Video games and pornography can become hazardous obsessions
According to addiction expert Dr Hilarie Cash, video game producers go to surprising lengths to make their games as engaging as possible. She claims that many games companies “hire professional psychologists these days to help them develop the best unpredictable reward payoff structures… [stimulating] the reward centres of the brain into releasing dopamine and opiates.”
With the vast selection of releases vying for gamers’ attention, this makes good commercial sense. It has long been recognised that pornography and cybersex trigger similar releases of dopamine, so I also wonder whether sophisticated pornographers could use similar techniques. There’s a scary prospect, especially for those who are already feeling hooked.
Dr Cash also explains how some of her young, gaming-obsessed clients suffer serious intimacy disorders:
They’ve handled their sexuality with pornography, which means that their sexual template is divided out between sex and intimacy. That’s a recipe for an intimacy disorder – they don’t know how to bring sexuality and social things together.
Here is Dr Cash’s conclusion on how we can address all of these technology-fuelled habits:
We need to figure out how to build the firewalls into our lives that can help us cope with its influence,” she says. “It’s… analogous to our dealings with cars. When we first had cars, we didn’t have stop signs or safety belts. But through all the accidents that happened, they figured out what they needed, and now driving a car is pretty safe.
The full Vice Magazine interview can be read here.
“She claims that many games companies “hire professional psychologists these days to help them develop the best unpredictable reward payoff structures… [stimulating] the reward centres of the brain into releasing dopamine and opiates.”
If this is true, it’s completely vile.
YES! I’d have to totally agree with Margaux. Its just freaky disgusting to manipulate peoples psyches so knowingly just to ultimately make a profit out of them. Its totally 100% stinks, the makers of these games must have lost any sense of moral conscience.
YES! and leaving aside the questions of morality. Isnt it interesting that the two most profitable things on the internet are pornography & online gaming (gaming). Both are designed to create a relationship of dependency. I have long thought that one of the most horrible or ugly aspects of the culture we now live in is the loss of healthy boundaries and with it respect for self and others.
“WE NOW LIVE IN A TIME WERE THE LOSS OF BOUNDARIES AS A HORRIBLE HARMFULL EFFECT”.
Boundaries and limits are vital to having a good well balanced pyscholigcal state. If you have no self control and if you indulge your every whim because nobody stops you. You end up becoming like a spoilt infant who ends up having a tantrum. A fit of rage because someone takes away your drugs, your booze, your porn, your games and asks you to grown up and to face your pain or face the situation that you cannot always have what you selfishly want.
PEOPLE DONT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OR VITAL IMPORTANCE OF BOUNDARIES, WE ARE LIVING IN A TIME OF FEW OR NON EXSISTENT BOUNDARIES.
** One which is characterized by breath taking inequalities i.e. bankers who are allowed to get away with literally robbing ordinary people whilst there are millions of people unemployed. We live in a dreadfully divided society right now.
The question is which comes first? the loss of boundaries or does the using of the porn or drugs or gaming lead to a loss of the boundaries we once had. That begs yet another question (one I dont know the answer too) once the boundaries have been lost or damaged can they be repaired, healed or relearnt. I myself can only bear to use the internet now with very solid and strong content filters in place, I have set up my own boundries I know that without such limits in place I would quickly slip backwards or should I say might be vulnerable to slipping back into old habits. Habits which I recognize would not good for me or my well being.
Well put, Margaux and Alex!
On the subject of video games, ‘legendary’ porn star Ron Jeremy had the following to say at a recent electronics industry expo:
“We don’t want kids to watch porn,” he told the crowd. Though if they do, he added, there are far worse influences out there — like video games. “[Studies have] found that violent video games are much bigger a negative influence on kids.”
I take his point that unlike porn, games are specifically marketed to teenagers. I also agree that parents should take notice and responsibility when their kids are losing themselves in games, porn, violent films, drugs, whatever.
But kids are clever at going under the radar; I certainly was.
YES! kids going under the radar of adults or parents. Thats very true and a serious issue i.e. and once again related to smashing the boundaries, or over riding the boundaries but more likely there are no! boundaries.
Why? because we now have a digital divide meaning one generation of parents who are NOT Tech savy or much much less tech savy than their own kids. Meaning that kids often know more about the tech and what can be done with it or what can be accessed with it than the adults. How can a parent draw a clear & precise boundary about horrible internet content if they know little too nothing about their own kids suffing habits. Especially as many many teens now have both TV with games consoles & Internet access in their private bedrooms.
And I havent even mentioned the growth of porn that is now accessible via mobile phones such as Apples iPhone or Blackberries,etc. Nobody has mentioned the 3G mobile phone network that carries both porn still images as well as porn clips & movies, such content is chargable by the Megabyte & Gigabyte. And of course kids are clever or have imaginative ways to get accounts with mobile networks and get access to such content without parents or adults knowing or being fully aware. More boundary issues!!
Very good point Alex.
As you say, more and more smartphones are capable of streaming high resolution images and video, and are proving massively popular with consumers. And just as we witnessed with video and the early internet, the adult industry is quick to adopt new channels and advance the technology even further.
So many of the recommendations to parents (install filtering software, move the computer into a family room) are already out of date. Even more reason for parents to take an educational approach to setting boundaries, rather than lazily relying on software gadgets.
Sadly, the porn companies always go where the money is. Meaning the porn production companies are just incredible at being on step ahead of the game in exploiting new forms of technology. They seem to often have an uncanny knack of predicting where they can place themselves & their products in order to make maximum profits before anyone else gets there before them.