Allison, Sara E,
et al. “The Development of the Self in the Era of the Internet and Role-Playing
Fantasy Games.” Psychiatry Online, 1 Mar. 2006, ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.163.3.381.
Summary:
This article is
a case study on the patient known as Mr. A. Throughout the article, the authors
are discussing various facts about Mr. A’s personality and mental disorders and
abilities, even going as far back as his childhood. Their focus being on how
Mr. A perceived himself. They want to find out how the development of the self
is correlated to video games, specifically, online role-playing games. In their
conclusion, they find that these video games are both beneficial and harmful
when it comes to developing one’s self.
Response:
I enjoyed
reading this article. I found myself agreeing with it a lot. I really do
believe that we make our avatars to be who we want them to be. That is, we make
our avatars into better versions of ourselves. In the article, Mr. A’s avatars
were always something incredible that he felt he could never live up to. This
leads me to further believe that the way we perceive ourselves impacts our
gaming experience.
I believe that
self-confidence and your perception of who you are really do dictate how you
are going to act socially. These also dictate how one reacts to video games and
the online identity we have. Social anxiety is very important to research of
this type because it shows us that people who have it are more likely to turn
to video games to “escape reality”.
I believe the
most important take-away of this article is that one should learn to be
comfortable with who they are-the good and the bad. If you think about it, it
makes complete sense. When we do not feel inadequate with who we are, we are
less likely to turn away from outside social interactions.
I thought it
interesting that the authors compared gaming addiction to drug addiction. They did
this with the mention of the hormone dopamine. I both agree and disagree with
this. Dopamine is a “reward” hormone. We get this with various things: food,
affection, etc. To have tried to use this idea as an argument was silly to me
because if we wanted to use dopamine as a factor in this, we would have to talk
about food and love addictions as well. Still, I do agree that when playing
video games, dopamine is released into our brains because we play video games
for enjoyment.
The only thing
that I would change about this article is for it to have included more than one
patient. It was interesting to see how many social/psychological issues affect
our perceived selves. Not everyone has the same mental/social capabilities, so
it would have been interesting to see how these authors would have discussed a
different patient with the same studies being done.
Quotations:
“…Mr. A had a
lifelong history of…and anxiety about new social situations…” (381).
“…Mr. A relied
upon this activity as a means of escape, allowing him to avoid the unpleasant
anxieties of his internal world” (383).
“…some research
on Internet game players has shown that repetitive playing leads to dopamine release
in the nucleus…” (383).
“In other words,
he could put on a new identity like a new suit of clothes, becoming someone who
walked on water, healed others, and cast lightning bolts, in stark contrast to
his daily experience of himself as inadequate” (384).
“…adolescents
and young adults may need encouragement and assistance in accepting the diverse
aspects of the self that are often in conflict with one another” (358).
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