What’s Wrong with Addiction to Video Games

In a posting on addiction Bennett Foddy points out whilst we universally regard addiction to tobacco as bad we are more ambivalent with regard to badness of addiction to video games, see http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/. In this posting I want to examine what’s wrong with addiction to video games. Before I carry out this examination it is necessary to understand the different types of harm caused by addiction.

However if we are to understand the harm of addiction we must have a satisfactory definition of addiction which is both useful and captures our intuitions. Smoking is clearly addictive. Smoking is harmful because it damages our health. But overeating might also be regarded as harmful if it leads to obesity which damages our health. Yet we don’t regard all overeating as an addiction. I am of course not denying there are some cases of overeating which might be regarded as addiction. It follows physiological harm cannot be used in isolation to define addiction. Addiction might be defined as someone not having control over doing, taking or using something, to the point that it may be harmful, see www.nhs.uk/conditions/addictions .

Is the above definition a satisfactory definition? Let us assume someone is greedy and who because of his greed becomes obese damaging his health. Intuitively such a person need not be addicted to food, being a glutton is not the same as being an addict. However if we were to use the above definition a glutton would be classed as an addict. A glutton lacks control over food because he is greedy not because he is compelled to. Let us compare the case of a glutton with that of a smoker. In the case of a smoker as opposed to a glutton his lack of control is due to compulsion. A compulsion caused by nicotine. In the light of the above my initial definition of addiction might be modified as follows. Addiction is not having control due to some of compulsion over doing, taking or using something, to the point that it may be harmful. It is important at this point to be clear that not all compulsive behavior is a case of addiction. A mother may feel compelled to love her child, she may feel she can do no other, but nonetheless intuitively we would not regard her as addicted to either her child or love. It is of course possible for some people to become addicted to something that resembles love. However I believe it is impossible to become addicted to love for reasons I will give later.

Let us accept the above definition of addiction. There are two elements to this definition. Firstly the harm caused by the addiction and secondly the agent’s lack of control due to compulsion. I will examine the harm element first. The harm element of addiction might be physiological or psychological. I will now argue any physiological harm is not part of the harm peculiar to addiction. Let us once again consider our mother who feels naturally compelled to love her child. Let us assume this mother is a single mother who works long hours to enable her to care for her child to the best of her ability. As a result of these long hours she becomes overtired and harms her physiological health. As I have pointed out intuitively this mother is not an addict. Next let us consider two patients with damaged livers. Let us assume the physiological harm, the damage to the liver, is identical in both cases. Let us also assume that in the first case this damage is caused by disease and in the second by alcohol addiction. However it seems to me the harm caused to the alcoholic’s liver is not a peculiar type of harm connected to addiction. Viruses may cause identical damage to someone’s liver as that caused by alcohol abuse. We should of course try to eradicate addictions that cause physiological harm just as we should try and eradicate diseases which cause harm but the peculiar harm of addiction does not seem to be captured by the nature of any physiological harm.

I will now consider two forms of non-physiological harm that might be particular to addiction. Firstly a virtue ethicist might suggest that addiction damages someone’s ability to act as a moral agent. Traditionally the cardinal virtues are wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance. Let us accept that an addict is not a temperate person. It follows provided you accept virtue ethics that someone’s addiction harms him by affecting his ability to act as a moral agent. However, even if one accepts virtue ethics, it does not seem to me that a lack of temperance is a peculiar harm to addicts. After all someone may be a temperate person before he suffers a stroke and become intemperate after.

I now want to consider a second non physiological harm that might be particular to addiction. I will now argue that addiction harms the addict by harming his status as an autonomous agent. Before making this argument I must make clear what I mean by autonomy. Autonomy is not just simply the ability to choose. A wanton may be free to choose whatsoever he wants but his will is anarchic, moved by mere impulse and inclination, see Frankfurt, 1999, Necessity, Volition and Love, Cambridge University Press. Intuitively someone whose will is moved simply by impulse and inclination is non-autonomous because autonomy involves self-government. Someone might argue that the exercise of autonomy involves an agent freely making rational choices rather than simply being free to choose. Adopting this definition means that because an addict’s choices are compelled by his addiction he cannot freely make rational choices. It then follows such an agent is unable to exercise his autonomy. Before we can decide whether we should accept either this definition or the conclusion that follows from it we must be sure about what is precisely meant by rational and freely. Firstly does rational mean logical or does rational simply mean the agent chooses what seems appropriate to him? I would suggest being autonomous means an agent must be free to choose what seems appropriate to him. Secondly does the freedom to choose involve freedom from both external and internal compulsions? I would suggest in this case being autonomous need only involve being free from external compulsions. For instance a devout Christian might feel compelled to profess his faith even if he is free from all external compulsions but few would regard his profession as non-autonomous. In the light of the above an autonomous decision might be more precisely defined as one in which is the agent’s decision is free from external compulsions and is one which feels appropriate to him. Clearly if this definition of autonomy is accepted it means any external compulsion such as drug addiction damages an agent’s ability to make autonomous choices.

Accepting the above definition means addiction damages an agent’s autonomy. Someone might now suggest that this definition is incomplete because it does not cover all forms of addiction. He might then point out the above definition appears to exclude some gamblers, compulsive consumer’s of pornography and many others as addicts. He might further point out that such intuitive addictions are caused by internal compulsions. I fully accept his point that some internal compulsions cause addiction. But I would reject his suggestion that the above definition is incomplete by arguing any agent would see such internal compulsions as inappropriate. A lover may feel compelled to love his beloved. However love is not an addiction because the lover identifies with his beloved and is satisfied by his compulsion. In other words he finds his love appropriate. On the other hand a compulsive consumer of pornography may feel compelled to consume pornography but is unlikely to totally identify himself with this consumption or be satisfied with it. He is in other words unlikely to feel his consumption is appropriate. It follows addictions caused by internal compulsions with which the agent fails to identify damage his ability to make autonomous choices. It does not follow my above definition of autonomy is incomplete. The damage addictions cause to an agent’s ability to make autonomous choices may vary. In some circumstances mild addiction may do very little damage to someone’s status as an autonomous agent. In others his addiction may mean he is unable to make decisions he identifies with and which satisfy him. In these circumstances he may suffer psychological harm and in extreme cases his sense of identity may be damaged.

I am now in a position to answer the question posed at the beginning of this posting, what is wrong with addiction to video games? I have argued the harm done by addiction may be physiological or psychological. The physiological damage of smoking is large and well documented. I have argued the psychological damage done to us by addiction is damage done to our autonomy. In the light of this I would suggest the psychological harm caused by addiction to tobacco is minimal. Smokers may prefer not to be a smoker but in all other respects they can exercise their autonomy in much the same way as non-smokers. The harm done by addiction to video games is different. The physiological damage done by addiction to video games would appear to be minimal in contrast to the damage smoking causes. However the psychological damage done to game’s addicts may be much larger than the minimal psychological damage caused by smoking. Games addicts may prefer to play these games less just as smokers may prefer not to smoke. However unlike smoking which causes minimal damage to the smoker’s autonomy the games addict’s ability to make autonomous decisions may also be limited by the time taken in the playing of these games. In addition some young children who become addicted to video games appear to become aggressive and this also may hinder their personal development and ability to make autonomous decisions, see for instance www.rcgd.isr.umich.edu/aggr/articles/... . Four conclusions follow from the above discussion. Firstly it might be concluded that the addictions of tobacco and video games cause different types of harm. Secondly the harm peculiar to addiction is harm to the agent as an autonomous agent. Thirdly the harm caused by addictive video games, though different, may be every bit as serious as that caused by smoking, perhaps even more serious. Lastly far from celebrating the addictiveness of certain games we should see this addictiveness as potentially very harmful.