a task to write and send a letter and you have half-fulfilled it, you feel the need to continue work.

Many mmorpg exploit the tendency to avoid non-returnable costs, deeply tightening us from the very beginning. "These games are called, a high absorption speed," says Zahir Hussein, psychologist of the British University of Derby. - Starting to play, you fall into a very comfortable environment: Pleasant colors and sound effects, simple quests with whom you are working without any problems, getting a reward for this.

It makes it take more and more time. " Promotes this and use of another feature of the human psyche detected by a behaviorist B.F. Skinner in the 1950s: If the remuneration is becoming more rare and difficult to achieve, as it is typical of many online games, you do not just continue to play, but you will show an increasing compulsiveness in determination to get the prize, it would seem so available only 1 or 2 levels. Back.

In the World of Warcraft and other MMORPG at the bottom of the screen there is an indicator of the current state, which reports how many quests you passed and how much approached the next level or remuneration, - according to Hussein, this "stimulus to continue the game".

Stay so close to the next achievement, especially if it drops you at the beginning of a level or quest, means losing the time and effort already.

Be that as it may, the readers of Guardian in the survey of 2014 called the most "tightening" * game of all time Tetris, who scored 30% of the vote. Second place occupied World of Warcraft (22%), the third - Candy Crush Saga (10%).

Oh, this Candy Crush! To discover the secret of her devilish charm, I again turned to Jamie Madigan, who was tortured about the dopamine. I was intrigued by his analysis of the spirals of a compulsion, and I thought that no one would explain it better, why millions of people are so immersed in Candy Crush, which drives their stop, spit on homework, work around the house, and just work and forget about the existence of children , spouses and friends.

For non-reprehension, I will explain what is the game. The screen is filled with "candy" of different colors and shapes, and the player must, moving them, collect three of the same in a row (predecessor game, bejeweled, was arranged similarly). As soon as the result is achieved, the Trinity disappears, the surrounding elements are rebuilt, and you receive a reward in the form of multi-colored flashes, glasses, increasing the volume of sound and appearance on the screen of words-incentives, such as "yummy".

At the basic level Candy Crush appeals to the tendency of our mind to detect patterns in, it would seem random groups of objects - By virtue of this gift, the ancient Greeks and Romans saw the swan, twins and the Medveditsa in the chaos of stars scattered through the night sky.

candy Crush Saga

"During its development, the brain learned to notice something good even where it seems to not be, for example, to find a source of food, previously absent," Madigan explained. - Thus, by virtue of evolution, we are so much. We are so arranged that we are looking for meaning in the schemes, especially in unexpected schemes. "

Moreover, Candy Crush relies on our habit of putting things into place, all organize, generally restore order. It is for this, according to his own feeling, you take when looking at the playing field, where complete confusion reigns, knowing that you can rearrange the elements so that the same is the same next. Therefore, the game attracts and delivers joy.

There are, however, a lot of classes - watching movies, gardening, cooking or any other that you prefer in your free time - delivering joy, but not "sticky." According to Madigan, the game Candy Crush makes the attitude that remuneration does not just continue to do, but appear unexpectedly.

Sometimes with a drop in the three elements, a combination is formed, in which there are many such trips, and they all immediately fall behind the game field, exploding with bright outbreaks, loud sounds, demonstrating scored points and congratulations in full screen.

Because of this, "brain dopamic zones go crazy," said Madigan. - Something similar was experienced by our ancient ancestors, gathet hunters, who knew perfectly, where it was guaranteed to find food, when suddenly stumbled into a rich gift in a completely unexpected place, for example, on the fish stream or thickets of berry bush, which were not suspected before.

The 2013 study revealed the mechanism of action of this psychological phenomenon. Psychologists of Jordei Kvdbach from Harvard University and Elizabeth Dunn from the University of British Columbia divided volunteers to 3 approximately equal groups and gave the following instructions:

1. One forbidden eating chocolate for a week until re-visiting the laboratory;
2. Others gave an almost kilogram and ordered to eat as much as possible so that it was not bad;
3. Third did not say anything but requests to come again in a week.

Upon returning everyone, I was again treated with chocolate and asked if he likes. " Participants temporarily abandoned chocolate, he seemed much more delicious and delivered more pleasure "What those who in implicit form allowed there is how much wants or clearly pushed to chocolate gluttony, as scientists in Social Psychological and Personality Science reported.

Potential gamers

It is time to solve the next task - to find out whether the danger depends to turn into a compulsive gamer from the individual characteristics of the personality, age, gender or other variables.

Scientific study of this problem "sobbed" a mass of childhood diseases characteristic of a new study area. Even basic concepts - let's say, what makes the behavior of the problem and how exactly the behavior looks like, scientists, each in their study, are determined in different ways.

This behavior "is not a consistent nor specific," as Scott Kaplan said from the University of Debel. The problem illustrates the change in the description of the identity having the greatest risk of developing compulsive gaming addiction.

In the early 2000s, when fewer people were present on the Internet than now, studies of excessive hobbies online games (and excessive Internet use as a whole) set their main purpose the detection of prognostic factors of such behavior. Unfortunately, as evidenced by even superficial familiarization with published results, scientists "revealed significant correlations with a large number of psychological characteristics," said Daniel Cardeaufelt-Winter from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences in the article at Computers in Human Behavior in 2014 in fact , he continued, "Almost all psychological characteristics make a significant contribution to the likelihood of" development of gaming addiction. Calling things with their names, the most important risk factor is the presence of a human brain.

At first, a typical compulsive gamer was "lonely, experiencing difficulties in communication with the type, possibly with social anxiety," Kaplan told: "But in those days only as they played video games." Thus, the features of the individual were an external manifestation of genuine, the deep reason for excessive hobbies to the game, and not actually the cause. For example, such a feature, like neurotism, is associated with the inability to endure anxiety, and therefore it is fixed in the studies of the characteristics of the gamers. But not neurotism as such forces people to play in online games, and anxiety, which they cannot reduce other means.

Similarly, scientists revealed a correlation between excessive hobbies online games and a great multitude of personal features, such as, say, loneliness, depression, anxiety, shyness, aggressiveness, difficulties in interpersonal relationships, thirst for acute sensations and lack of social skills. These features, however, distinguished not so many persons predisposed to compulsive online behavior, as most of the Internet users, both different and no compulsiveness. "Today, everything is used by the Internet, including through smartphones, and a description of the type of people doing this is compulsively, should also change," Kaplan added.

As in the case of other compulsions, a compulsive video game occupation in itself is neither pathology nor the manifestation of spiritual disorder. People at many hours play games every day (use the Internet, Twitter, messaging services or Facebook, which will be discussed in the next chapter) "For the same reasons for which other actions are compulculated - due to boredom, escapherm, Competitions and sociability, because they are engaged in their friends, "Kaplan explained.

It is fundamentally important that online games, especially multiplayer, provide social interaction for saving laryout avatar What is attractive for people who are easier to communicate anonymously than to personally contact with familiar.

People with a fragile psyche can prefer online communication Just because personal is too stressful or bad them is given - a virtual life for them is more comfortable. Thus, many people spend a lot of time for video games in compensation. This is an adaptation strategy, a way to cope with stress or depression, escape from loneliness, boring work or any other disgusting side of the real world.

In the study of 2013, Kaplan with colleagues surveyed 597 adolescents who regularly played online games. The most reliable prognostic factor of the problem game behavior and the negative impact of games for the rest of the human life was to appeal to the game in order to normalize the mood (for example, to get rid of the despondency, boredom or sense of loneliness) and the inability to solve this problem in other ways.

"If I am alone and go online, this compensation," Clan explained. - This is not primary pathology. " Games give us something, what we need or what we want. If compensation is effective and becomes a duty tool from the alarm, it can become compulsive.

Do we respect the risk group? Not equally. How do you remember mass multiplayer network role-playing games, such as World of Warcraft, masterfully use a trick, which is caught by the "one-handed bandits" players, - a variable / intermittent reinforcement provided by such bars as unexpected valuable trophies, pressing our "dopamine buttons". Susceptibility to similar baits - almost universal human traitBut, as in any other point, there are many weak points.

Madigan expressed another consideration about the compulsiveness associated with video games. In addition to other hours, the simplest games like Candy Crush and Angry Birds distinguishes the ability to play in tiny intervals, say, between jobs at work, homemade, or on the way from point A to point B.

Doctors put addiction from computer games in one row with drug addiction and alcoholism. All these diseases cause rapid and painful addiction, subordinate to themselves the will of people, "tear off" from a full-fledged socially adapted life. Rarely, the playman can show the power of will and independently part with a detrimental habit. In most cases, such people need help and support for loved ones, as well as in the treatment of a psychotherapist.

What is a game dependency

The mechanism of influence of computer games on the brain is the same as in drugs or alcohol. It is simply used in the use of narcotic substances ENDORFIN is produced due to chemical reactions occurring in the body, and in the case of playing, this hormone is produced as a response to a sense of excitement, joy from virtual victories and achievements. In an effort to a permanent sense of happiness, a person is more and more spending on computer games.

The ailment develops gradually if the surrounding do not notice changes in behavior in time, then over time it will be formed in the hard form of the game dependency. When a real gameman is removed from his beloved classes, he begins to experience physical and psychological torments. In such a situation, with the help of some conversations, it is not to get rid of the problem, treatment with a specialist will be treated.

In most cases, the dependence on the computer, the Internet, the games are observed in the younger generation. Pretty rarely conscious adult holds days and nights in online games.

Signs

Psychotherapists are conditionally dividing dependence on computer games into two groups: the attraction to local games And traction to network online games. According to certain symptoms, you can distinguish the usual amateur to play on the computer from the game. The dependent person who needs treatment, the following changes in behavior are observed:

• inability to plan your schedule and time;
• neglect of vital affairs, such as studying, work, care about appearance;
• aggressive behavior in relation to factors distracting from games;
• no events can make the gameman voluntarily distract from the computer;
• during the game, the mood is always good, and when there is no opportunity to make a favorite thing, then the person becomes evil and irritable;
• constantly growing money "influencing" in paid games and various additions to them;
• the time that a person spends playing is constantly increasing;
• continuous desire to check whether the game update is available;
• dismissive attitude to its own hygiene, health and other factors in favor of the game;
• refusal to communicate with others, replacing their virtual characters.

The last two points are the most serious symptoms. If you noticed them from an amateur to spend time at the computer, then you know, a person needs to be treated with a specialist. The remaining signs are no less disturbing, but in some cases the problem is possible to solve a simple conversation.

Prolonged games on the computer postpone the imprint not only for human mental health, but also to physical. Dependent on games constantly experiencing the following sensations:

• pain in wrists and back;
• increased fatigue;
• headache and migraine;
• problems with sleep;
• permanent drowsiness, fatigue, sense of breakdown.

If the gameman has already appeared functional disorders from organs and systems, then for treatment is not enough psychological assistance. It will be necessary to refer to doctors to eliminate acquired physical diseases.

How to get rid of dependence

There is no unambiguous answer to the question how to get rid of the game dependency. In each case, treatment should be individual, thoughtful and soft. Psychotherapists consider radical measures unacceptable. Permanent comments and reproaches, ban to leave the house, deleting all games from the computer can only aggravate the situation. The gameman closes in itself, and psychotherapy will not give a positive result. Moreover, a person can generally refuse to communicate with anyone, he may have attacks of aggression, and even suicide attempts.

Not only the games dependent on the Games, but also his relatives, who are also experiencing stress. It is necessary to establish relations in the family, understand how to communicate with the player, how to help him return to normal life. Very often, family psychotherapy gives positive results. Thanks to such sessions, a person dependent on computer games is easier to refuse his destructive habit and moves the rehabilitation period easier.

Prevention

Preventive measures will help to prevent the development of dependence on games:

• consult a psychotherapist, offer a meeting with a specialist;
• try to understand the process and meaning of your favorite dependent games, it will help to find common points of contact, establish contact, go for rapprochement;
• try to avoid negative and sharp criticism of hobbies with computer games, try to express your opinion as gently as gently;
• find out what exactly attracts a person in the virtual world, which he does not like real life;
• limit access dependent on games, books, films containing cruelty and violence scenes, it will help to stop the attacks of aggression.

Do not forget that the affilatory computer games is a person who needs help. If you have noticed the signs of play dependencies, do not turn away from it, on the contrary, try to help. Alone, without the support of native people, and often the help of a professional psychotherapist, the playman will not be able to get rid of his destructive habit, and return to normal life.

The computer and the Internet entered our lives firmly, becoming indispensable assistants in training, work. But many people have almost no rest without a network: continuous downloading files, constant communication, browsing pages and virtual games. On the latter, we will stop today, having considered how the game dependence threatens, and how to get rid of the dependence on computer games?

What is a game dependence, and what is the impact of online games for adolescents?

In the scientific community to this day, disputes do not subscribe: to date for the discharge of narcotic dependence online Games or not. Most specialists are absolutely for what is not surprising at all. Network games in lately captured the minds of humanity. Users of one famous virtual mMORPG games "World of Warcraft" is already more than 4 million people in the world, and these are only people playing on official servers. As for the gamers using pirate servers, they are perhaps even more. But many playing in parallel immediately at several online games, coming up daily by computer games.

What is the danger of this innocent at first glance entertainment? It delays, a person develops a game dependence. Players forget about everything: forget to eat, sleep, about duties in front of loved ones, about children. Adults are familiar with work, because they are not able to interrupt game processTo go to work, lose families, because the virtual world for them becomes no less real than the real one.

But it is especially detrimental to the influence of online games for adolescents: students are massively deducted from prestigious universities, for the fact that they do not come to exams - they are no time, they kill a monster whole group, not daring to "bring others", from excellent students, children become two-testers. For large and quite real money, players acquire virtual items from each other, "necessary" in the game. To "pump" their virtual hero, they are thousands of money on servers that provide online games. Begin to spin, and then steal funds, the parents have to start. Very good, if a person succeeds in to come to his senses and stop this endless game marathon. And if not, if you can not get rid of the dependence on computer games? Where is it starting to gambling, what will turn out?

Definition of gaming addiction

Polls show that among adolescents 85% is playless, most of them have problems in personal and social life. But how do you know if you have or your relatively game addiction? Here are common symptoms that can determine the availability of dependence on computer and online games:

• You do not stop thinking about the game in which they played recently.
• Games are the main, or even the only, relaxation, relaxation.
• You can't find yourself a place because for some time they did not play.
• Games are the main means of your interaction with other people.
• Your relatives and real friends no longer persuade you to temper, reduce the time you spend behind the games.
• The amount of money and time spent by you on the game, over time only increases.

But even if you did not find playpie, you can bring a great benefit to your own life, just taking your own playing time. You should be aware that long sites behind a computer or a TV can significantly worsen your vision and posture, and night gatherings and to break the inner cycle of the body, the result of which is chronic fatigue and serious health problems.

Why do people suffer from computer gambling?

Gamesania call the type of deposit disorders, which relate to the group of psychological dependencies. And any gambling at the same time is the likeness of the drug. The game dependence has many varieties, but the most common is considered to be a computer dependence, Internet addiction dependence on slot machines. The most important form of any game is the game of money.

So why are people dependent on the game? The fact is that, in addition to satisfying its basic life needs, a person is also needed. And the game is one of the ways to get it, and often the simplest and "reliable" method. For a number of reasons, some people have the need for the pleasure of pointed, so they can easily be leaning towards games and fall from them into psychological addiction.

The reasons for gaming can be as follows:

• 1. Joyless life.
• 2. dissatisfaction with sexual life.
• 3. Psychological fixation (immaturity) in adolescent or childhood.

The consequences of the game dependency are very depressing:

• 1. Reducing personal level.
• 2. Large cash debt.
• 3. Loss of friends.
• 4. Family disintegration.
• 5. Loss of social status, work.

Physical and mental influence of online games for adolescents and adults

The permanent game is destructive not only for the social, social life of a person. In fact, the loss of money, work and deductions from the university are only flowers in comparison with the consequences that are noted on the physical and mental human health.

Gambling causes a person to interrupt, postpone the game only to meet the strongest physical needs. In other words, the full sleep, the adoption of food, leisure for eyes, walking, etc. There is simply no time. All these need is a person begins to perceive, as an empty spending time distracting him from the most important and interesting - from the game. He even in periods of sleep continues to play the game, which hit. A sharp loss of vision, gastritis, weakening of the muscles, problems with the spine - not all than threatening the game dependence of the winding player. There is real wide famous storyAs after a multi-day almost continuous game in "Warcraft" died from exhaustion Chinese girl.

The psyche of man suffers even stronger: a person becomes inadequate, every day he is harder to distinguish between the real and virtual worlds. Despite the fact that the world's world begins to call negative associations in it, since it does not have such an ability that endowed in the game, especially when everything in real life goes under Sunshi. As for the virtual world, here the player is strong, rich, is always beautiful, or even perfect and many other players craves with him to communicate. So why, in this case, do you need a reality? As a result, a closed circle is formed: breaks in the game that the player makes occasionally, only multiplies his future desire to play, hide in the virtual world.

Treatment from gambling

The reason that treatment is required from gambling is an emotional reinforcement of addiction. The chip of any drug is precisely soon, directly receiving an emotional feeding man.

Well, Pavlova's dog cannot control the selection by its gastric juice, when he hears the call. Call calls - gastric juice stands out. Reflex. And that's all! The same with a person. He sees the computer, and that's all, stomaching "gastric juice." Man led. Only half an hour, just one level, another five minutes ....

The game dependence is psychological, therefore the answer to questions "how to get rid of the game dependence", "how to get rid of dependence on computer games", "how to get rid of online dependence", etc. Only psychology can give. Treatment from gambling should be carried out by psychological methods.

Game, generating an obsessive desire to play, expresses a special psychological state. To overcome it to get rid of gaming computer addiction, a person needs to switch to such a state for which such aspiration is not characteristic.

If someone from people close to you got into a game dependence on computer games, urgently take decisive measures.

What to do, how to get rid of gaming addiction?

For starters, try to divert a person from the game, drag it in any way from the computer: offer to the child to perform some kind of home work, arrange role-playing sex games with your spouse, prepare a delicious lunch, watch movies, read books out loud, organize a walk or travel.

In fact, frequent talk about the future, conversations about money and career, discussing the meaninglessness of games are far from being so meaningless, as it seems at first glance. The main goal here is the formation of a negative opinion about the game, capable of making the game process, not so pleasant. Therefore, say, talk to a person who fell into a game dependence.

To save the game addiction to a person to socialize, that is, return it to normal life. Make sure to return to the real life of interest. Make it so that it takes on something constructive and interesting, but far from the computer and the Internet. For this, enough, as a rule, simply "dig" in his childhood, find out what he liked to do, and provide such an opportunity. If, for example, I liked to pick up with a moped - buy a used motorcycle, let him be. I liked to make aquariums - let the maker aquariums. Again, the goals and desires should be true! Then everything else is leveled by itself.

• Help loved ones and treatment from gambling.

To get rid of the gaming computer dependence, the competent participation of relatives and loved ones is simply necessary. But it is competent!

Let's imagine the life of some "conditional" Wasi, who at some great moment suddenly says: "Everything! I'm over it! I will not play any more! I liked me to play hockey in a childhood in the hockey, that's all! Throwing games, I go to hockey to play! " Yeah, right now! So it was released to play hockey! But to run for minutes by 5-10 after work in the game salon or an Internet cafe, he can and without demand - the usual thing.

In fact, the usual average person to choose from this swamp is practically not capable. Because even if it is very much desired to change my own life and get rid of gaming computer addiction, parents and wife unconsciously return it to this usual destructive direction. Judge for yourself. On the one hand, the spouse will cut and scandal that the husband plays and dream of getting rid of the game addiction. On the other hand, it is worth a husband to try to replace a detrimental habit, another, more positive (the same game of hockey) - the spouse will twist at the temple with a finger, which will be more than enough to start playing computer and online games.

It is necessary for a person who can hardly keep Vasya within and stimulate his desire to get rid of gaming computer addiction, as long as the new behavioral habit is not given firmly. We need a "guide" in this new, real life. Make it yourself, few can. So, either conscious help of loved ones, or treatment from gambling at the psychologist, again with conscious support for loved ones.

• How to get rid of gaming addiction?

If you are aware that you have every chance to try without the help of specialists to get rid of the game addiction of a loved one, then attach and use the following advice that people who managed to overcome it and get out of the game web:

• 1. It is necessary to reduce the access of the game for cash.
• 2. To seek help from friends, parents.
• 3. To achieve that he honestly admit himself and admitted himself depending on the game.
• 4. Try to make it look at the playing business at a different angle, and question your previous ideas about it.
• 5. Find an alternative to get carried away with something new or return to old hobbies, useful in every sense, and always contact the hobby in the event of a desire to play.
• 6. Teach the dependent, in other ways to shoot emotional stress, in addition to the game, (relaxation, physical activity, rational nutrition, promotion).

How to get rid of gaming computer addiction yourself?

Multiplayer games are initially designed so that with each regular new level the number of missions and tests increases, encouraging you and your desire to stay in the game with impressive game privileges. With this approach, the avid player quickly falls into the excitement, stops on the achieved it becomes very difficult. Below we led the most simple list of methods, how to get rid of dependence on computer games that can overcome this dependence and find the best way of self-satisfaction than earning virtual points in Game:

Step One: Decide.

Find the strength to make a decision to quit passion games. Understand: I will not work anything, while you personally do not decide to throw play and start living real life.

Such a solution can come completely suddenly, and can accumulate for a long time for many months and even years. One way or another, but deciding that it is time to stop, you need to completely devote yourself to implement this task. If it is very difficult - try to spend a psychological parallel with a gaming mission, and treat it as another complex test.

Step two: Become disciplined.

Please accept the fact that any dependent person should pass through it: almost always for the decision to quit smoking the phrase: "Another one, the last, will not harm." Attach all the forces to be tough and inexorable with yourself. Install the temporary framework for yourself, brutally punish yourself, limit yourself in good if you switched the line. Discipline in this case means you should install certain rules For yourself, which you will stick to.

Step Three: Learn to new skills in real life.

People dependent on the game, spend more time for computer games or Internet battles than for real work. What is the purpose of which meaning? Instead of spending time fighting with game bosses or raising game levels, you could learn to play guitar or learn foreign languages.

Perhaps you would have to postpone the money to travel to travel to exotic countries. Surely, you will beware, not to believe that you can experience the same fascinating adventures in the real world as in the world of playing. However, you will never recognize this for sure until you leave the computer, you will not go outside, and you will not know the world. Risk! You will probably like it.

Step Four: Restore your social life and relationship.

Think about how many friends did you manage to lose in the time you spent playing games? How are they now, where are they? You may be surprised that in the real life of your real comrades, adventures are much more than that of the game partners.

Go outside, go to a concert with friends, try to talk with unfamiliar people, take the lessons of dance or sign up for the skills of the speaker. Understand that here, in a normal real life, the only thing that can actually stand between you and your true desires is only your own inaction. Therefore, do not hesitate, start acting right today!

Step Fifth: Get rid of games.

Soon at some point you will realize that the desire to play began to weaken. This means that it is time when you need to get rid of all your games. The game dependence can, over time, weaken and amplify again, and even a few months later without a game, you can feel a wild desire for at least the "moment" return to the game world. Wire this desire. Already minutes after 5-15, without the presence of games, you will find that the desire subsided, and after half an hour, there is no trail left.

If you managed to find the strength to get rid of the online dependence or computer, to overcome it, it means that you just have increased your own level and were able to earn a few points, and it's time to move to a new level, a new task. Do not forget that the game world, one way or another, is limited by the imagination of programmers, unlike the real, which is limited exclusively to your fantasy. And here the quantity, complexity and interest of "levels" depends only on your desires. Develop your imagination, and fascinating your real life will not be a limit!

If it does not help?

If all the measures taken have no effect does not have any impact, then you need to seek help from specialist psychologists. A person needs a course of psychotherapy, qualified treatment from gambling. If it does not give the necessary results, then contact the center for the treatment of dependencies. Most of these specialized centers already have troubled, proven in practice the methodology, how to get rid of dependence on computer games, how to get rid of gambling any species.

Finally, I would like to emphasize: evil is not in the use of something bad, but in abuse of something good. If you know the measure in everything, and then the games will bring only pleasure.

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