Local contexts of 'addiction' to online games

I’ve been a reader and friend of those on TerraNova since its beginning in 2003. Being a person who loves games, gaming, and games research, it is an absolute pleasure to be an invited guest blogger for TN this month.

I thought this would be a great time to share my plans for (dramatic epic music //) the dissertation (// dramatic epic music) so that TN readers may get a cursory idea of what I'm 'about.' My research involves taking a critical look at dominant discourses surrounding the phenomenon of “online games addiction” as it is understood in a colloquial sense, primarily the concept is presented in the mass media.  More specifically, I’m questioning the meanings of definition, regulation, and cultural value of excessive game playing in the context of Korean online game culture. My goal is to build an increased understanding of cultural factors in the evaluation and implementation of technology and the social fallouts that may coincide with that.

The widespread international concern of addiction to online games in particular, with which many TN blog readers are familiar, provides an excellent context in which to situate an examination of the interaction between Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and users in their lived realities.  I'm especially interested in how games are a part of that inquiry, increasingly acting as a medium by which users communicate and often facilitate meaningful relationships.  By thinking of  games  as a form of meaningful communication, it problematizes  how concepts like  'addiction'  to such activities are operationalized and measured (such as 'time spent online' or 'anxiety level when not logged on'). Should we think  about games in their myriad forms differently?   

In 2002, I was conducting my own ethnography of EverQuest players, having been inspired by the player-informed work of TL Taylor, Edward Castronova, and Nick Yee that I came across while doing research on networked games (no coincidence that they subsequently formed part of the original TN authorship base…). The main objective of my work evolved into the wish to contribute a nuanced critique of what I saw in the mainstream media: the frenzied reportage of causal relationships and mystification associated with online games, the people who play them and their supposedly horrible addictions to online games. A paper explaining that ethnographic study published in Interactive Convergence can be found here. 

Once I finished that study, in 2003 my gaze could turn fully to Korea and the online game culture there. I had been intrigued by the news stories about online game addiction coming out of the country for quite a while. Korean youth were making international news headlines for their apparent excessive gaming habits and associated health problems, such as obesity or exhaustion from lack of sleep. In some cases, excessive gaming was highlighted as the reason for youth self-destruction. That is, the stories seemed to be in lieu of public service announcements, stating that if people gamed too much, they would most certainly become addicted and could die like these people in Korea. The concerns over the case of online games addiction in Korea in particular are still present worldwide.  Heck, it's still kept my interest, because the questions  are  complex and the answers multi-faceted.   

The online games phenomenon in Korea has been a double-edged sword, actually. From the business side, reports have clearly lauded the rapid uptake of ICTs in Korea, citing forward-looking policies and innovative implementation. In addition to that, many have specifically highlighted the online gaming industry and its place in popular culture as an economic strength and simultaneous path to the nation’s future and the global information society writ large. On the flipside, one can clearly not ignore the fact that there are stories of people spending hours playing video games at the PC bangs (PC rooms) in lieu of going home, studying, or eating. Implicit in these stories are the images of wagging fingers, saying, “Let this be a lesson to us all--that’s what will happen if you play games, so you’d better not. You can get addicted, LIKE A DRUG.”  Well, thoroughly dissatisfied with what I thought were incomplete representations of why Koreans were playing games so darned much, I decided to go to Korea to live the culture and see for myself whether or not the fuss was warranted.

During my 2004 ethnography in Korea, I examined the cultural, social structural, and infrastructural explanations of why Koreans had an international reputation for being particularly susceptible to online games addiction. I found that in addition to Korea’s unique cultural, historical, and geo-political circumstances as key enablers of online gaming, participation in communities oriented around those activities was a way that Korean youth (the majority of online gamers) were exercising self-determination and in many cases attempting to garner the esteem of peers. Life factors such as dense living quarters with family, a 93% unemployment rate for those ages 15-19 (KNSO, 2005), and compulsory military service for males in their early twenties, were just some of the catalysts to Korea’s reaction to and with online games cultures. It was therefore important to document and thickly describe (Geertz, 1973) how these youth negotiated these contingencies as they presented themselves in the midst of their everyday lived realities.

With a second ethnographic fieldwork stay that I plan to do in 2008, I wish to build upon my previous findings by collecting a more varied data set, incorporating a “top-down” look from government and industry perspectives. I'm looking at these sectors as laying the groundwork for what I observed in my previous “bottom-up” player-oriented findings from 2004.

Ultimately, my work would be a product situated in a point of tension (what would be the point, otherwise?), comparing empirical evidence with more traditional theoretical frameworks concerned with the underpinnings of society and technology, in order to continue addressing the nature of online gaming culture as something constantly in flux. I expect that the resulting product will expose the inherent flaws in any explanation of online gaming culture based solely on the theoretical extremes of technological determinism or constructivism.   It's  never,  after all, "Just a game."

Ahead: My next post will cover the very sentiment of games not being just games. 
Until then, pwn or be pwnt.

Comments

[Jason Mittell]

1.

Florence - this sounds like a great project! If I might self-reference, I want to call your attention to an article I published some years ago (available for downloading at my blog), “The Cultural Power of an Anti-Television Metaphor: Questioning the ‘Plug-in Drug’ and a TV-Free America.” While writing about a different medium & cultural context, I was trying to trace out the dangers of applying a drug metaphor to a medium via a discursive analysis of anti-television activism. Perhaps it would be helpful in thinking through part of your project. Good luck!

[Florence Chee]

2.

Jason--Thanks for the reference! I definitely welcome sources you or anyone else think might be of help as I'm especially in the collection phase right now. Much of the media/moral panic literature I have been reading center around television (Think: Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, Joshua Meyrowitz's No Sense of Place... etc). Television has been something derided in the media as the cause of the brain melt in our youth, but now with THE INTERNET and online games especially, those doors have been thrown wide open. Thanks again!

[mark]

3.

This sounds like a fascinating project. I wonder if the situation of the young people in Korea has any relation to the phenomenon of 'hikikomori' in Japan? I believe Michael Zielenziger's book touched on that subject, and perhaps it may contain some useful references.
Good luck!

[Florence Chee]

4.

Mark: Hikikomori implies a person's social isolation or withdrawal (more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori)--a fascinating topic from a social analysis standpoint. However, while not completely unrelated... I would say that the phenomenon I am addressing in the Korean context presents a case that argues against games being perceived as a vehicle of isolation. Instead, a youth's participation in online games more often than not indicates an intense desire to socialize (and that is the compelling part). We still, however, have a long way to go before people's perceptions of those who game as 'isolated gamer geeks' are adequately tempered.

[Thomas Malaby]

5.

Hey Florence, welcome to TN! Great to get a broad-angle sense of what you're doing and where you're headed.

I wanted to mention that I happen to have *just* taught your Popular Communication article this week, in my seminar on games and culture, and the students enjoyed it very much. Your commitment to a complex (i.e., multi-causal) accounting for culturally-located gaming practice not only finally pushed against some students' continuing assumptions about addiction, it squared with a central theme of the class (and my work, as you know) -- the necessity of a processual approach to games. You allude to this more directly at the end of your post here, and I couldn't agree more. Good stuff.

[Neils Clark]

6.

Florence, I’m ecstatic to see you taking *complex* approach to ‘addiction.’ Korea sees a lot of these big sensationalist issues (addiction, violence) in a fundamentally different light, and you’d have to be partially lobotomized not to account for that (Then again, I guess that's not being fair to partially lobotomized people).

You’re right. Korea’s unique cultural, historical, and geo-political circumstances are, as you say, going to be key enablers, but we’re all still fundamentally using the human body to experience a game. In the ‘mysticising’ of addiction, we’ve lost sight of not only culture, but of how real addiction, chemical imbalance and mental disorders actually work. Some people really do get to a point where they're dependent on a game, and they can get to that point via a number of pathways. This 'mysticism' has also restricted new approaches to the topic. Games are new, and MMO games are brand-spanking new. They're not a drug, they're a platform for creative expression (a platform that can become ridiculously attractive). Might it not be possible that games toy with our perceptual systems in new ways? Ways which may ultimately be tricking the senses of Koreans and Americans alike (let alone people in other countries, or people who may pick up a game in the future)?

There are many, many elements to this which have not yet been explored, let alone made so that a general public can understand them. 8-item addiction checklists and online therapy (see Kimberly Young) are potentially very damaging, in both the way that they address an individual’s problems, and in the way that they portray the issue to a general public. It’s bad news for everybody when journalists focus on such people, especially the experts with vested interests in the status quo (addiction treatment is big biznezz). Worse, that coverage gives people simplistic impressions, and those are going to get harder and harder to shake.

I respect where you’re going with this (I mean, who doesn’t want to study games in Korea???). Seriously, though, this is excellent approach because it not only shows that “flux,” but because seeing parts of the bigger picture start us on the long road to earnestly helping the people involved in addiction.

[Neils Clark]

7.

And also to acknowledging those people for whom it is an integral pastime. =P

[Steven "PlayNoEvil" Davis]

8.

Florence -

I have been tracking the addiction issue at my blog, so I may have some reference material that is of use to you.

[Michael Zielenziger]

9.

I am often asked about the difference between "hikikomori" i.e, social isolation...and Internet-related obsession. Most Japanese hikikomori (80 percent we believe) are NOT surfing the web. They do not want to engage in social dialogue with others...even former friends.

Therefore, the rise of "PC bang" and now Internet "addiction" in Korea relates to the different nature of social networks in the ROK vs Japan. I do touch on the differential natures of such networks in my book, Shutting Out the Sun.

[ron meiners]

10.

Hi Florence, and welcome!

This is a really fascinating area I think, and one likely to have a growing impact on our lives and how we understand culture both as researchers and as individuals. And your piece has already started what promises to be a very valuable discussion.