New research suggests that gaming and internet addiction can indeed be successfully treated long-term with cognitive behavioral therapy.
While surfing the Internet and playing games can undoubtedly be good and relaxing, for some people this can become a problem. That’s why, in 2018, the World Health Organization officially added a new entry to its International Classification of Diseases: Gaming addiction, which is characterized by gaming habits so extreme that it has a negative impact on daily activities.
At the time, researchers thought cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) might be a useful tool to combat this condition. This therapy is a relatively simple and practical therapy that is widely considered the gold standard in the treatment of other obsessive conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, eating disorders.
A new study published in the journal JAMA Open Network provides the first evidence to support this hypothesis. “To our knowledge, this cluster randomized clinical trial is the first to investigate the long-term effects of a manual prevention program,” the authors write. “This intervention effectively reduced symptoms of gaming disorder or unspecified internet use disorder for 12 months, which This is a clinically, scientifically and politically important step in dealing with this newly recognized disorder.”
The study followed more than 400 students aged 12 to 18 who were considered “at risk”, meaning they had “high symptoms of gaming disorder and unspecified internet use disorder.” These students were divided into two groups: a control group that did not receive treatment, and an intervention group that took a CBT course called PROTECT.
Subsequent interviews were collected during the following year, first one month later, then four months, and finally twelve months later. The researchers reported that “both groups showed significant symptom reduction over 12 months,” while the effect was “significantly greater” in the intervention group. This “shows that intervention has an effect above and beyond spontaneous remission,” the study states. In other words: therapy successfully reduces the severity of the disorder.
Professor of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia and founding director of the Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Clinic and Research Program at the BC Center for Child and Women’s Health. These findings were “just in time” given the last few years, says Evelyn Stewart. Stewart, who was not involved in the study, noted in a paper accompanying the study that “the myriad negative effects of COVID-19 among adolescents” may contribute to increased screen time among teenagers. As Stewart writes
, today’s teens are struggling to cope with “a shift from one-on-one to online education; canceling sports and other extracurricular activities; and coping with increased family stress, parental demands, social isolation, and unstructured or unsupervised time.” It has to, and this is causing many to react by seeking solace in gaming and online communities. As we know, this isn’t always a bad thing, but unlike other pandemic-induced activities among adults, such as gardening and bread making, internet use and gaming behaviors among teenagers have addictive qualities that can increase long-term risk.
The researchers also note that their study has a few limitations: It’s unclear how generalizable the results will be, as it was a less-than-ideal study. More importantly, the nature of gaming and internet use disorder means that people with these conditions are often not very good at participating in self-help therapies, and most students who can attend do not.
Still, researchers think they’ve taken an important first step in treating the problem: “Overuse of video games and internet applications (especially during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic) is on the rise, highlighting the need for prevention and early intervention. “Information from the trial can be used in follow-up studies with larger samples and high-risk participants to confirm the reduction in incidence rates.”
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