Matthew Moore: A recent study co-authored by a University of Arkansas professor has found that online gamers are more likely to be protected against depression through religion and spirituality.
Lindsey Lundeen is a professor of counselor education and supervision at the University of Arkansas and co-author of the study. She joined me yesterday in the Bruce and Ann Applegate News Studio. She says studying the topic of online culture and gaming is personal for her.
Lindsey Lundeen: At my 30th birthday, I bought myself a computer because I'd always wanted to game and then bought I think every other platform that came with it because I was so excited to start gaming. John, my co-author, is also a gamer, and we have been alongside gaming addiction studies for a while, but it didn't highlight the internet as a whole. Since there's kind of like this echo bubble in counseling where it's like we're going to look at the individual behaviors and not necessarily how everything intermingles.
So our personal investment is like, hey, we've seen this research done on the addiction front. How does it work with the internet as a whole, and how do we promote gaming as not good or bad, but just a behavior? Because I think a lot of the time gaming is really good if you're in the gaming world, or gaming is potentially addictive and there's no in between. So it was like, how do we study the overall impact of people who are, quote, chronically online?
Moore: I imagine that sort of personal insight helped to better inform and better frame your study as well as you kind of talked about there. I think there is a bit of stigma one way or the other around gaming and people who make it a big part of their personality — not only do you play games, but all of your ancillary hobbies are also related to gaming, too. The subreddits that you visit, the discords that you're involved in — it kind of encapsulates all of your personality.
Lundeen: Yeah. And people follow different social media. They could be involved in social media. There's online gambling. There's Twitch streaming that maybe you're watching TV, but it's actually Twitch, so it's somebody else gaming. So you're gaming by proxy. So it's like the internet is in all of these ways... For instance, I was on a Discord call on the way over here, but that very well could have been a Teams call. So the thought is like, I'm a gamer and I am also in a job that uses the internet a lot. So how do we look at, I use it for work. It's in my car. I have a tablet right here. We're doing this to where it will likely go on the internet and people will hear it. So it's kind of that, how do we encapsulate all of that and show that it's great and needs moderation?
Moore: It just is. Which I think leads really well into this idea of religion and spirituality, which many people think of as it just is. That it can be problematic, it can be beneficial in a similar way. How did you come across this perhaps unexpected crossover in these Venn diagrams of spirituality and gaming?
Lundeen: It's more so like spirituality and the internet, period. In gaming, you often hear — and I don't know where this originated from — but you always hear the, I'm gonna go touch grass, of I've been in front of a screen for too long or I've been gaming for however many hours, like it's time to go touch grass. That in and of itself represents spirituality in that you're going outside to feed your spirit and nurture your soul, aside from a religious organization or something like that.
And so I think we were trying to look at major depression. One of the protective factors is always religious or spirituality. So since the outcome that we were looking at is how do we prevent or predict major depression among online gamers who are chronically online with various aspects of internet addiction, what could protect against that? And so our ultimate variables at the top of the regression chain were therapy, enrollment and just endorsing. I didn't look at frequency or anything. It was just do you do this? And that was substantially impactful in predicting protective factors against internet addiction, even with every aspect of internet addiction represented in the model.
Moore: That's really fascinating. It's funny that you make this it can be as complicated as, like a full blown religion, or it can be as simple as touching grass, which, obviously, I think really does stem from this online culture and this gaming culture. Were you surprised once you put all of this data together and found these results?
Lundeen: Yes and no. I think when studying broader internet addiction and thinking about social media or work-related internet use, it was surprising that one would think maybe that already happens. This was a nationally stratified sample, so it could be that there were different pockets. We didn't look at that part. But it was surprising that the overall general population was like, yeah, touching grass is helpful, for lack of a better way to put it. And that's just endorsing that they're doing it. That's not even like, yeah, I have to do it seven times a week. That's like, I do it. It could be occasionally. It could be lots.
Moore: Your study focuses on people aged 18 to 24, squarely in the Gen Z generation. As someone who is a millennial, I grew up in a time where I almost always had a computer in front of me, but it looked very different from the computers, tablets and the devices that are in front of 18 and 24-year-olds now. How do you think parents or adults in these people's lives can help encourage or support folks in this demographic who are seemingly pretty aware of the addictions or the control that the internet has on them?
Lundeen: I think one would be just from the beginning talking about the intention behind the usage is massive. I do a lot of research about Reddit and suicide in particular, but it's that knowing why you're doing it is really important. If I'm going online to maybe escape — that's one of the variables in the model — looking at escapism and how are we coping with that and how are we using that escapism. If it's intentionally used and then we unplug and we go do something else — maybe you're playing an instrument, or maybe you're going outside, or maybe you go to church or synagogue or something like that — then that conversation alone from the very beginning is helpful in teaching that this is going to be a part of your daily life. I think we have five-year-olds practicing coding sometimes. They're implementing this in a lot of ways very early on. And so by having those familial conversations, it can become an everyday note that, hey, this could become problematic. And it doesn't have to be.
Moore: I think the thing that perhaps draws us to gaming or draws us to the internet are a lot of those things. I'm finding meaning in the videos I'm consuming on TikTok, or I'm finding meaning in the way that I'm playing games. I'm finding that I belong in a community when I'm able to be a part of these discord servers, or I'm making friends by playing these games. And I would imagine what you're arguing here with your research is this can happen online, but this can also happen offline too, and maybe ought to.
Lundeen: Yeah. And that's the yes-and occurrence that happens in therapy counseling so much. Let's say you have some sort of identity that doesn't match and isn't going well with where you're living and you feel isolated. You might find that community online. I think World of Warcraft even has cemeteries and people do funerals in games with their gaming community because they have that and they might not be able to make it otherwise.
So it's that I'm trying to find that community if you can, and if you can't, having that community but then doing another practice also. Maybe subsidizing that with finding your favorite kind of flower outside, or going through an account of who you need to let go of that resentment toward. That forgiveness piece can lead to less feelings of lacking belonging that could reconnect you with people. And it could also just be something for your own spirit and internal essence, essentially.
Moore: I think there's really something powerful in, as an adult, modeling good behavior to younger folks. But I think there's also a real empowerment in you seeing that behavior and letting them know, hey, I'm modeling after you as well. I think that's a real moment of empowerment for younger folks to see that like, oh, I can be influential too. I can make meaning as well, and it can be validated and strengthened in that way, too.
Lundeen: Yeah. Well, and if you think about it like the generations… So like, I'm a millennial, but I'm on that cusp at like 1991 of if you look at the generation below me, what is generation Z. They're more advocacy related, they're more everything. And that's maybe how they're finding meaning. Or they're promoting different things that they feel are like a cause, like that's massive. And that in and of itself is making meaning and protective. And so, like you said, being able to emphasize, like, hey, what you're doing is really freaking cool and highlighting it here or highlighting it here. And then, oh, by the way, I'm also going to do it because you said that like that, like kind of permeates it.
Moore: Lindsey Lundeen is a professor of counselor education and supervision at the University of Arkansas and co-author of the study on spirituality and chronically online people. You can find the study here.
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