OT: Heavy Gamers ‘Act Like Addicts’

The research comes from Sabine Gr?sser of the Charit? University Medicine Berlin, in Germany, who claims to show similarities between  ‘learned’ addictive patterns of drug users and games players.

They compared 15 heavy games-playing men, with 15 who play games, but also enjoy other social activities. All were shown visual cues to a variety of activities. They showed little reaction. But the games players showed “classic signs of craving” according to The New Scientist, when shown screenshots of popular games.

In another test, the games players showed more significant eye-muscle contractions to game-related images than the controls.

Gr?sser claims the games players are using their activity for a dopamine fix. “ItÂ’s the same mechanism in all addicts,” she said.

The research comes from Sabine Gr?sser of the Charit? University Medicine Berlin, in Germany, who claims to show similarities between  ‘learned’ addictive patterns of drug users and games players.

They compared 15 heavy games-playing men, with 15 who play games, but also enjoy other social activities. All were shown visual cues to a variety of activities. They showed little reaction. But the games players showed “classic signs of craving” according to The New Scientist, when shown screenshots of popular games.

In another test, the games players showed more significant eye-muscle contractions to game-related images than the controls.

Gr?sser claims the games players are using their activity for a dopamine fix. “ItÂ’s the same mechanism in all addicts,” she said.