The scurvy of gaming
Balance is the key to a healthy gaming diet
Issue #27 of LFG: Learning from Games is a plea to researchers to take a multidimensional approach when studying gaming and its effects on human health.
Hello JOMT Reader!
Balance is important part of almost every aspect of our lives. Too much of one thing or another can be harmful to health, even if it is something as innocent as water. That concept extends to our gaming habits and diets.
In Issue #26 of Learning from Games, I wrote about gaming diets, which refers to the mix of games that we play. I want to broaden that concept to also include our gaming habits: how long and often we play video games. At its core, a gaming diet is very similar to our food diets. And just like with food diets, a balance of how often and long we play, as well as what we play, is important.
Unfortunately, our understanding of gaming is immature compared to what we know about food. Nevertheless, the lack of understanding has spread like wildfire, focused on how long we play as a key part of the gaming diet imbalance. Some countries have formalized this misunderstanding into law and rules, limiting video game playing time in places like China1, Japan2, and South Korea3.
I also want to clarify that balance doesn’t necessarily mean achieving a perfectly still and precariously on-edge see-saw state. The goal isn’t to count calories of foods and exercise to burn the same number of calories. We’re going to eat more or burn more calories on some days compared to others; the important thing is that over time, it nets out to around zero.
An imbalanced gaming diet can lead to dire consequences, one of which was chosen as the Oxford Word of the Year in 2024: brain rot. It’s official definition is “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” Some will be quick to point out that video games are trivial and unchallenging, and therefore will lead to brain rot.
In this post, I want to explore some of these misconceptions and make a case for why the next step in gaming research should include the concept of a gaming diet. Research in gaming has outgrown the simplified and reductionist ways we used to do things. It’s time to think about our beautifully complex world!
⚠️What even is internet gaming disorder and brain rot?
Let’s take a look at the official definitions for both internet gaming disorder and brain rot.
Internet gaming disorder: a persistent and recurrent use of the internet to engage in games, often with other players, leading to impairment or clinically significant distress4
Brain rot: the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging
I’ve italicized the words that I think are open to interpretation. In the case of internet gaming disorder, persistent and recurrent is often interpreted as time spent gaming. The issue is that most studies relying on time spent gaming as a measure use self-reported hours spent gaming, which is “rarely an accurate reflection of logged digital media use5.” Most studies that say long hours of gaming is bad is based on data that is unreliable.
For brain rot, what is meant by supposed deterioration? Who decides at what point deterioration is happening? The same questions could be asked of trivial and unchallenging. What’s trivial for one might be challenging for another, even for the same game.
⛓️💥Does time spent video gaming really matter?
Perhaps the most telling piece of knowledge comes from a study that suggests internet gaming disorder and time spent playing video games aren’t as closely connected as we all assume.
The web of circles above shows the relationships between internet gaming disorder (in pink) and a bunch of other variables like mental conditions (in orange) and hours spent playing video games (in neon green). There’s no direct connection between hours spent playing video games and internet gaming disorder. It all goes through the orange circles like depression (BDI), anxiety (ANX), and attention deficit disorder (ADH).
Perhaps it’s time researchers stopped looking for one or few-way connections between video games and the problems they’ve been associated with. Continuing on the food theme, eating disorders may teach us something about gaming related disorders. Everything from the environment, immune system, and genetics is thought to play a role in eating disorders6 — the case might be similar for internet gaming disorder.
❓Why do we play games?
I hope it’s clear that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to an increasingly recognized but very poorly understood condition related to gaming. Based on the fuzziness of the definitions, there isn’t a single game type that will definitely cause disordered gaming. And there is inconclusive evidence about whether time spent gaming matters at all. So what is left if what we play and how long we play doesn’t matter?
The only question left is why. Why do we play the games we do and when? There are a number of categories of reasons why people play games, which vary depending on the categorization method. I discussed some of those models in a previous post, but for simplicity, here are three of them.
Achievement: in-game rewards and completing quests
Immersion: soaking up the virtual game world
Socialization: interacting with others through the game
When looking for a connection between internet gaming disorder and these motivations for playing, there’s a weak but clear connection between them7. Among them, immersion and a subset of this motivation called escapism, shows the strongest connection to internet gaming disorder. Again, it’s not to say that everyone who plays to escape will get internet gaming disorder; those who play to escape are most likely to also have internet gaming disorder.
🎮A personalized healthy gaming diet
No single game or game type is problematic. The length of time spent gaming also isn’t as important as we once thought. Even motivations for gaming have, at best, a moderate effect on internet gaming disorder. There doesn’t seem to be a gaming equivalent of a superfood that will be good for all.
Which is probably a good thing. How you and I enjoy games, what we enjoy, and for how long, is totally dependent on our individual background factors. What’s important is to consider what we are playing, with how long and often we’re playing, and perhaps most importantly, why we are playing them. When this is balanced, your gaming plate might look something like this:
(There’s too little carbs on here for my taste, but that’s just me. What’s the gaming equivalent of carbs, I wonder?)
There are two articles that sparked my idea for this post:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010440X24000518
The article above titled “Going beyond video game consumption when considering Internet Gaming Disorder,” was the initial one that exposed the lack of a connection between video game time and internet gaming disorder.
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/15/3/283
The second article, “Demystifying the New Dilemma of Brain Rot in the Digital Era: A Review,” fueled a bit of rage as it (wrongly, in my opinion) grouped video games with screen time that contributes to brain rot. I think that games, by their very design, won’t allow brain rot to set in.
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https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-rolls-out-new-rules-minors-online-gaming-xinhua-2021-08-30/
It’s an article from 2021, so it’s possible that these rules have changed in the years since it was reported. But 3 h/week?!? Really?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/business/japan-video-games.html
Unfortunately, this one is behind a paywall for me.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/esports-talent-skorea-gets-boost-big-business-easing-gaming-ban-2021-10-28/
This article goes the opposite way, lifting a decade-old rule that prohibited video game playing between midnight and 6 am.
In addition to this definition, a patient needs to have five or more of the following symptoms to be diagnosed with internet gaming disorder (taken from https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/internet-gaming):
- preoccupation with gaming
- withdrawal symptoms when gaming is taken away or not possible
- need to spend more time gaming to satisfy urge
- inability to reduce playing, unsuccessful attempts to quit gaming
- giving up other activities, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities due to gaming
- continuing to game despite problems
- deceiving family members or others about the amount of time spent gaming
- use of gaming to relieve negative moods (like guilt or hopelessness)
- having jeopardized or lost a job or relationship due to gaming
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01117-5
Unfortunately, this is behind a paywall, but their conclusion and quote is taken straight from the abstract on the page.
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/2/500
This review article focuses on the role of the gut microbiome and immune system in eating disorders. The insights gained here could very well apply to gaming related conditions.
https://mental.jmir.org/2022/2/e23700/
This is a meta review, meaning it analyzed results from a number of other studies to draw its conclusions. It’s not perfect, but it can start to give us a big picture view of internet gaming disorder.
This is interesting. I've long believed that the problem creeps in when escapism turns into actively avoiding responsibilities and when the prospect of playing is the main motivation in a person's life. In this light, games can be particularly dangerous because they feel productive and meaningful, this giving a sense of progress and mastery when there isn't much - considering that there is a balance between work and relaxing tasks that still involve mastery (according to the book Rest).