We aimed to measure the prevalence and length of the problem of pathological video gaming or Internet use, to identify risk and protective factors, to determine whether pathological gaming is a primary or secondary problem, and to identify outcomes for individuals who become or stop being pathological gamers.
A 2-year, longitudinal, panel study was performed with a general elementary and secondary school population in Singapore, including 3034 children in grades 3 (N = 743), 4 (N = 711), 7 (N = 916), and 8 (N = 664). Several hypothesized risk and protective factors for developing or overcoming pathological gaming were measured, including weekly amount of game play, impulsivity, social competence, depression, social phobia, anxiety, and school performance.
The prevalence of pathological gaming was similar to that in other countries (∼9%). Greater amounts of gaming, lower social competence, and greater impulsivity seemed to act as risk factors for becoming pathological gamers, whereas depression, anxiety, social phobias, and lower school performance seemed to act as outcomes of pathological gaming.
This study adds important information to the discussion about whether video game “addiction” is similar to other addictive behaviors, demonstrating that it can last for years and is not solely a symptom of comorbid disorders.
There is no mention of a control for a little known problem discovered to cause mental breaks for office workers in the United States forty years ago.
This exposure is capable of causing psychiatric symptoms of fear, paranoia, panic, anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide.
With low-level long-term exposure that subliminally appreciated emotional stimulus would color thought and reason.
The problem is caused by repeating failed subliminal attempts to trigger the vision startle reflex.
Full mental investment to play video games is the same level of mental investment to perform knowledge work in business offices and requires Cubicle Level Protection to avoid exposure. The office cubicle was designed to block peripheral vision for a concentrating worker by 1968.
Basics of human physiology that allow this exposure are explained in first semester psychology under the physiology of sight, subliminal sight, and peripheral vision reflexes.
When the accidental discovery by designers and engineers is mentioned it is treated as a single incident that happened only once. An example is, "Subliminal sight caused a problem in the early days of modern office design."
As a normal feature in everyone's physiology it will happen anytime the "special circumstances" for it are created and maintained long enough.
Without eliminating this exposure the study is tainted because Subliminal Distraction causes the outcomes observed not the game content no matter how violent.
Although the information is used daily by engineers who design "Systems Furniture," cubicles, it is unknown by anyone in mental health services.
Conflict of Interest:
I write a website about Subliminal Distraction exposure.