Analysis of popular game addiction theories
After reviewing a couple of different articles on this site on game addiction, I decided to show them to a specialist with 30 years of practical experience in treating all sorts of addictions with the psychotherapist narcologist AG Danilin .
From his conversation, we decided to prepare an article.
Views on the computer addiction of modern psychologists and psychiatrists, from my point of view, are divided into three types.
In Russian psychiatry and narcology, it is customary to look at computer addiction as well as addiction to psychoactive substances - as a disease .
')
As a treatment, a ban on computer games and “substitution therapy” with psychotropic drugs is proposed.
The second view is the interpretation of the dependence on virtual games through a primitive biological system . The creators of computer games ... play on human weaknesses and form the player's reflex behavior. In this logic, the gamer is something like “Pavlov's dog” at the computer.
The third view, which has not taken root in the general consciousness, considers the dependence on the game as an attempt by a person to replace some of the most important internal psychological needs. The game is a kind of “flavor identical to natural”.
In this article we will try to present exactly the third look at the problem of dependence on computer games. Immediately, I would like to make a reservation that the discussion will deal with first-person shooters, “Doom-related games” or simply “shooters-shooters”, because they are quite popular, that is, very attractive to the consumer.
Today it is fashionable to talk about dependence on computer games using the “theory of operant learning” of B.F. Skinner At the same time, however, it is forgotten that this theory, having turned into a method of compulsory re-education, brought many misfortunes and did not find practical evidence.
“Operant learning” can, of course, change a person’s behavior, but only for the time it is found, depending on the psychologist (voluntary or forced). Coming out of prison or from a rehabilitation center that used Skinner's methods, people returned to their usual forms of behavior — see Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.
The meaning of the explanation of virtual addiction in the light of Skinner's theory is that a person, advancing through the levels of a computer game, receives “reinforcements” - small psychological pleasures resulting from winning or winning. The emergence of dependence on the game is explained by the fact that in real life a person receives much less “reinforcements”, and in the game he can receive them all the time.
However, the same “little pleasures” we can all get by playing board games, solving a crossword puzzle, skiing down the mountain, etc. All this today is no less accessible than a virtual game. So why does a person choose the virtual world and virtual “reinforcements”? Proponents of the Skinner concept do not provide an answer to this question.
Psychiatry explains dependent (addictive) behavior by chemical factors: vodka or heroin cause so-called. chemical dependence, that is, pathologically change the metabolism in the body, causing a "disease" - the inability of a substance user to adequately control the external world. Responsibility for the emergence of addiction and its consequences seems to be shifted ... to the psychoactive substance itself, with which we begin to wage an active struggle.
The same view is transferred to the so-called non-chemical dependencies, among which there is also a dependence on computer games. True, for some reason, it is forgotten that chemicals and virtual games, unlike humans, do not have free will. Beer cannot run after a person — this person runs after a beer — I often repeat to my patients. Computers and consoles, too (at least, for now!) Don't run after a man. If you try to accuse electronic devices or chemicals of arbitrary actions of a person, you will have to “level off” human will in “scientific” attempts, reduce it to biology - instincts or genetics.
Nevertheless, psychiatry and narcology prefer to think as usual, considering that a computer game causes “excessive excitation of the nervous system”, which, in turn, actualizes a “personality defect” for some players: deeply hidden “innate tendency to dependence”. The very concept of dependence equates to psychosis. It is called the "third endogenous disease" and is even considered one of the options for the development of schizophrenia. A “treat” addiction seems to be deliberately suggested with the help of antipsychotic drugs, which suppress the will.
Neither psychologists nor psychiatrists want to take into account the very possibility of arbitrary (independent) human behavior.
If a player or a drunkard is unable to control himself (he does not have free will), then psychologists or psychiatrists will be in control of his behavior (and his wallet).
Is it possible to reason about virtual games, based on the recognition of the presence of a person of free will?
Yes, only then you have to admit that playing for days on end in Doom-shaped games has some kind of goal (voluntary actions are possible only if there is a goal) and meaning for the mental world of the individual.
I know only one job, seriously exploring the psychology of computer addiction from a similar point of view. This is a small book, written in 2003 by Igor Vladimirovich Burlakov, called “Homo Gamer”.
In his conclusions, Bourlakov relies on Carl Jung's ideas about the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Archetypes , or prototypes, are “energy centers”, originally incorporated in the structure of the psyche of all people. Archetypes can manifest themselves in our actions, images of dreams, as well as traditions, myths and fairy tales. Archetypes do not have any one stable form of incarnation: they manifest themselves in different images, but their essence remains the same.
Identifying the archetypes in a computer game is not at all difficult: all the "monsters" and "enemies" of the shooter are somewhat similar to each other, although it is impossible to draw the original image of the "enemy" or "monster". The same applies to “heroes”, for whom a fan of “Doom-shaped” games plays in the first person. Heroes are different, but they are all heroes.
According to Jung, in the process of self-discovery, man needs interaction with the archetypal images of the unconscious. Without these images, the mental world of a person loses energy and integrity. At the level of our feelings, this is expressed in depressions, phobias, nightmarish dreams and a sense of meaninglessness in one’s own life. People of consumer culture have little or no self-knowledge skills. After all, a person who thinks about why he needs certain goods is a bad consumer! However, the need for interaction with the archetypical images of their own unconscious remains in all people, regardless of the time in which they live, and the surrounding culture. Each culture has its own ways of interacting with the archetypal images of the unconscious. In the East, these are meditative practices, and in the West, from the light hand of Jung, analysis of one’s dreams and dreams is also a kind of “meditation” on the images of one’s own imagination.
The consumer is not ready to sit either in the lotus position or engage in self-knowledge. (It is symbolic that in modern speech the word “self-knowledge” has been replaced by dismissive “self-digging”). He acts in accordance with his “cultural tradition” and ... buys goods, replacing them with unconscious images and meanings of his own psyche. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard would call such products "simulacra." Material objects (like a computer game, a car, a huge TV, etc.) become a kind of “prosthetic feelings”, replacing our need for self-expression, self-knowledge or creativity. A virtual game satisfies a gamer's need to interact with the archetypes of their own unconscious. The more images of a computer game will correspond to unconscious images of players, the more popular the game will be and the more the consumer will depend on it - this rule is well known to the creators of games.
What are these images and the archetypes generating them? Analyzing shooters, I.V. Burlakov noted that all of them are based on the principle of movement through the maze: the player moves along intricate corridors, overcomes obstacles, moves from level to level, etc. This allowed Burlakov to identify and describe the most important archetype of the maze.
For many centuries, the image of the maze retains its significance. Images of labyrinths occur since Neolithic times. Europeans are familiar with the image of the labyrinth from the ancient Greek myth of the Minotaur, a half-man-half-bait living inside the labyrinth. According to the plot of the myth, the brave Theseus enters the labyrinth and kills the Minotaur, and the tangle of threads that Ariadne gave him helps the hero to find a way out. Today, entertainment culture reproduces the image of the labyrinth of the Minotaur again and again. In real extreme games, participants go through labyrinths where they are faced with challenges and dangers. Why is the maze archetype so important?
Because the movement through the maze is one of the main metaphors of the process of human life. In everyday speech, we often use metaphors associated with the image of the maze. We are not talking about life in general, but about the "life path"; we do not know what awaits us "around the bend"; talking about "approaching the end of the path of life"; we are talking about the “curve track” that a particular person has chosen. "Life to live is not a field to move on." The more complicated and confusing the living conditions become (or games called “life”), the more often we pronounce the word “labyrinth” itself and recall its “dead ends”. People who prevent us from “going our own way” are often called “monsters” or “animals”. Do we recall the archetype embodied in the image of the Minotaur?
If you understand the labyrinth as a metaphor of life, it becomes clear why many ancient sanctuaries were built on the principle of a maze. In India, for example, labyrinths endowed a magical force that facilitates childbearing, so each woman had to go through the maze. The Hopi Indians passed through the sacred labyrinth not only women in labor, but also elderly people. It was believed that the passage through the maze allowed the soul to be born again after the death of the body.
Christian culture has also preserved this ancient symbol. The fact is that the classical Cretan labyrinth was built on the basis of a cross, so it easily fit into the symbolic system of Christians.
For example, a labyrinth on the floor of the Gothic cathedral in Chartres and the cathedral of the twentieth century in San Francisco.
What was the purpose of the journey through the sacral labyrinth?
At the end of the labyrinth, in its center, a man had to acquire some kind of treasure. The ancients considered this “treasure” the acquisition of a genuine, holistic soul by man. Having passed the labyrinth, the young man gained the ability to overcome all the trials of life, and the old man could enter into eternal life. For Christians, the main treasure was the same cross in the center of the labyrinth. By the way, Karl Jung considered the cross to be one of the main symbols of the self - the integrity of the personality. The sacral labyrinth is a model of the eternal movement of a person through the labyrinth of life - the path to the attainment of spiritual treasure, which modern people would call the goal or meaning of life.
What does all this have to do with computer games? The most direct. I want to say that the labyrinth of a computer game has become a substitution for the sacred labyrinth: after all, a gamer, moving from level to level of computer game, in the image of a character goes through a kind of “initiation” - overcomes obstacles, acquires some superpowers and finds his “treasures”.
No, no, I do not suggest that all gamers march off to wander through real labyrinths that are still preserved in landscape architecture. After all, the ancient labyrinth or modern labyrinth of a computer game is only a symbol, a material embodiment of our inner experiences. A true “labyrinth” in which we wander, trying to choose the right path, find the meaning of life and defeat our “monsters”, is a space of our imagination, dreams and dreams.
American psychotherapist Arnold Mindell argued that the plots of our dreams always unfold in a space that has a clear structure. Simply put, in a dream, we always wander through some kind of individual "castle" or "house." The house we wander around in a dream can be represented as a multi-level labyrinth ... in 3D format. Summarizing, the plots of our dreams can be described as the search for a way out of the various dead ends of this space and meetings with the monsters that prevent us from finding a way out.
Dreams are a reflection of our day dreams. But in a dream, as in real life, we are not omnipotent. Unlike a computer game, which you can enter at any time, reincarnate as a hero and become a winner.
The computer game substitutes our own dreams, and therefore the desire to translate them into real life. There is no need to overcome internal deadlocks - just go to the next level; no need to strive for the fulfillment of a dream - just finish the game.
Each of us has to discover the meaning of our existence, just thinking about the meaning ... as boring as the monotonous wandering through the maze.
The complaint of boredom is one of the most frequent complaints of modern people who turn to a psychotherapist. Boredom - this is the “monster” that prevents us from moving through the maze of thoughts. It is we who need to conquer it in order for life to acquire meaning, and dreams began to be embodied in reality.
Inside the real labyrinth, as in the maze of thoughts, a person finds himself alone with himself. Therefore, the labyrinths were used for spiritual initiation: a person had to go one-on-one a monotonous and long way, despite the boredom and the feeling of "deadlock".
The labyrinth, like the inner space of the imagination, is a monotonous environment, where there are a lot of monotonous sensations and very few will take to find the right direction. The labyrinth corridor, formed, for example, in solid rows of shrubs above human growth, requires the utmost concentration of attention on trifles - broken branches, leaf growth features, etc.
Monotonous repetition of mental or physical effort, requiring constant attention stress, we call the word "work." At the mere mention of this word, I want to yawn and it becomes incredibly boring. However, the principle of temple labyrinths that exist in reality lies precisely in the training of such mental effort. For example, in labyrinths painted on the floor of Christian churches, a person had to move on his knees, repeating the same prayer. In order to achieve the feeling of the presence of God, the monk or neophyte had to learn to overcome the feeling of monotony and boredom, while maintaining vigilance, allowing to notice even the slightest signs of the presence of a divine principle. "Sparks in the impenetrable darkness" called them Thomas Merton - one of the main specialists in Christian meditation. The Jesuits believed: God manifests himself only in insignificant movements, hidden in the depths of the human mind. They learned internal vigilance and ... were able to conquer half the world.
I think that I’m not mistaken if I say that something similar is happening while playing shooters: the player must remain vigilant, “be alert” all the time.
What is the difference between spiritual searches in the space of the sacral labyrinth and traveling through the virtual labyrinths of a computer game?
The fact that the maze of the game has nothing to do with the inner world of the player. A game is entertainment: it was created by other people to distract us from boring thoughts about our own lives. Solving the tasks set by the authors of the game, we forget about the reality in which each next step requires our focus and meaningfulness. A game is an absolutely defined system, even despite the creators' attempt to fill it with realistic details and give game objects some kind of “soul” - a complex system of conditions that, in combination, gives a sense of “randomness” of what is happening and the ability to make independent steps. But, in fact, each next step in the game ... other people came up with for us. Moving through the maze of a computer game, we are looking for other people's treasures, forgetting about the need to look for their own.
That is why every gamer once realizes that he spent a huge amount of time is meaningless, nowhere. After all, the game, unlike meditation, study, self-knowledge and other "boring" activities, brings to the life of the player noticeably less than he subconsciously expects from it.
I don’t want to say that computer games are bad. I just want to say that in addition to traveling in ready-made labyrinths created by other people, a person must build their own internal labyrinths and learn to travel in them.
I can not tell you that our radio program “Silver Threads” on Radio Russia has the format of the “Fantasy Theater Radio”, in the framework of which we learn to make trips to the inner spaces through symbols and images. The journeys “Magic City” and “Magic Island” are devoted to traveling within one’s own imagination; these programs are recorded on the Internet. I say this because “Magic Island” and “Magic City” are such models of imaginary labyrinths and games that you can play with your imagination and with which you can learn, for example, to concentrate on your desires and effectively fulfill them.
If a game in imaginary labyrinths or mazes of board-based role-playing games, for example, starts to enthrall you, the degree of your enthusiasm for Doom-shaped games on your computer screen will fall very quickly.
At the same time, I do not at all think that it is necessary to give up or get rid of Doom-shaped games. Escape from the dead ends of internal labyrinths is also sometimes necessary, and here a shooter may well help. For example, help relieve tension, relieve stress, hide from frustration, or restore wounded pride by playing on monsters.
The main thing in matters of dependence is not the total exclusion of the factor that caused the dependence from life, but control over it. If you are fond of building internal labyrinths, fond of traveling around the world of the tabletop role-playing game, that is, you are fond of what requires your own thinking, and not speed of reaction, you can easily control your attitude to Doom-shaped games.
I'll start from afar. Ray Bradbury has a prophetic tale called Veld. In the distant future, children have a playroom that can reproduce everything they think and fantasize about. Once parents pay attention to the fact that their children began to represent strange things: the room embodies the image of African lions tearing up carcasses and eating flesh. Excited by the interest of children in this spectacle, parents turn to a psychologist with a question: is it dangerous? The doctor confirms the danger, and parents forbid children to play in the nursery. However, when parents try to turn off the room, the children lock them there. Those same lions who blood-thirsty ate carcasses in the fantasies of children, go straight to their parents and ... eat them.
The point is that it is not the computer game itself that generates aggression, but “withdrawal syndrome”. Children invented their own life in a game that they find fascinating: the parents' attempt to bring the children back to real life leads to aggression. But to reality, the children from the Bradbury novel are indifferent. The virtual game gives rise not to aggression - it gives rise to indifference to life, and, as a result, indifference to death.
Only the inevitability of death makes our life valuable. Players in shooters always have a “supply of lives” (both “heroes” and “monsters”). The player, replacing the labyrinth of his own thoughts with the maze of the game, inevitably begins to confuse game and reality. The better the graphical interface, the more the game looks like life, the more chances to confuse something most important.
The passion for virtual games is related to real life, which is more typical of Eastern civilization. The similarity of the mental labyrinth and the maze of the game causes a feeling close to confidence in the possibility of reincarnation. Adherents of Eastern religions consider real life as "maya" as an illusion, and call for an indifferent attitude towards it. Overcoming boredom with a shooter leads to the fact that the importance of virtual reality becomes more important than the reality of the external world. External reality is beginning to annoy. If it is not an illusion, then gamers really want to consider it as such. Here you have the reasons for aggressive emotional outbursts of the player.
It can be said in another way: the idea of ​​reincarnation, meditation and play help a person overcome the fear of death. The reality of the external world constantly reminds man that he has only one life and its term is limited. A person who prohibits a gamer from playing a game returns him to the fear of death and the need to do something without any hope of quick success.
The mysterious American psychiatrist Ronald Laing wrote about the existence in humans of the initial position of knowledge. He called this initial position “ontological confidence”, that is, the confidence of a person in his own being. The higher the “ontological confidence”, the less fear of death and the easier it is for a person to interact with external reality.
The degree of dependence on a computer game is not determined by the game itself, but by this very immeasurable measure of the fear of death - the fear of one’s own non-existence for a particular person, who defines his relationship with reality. The less confident a person feels in outer reality or the stronger his fear of death, the higher the likelihood that he will run away from reality into the maze of a computer game and get stuck there for a long time.
Many teenagers feel insecure and are afraid that the people around them will not appreciate them, they will not be able to understand, they will laugh or humiliate them. Reality often makes us feel like an “empty place” (that is, something that does not exist does not matter). It feels dangerous, as if it can "absorb" or "dissolve" our "I".
Virtual game can not do anything like this. It is safe precisely because it is a commodity that we can acquire in the property. Assigning, or rather, mastering the reality of the external world, alas, is not so easy to succeed: you still have to fight with your own fear and go to build your relations with the world.
I can partly agree with him. But only partially, because stress, apathy and depression are completely different things.
Psychological help with stress (more precisely, “distress”) consists in switching attention and fighting internal aggression. This means that virtual games here can really help.
Depression, in the classic sense of the word, is primarily due to feelings of guilt. Shooters can distract from this feeling, but ... as soon as a person stops the game, the feeling of guilt "for aimlessly lived years" suddenly increases. So, shooters do not save from depression. The game is just a way to forget for a while. The same can be said about apathy: as soon as a gamer stops playing and goes, for example, to study or work, he becomes mortally bored again and does not want anything ...
I can not refrain from asking the authors of statements about the positive impact of shooters the question: what would we do if the Doom-shaped games did not appear and how did humanity cope with stress, apathy and depression before 1996?
It is terrible to think about how the people who lived before 1960 coped with the above-mentioned problems - only this year the first psychotropic drugs appeared! What can we say unfortunate Europeans, who until the beginning of the XVIII century were not familiar with the substances that we call today "drugs". As soon as people lived before that, without regulating their own state and behavior with chemicals or a game !?
But they lived, and not bad.Each culture has taught people to cope with stress, apathy and depression in their own way through internal efforts, meditative practices, worldview searches and philosophical reflections.
I have already spoken a lot about this in the article. I just wanted to emphasize that serving shooters as a panacea is to deny the possibility of other ways to cope with stress, apathy and depression, which culture offers us in abundance.
A.G. Danilin
Psychotherapist narcologist, writer and radio host.
twitter.com/serebniti
From his conversation, we decided to prepare an article.
Views on the computer addiction of modern psychologists and psychiatrists, from my point of view, are divided into three types.
In Russian psychiatry and narcology, it is customary to look at computer addiction as well as addiction to psychoactive substances - as a disease .
')
As a treatment, a ban on computer games and “substitution therapy” with psychotropic drugs is proposed.
The second view is the interpretation of the dependence on virtual games through a primitive biological system . The creators of computer games ... play on human weaknesses and form the player's reflex behavior. In this logic, the gamer is something like “Pavlov's dog” at the computer.
The third view, which has not taken root in the general consciousness, considers the dependence on the game as an attempt by a person to replace some of the most important internal psychological needs. The game is a kind of “flavor identical to natural”.
In this article we will try to present exactly the third look at the problem of dependence on computer games. Immediately, I would like to make a reservation that the discussion will deal with first-person shooters, “Doom-related games” or simply “shooters-shooters”, because they are quite popular, that is, very attractive to the consumer.
Playing as “positive reinforcement”
Today it is fashionable to talk about dependence on computer games using the “theory of operant learning” of B.F. Skinner At the same time, however, it is forgotten that this theory, having turned into a method of compulsory re-education, brought many misfortunes and did not find practical evidence.
“Operant learning” can, of course, change a person’s behavior, but only for the time it is found, depending on the psychologist (voluntary or forced). Coming out of prison or from a rehabilitation center that used Skinner's methods, people returned to their usual forms of behavior — see Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.
The meaning of the explanation of virtual addiction in the light of Skinner's theory is that a person, advancing through the levels of a computer game, receives “reinforcements” - small psychological pleasures resulting from winning or winning. The emergence of dependence on the game is explained by the fact that in real life a person receives much less “reinforcements”, and in the game he can receive them all the time.
However, the same “little pleasures” we can all get by playing board games, solving a crossword puzzle, skiing down the mountain, etc. All this today is no less accessible than a virtual game. So why does a person choose the virtual world and virtual “reinforcements”? Proponents of the Skinner concept do not provide an answer to this question.
Play like a drug
Psychiatry explains dependent (addictive) behavior by chemical factors: vodka or heroin cause so-called. chemical dependence, that is, pathologically change the metabolism in the body, causing a "disease" - the inability of a substance user to adequately control the external world. Responsibility for the emergence of addiction and its consequences seems to be shifted ... to the psychoactive substance itself, with which we begin to wage an active struggle.
The same view is transferred to the so-called non-chemical dependencies, among which there is also a dependence on computer games. True, for some reason, it is forgotten that chemicals and virtual games, unlike humans, do not have free will. Beer cannot run after a person — this person runs after a beer — I often repeat to my patients. Computers and consoles, too (at least, for now!) Don't run after a man. If you try to accuse electronic devices or chemicals of arbitrary actions of a person, you will have to “level off” human will in “scientific” attempts, reduce it to biology - instincts or genetics.
Nevertheless, psychiatry and narcology prefer to think as usual, considering that a computer game causes “excessive excitation of the nervous system”, which, in turn, actualizes a “personality defect” for some players: deeply hidden “innate tendency to dependence”. The very concept of dependence equates to psychosis. It is called the "third endogenous disease" and is even considered one of the options for the development of schizophrenia. A “treat” addiction seems to be deliberately suggested with the help of antipsychotic drugs, which suppress the will.
Neither psychologists nor psychiatrists want to take into account the very possibility of arbitrary (independent) human behavior.
If a player or a drunkard is unable to control himself (he does not have free will), then psychologists or psychiatrists will be in control of his behavior (and his wallet).
The game in the prism of analytic psychology C. Jung
Is it possible to reason about virtual games, based on the recognition of the presence of a person of free will?
Yes, only then you have to admit that playing for days on end in Doom-shaped games has some kind of goal (voluntary actions are possible only if there is a goal) and meaning for the mental world of the individual.
I know only one job, seriously exploring the psychology of computer addiction from a similar point of view. This is a small book, written in 2003 by Igor Vladimirovich Burlakov, called “Homo Gamer”.
In his conclusions, Bourlakov relies on Carl Jung's ideas about the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Archetypes , or prototypes, are “energy centers”, originally incorporated in the structure of the psyche of all people. Archetypes can manifest themselves in our actions, images of dreams, as well as traditions, myths and fairy tales. Archetypes do not have any one stable form of incarnation: they manifest themselves in different images, but their essence remains the same.
Identifying the archetypes in a computer game is not at all difficult: all the "monsters" and "enemies" of the shooter are somewhat similar to each other, although it is impossible to draw the original image of the "enemy" or "monster". The same applies to “heroes”, for whom a fan of “Doom-shaped” games plays in the first person. Heroes are different, but they are all heroes.
According to Jung, in the process of self-discovery, man needs interaction with the archetypal images of the unconscious. Without these images, the mental world of a person loses energy and integrity. At the level of our feelings, this is expressed in depressions, phobias, nightmarish dreams and a sense of meaninglessness in one’s own life. People of consumer culture have little or no self-knowledge skills. After all, a person who thinks about why he needs certain goods is a bad consumer! However, the need for interaction with the archetypical images of their own unconscious remains in all people, regardless of the time in which they live, and the surrounding culture. Each culture has its own ways of interacting with the archetypal images of the unconscious. In the East, these are meditative practices, and in the West, from the light hand of Jung, analysis of one’s dreams and dreams is also a kind of “meditation” on the images of one’s own imagination.
The consumer is not ready to sit either in the lotus position or engage in self-knowledge. (It is symbolic that in modern speech the word “self-knowledge” has been replaced by dismissive “self-digging”). He acts in accordance with his “cultural tradition” and ... buys goods, replacing them with unconscious images and meanings of his own psyche. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard would call such products "simulacra." Material objects (like a computer game, a car, a huge TV, etc.) become a kind of “prosthetic feelings”, replacing our need for self-expression, self-knowledge or creativity. A virtual game satisfies a gamer's need to interact with the archetypes of their own unconscious. The more images of a computer game will correspond to unconscious images of players, the more popular the game will be and the more the consumer will depend on it - this rule is well known to the creators of games.
The archetype of the labyrinth, or What substitutes a computer game
What are these images and the archetypes generating them? Analyzing shooters, I.V. Burlakov noted that all of them are based on the principle of movement through the maze: the player moves along intricate corridors, overcomes obstacles, moves from level to level, etc. This allowed Burlakov to identify and describe the most important archetype of the maze.
For many centuries, the image of the maze retains its significance. Images of labyrinths occur since Neolithic times. Europeans are familiar with the image of the labyrinth from the ancient Greek myth of the Minotaur, a half-man-half-bait living inside the labyrinth. According to the plot of the myth, the brave Theseus enters the labyrinth and kills the Minotaur, and the tangle of threads that Ariadne gave him helps the hero to find a way out. Today, entertainment culture reproduces the image of the labyrinth of the Minotaur again and again. In real extreme games, participants go through labyrinths where they are faced with challenges and dangers. Why is the maze archetype so important?
Because the movement through the maze is one of the main metaphors of the process of human life. In everyday speech, we often use metaphors associated with the image of the maze. We are not talking about life in general, but about the "life path"; we do not know what awaits us "around the bend"; talking about "approaching the end of the path of life"; we are talking about the “curve track” that a particular person has chosen. "Life to live is not a field to move on." The more complicated and confusing the living conditions become (or games called “life”), the more often we pronounce the word “labyrinth” itself and recall its “dead ends”. People who prevent us from “going our own way” are often called “monsters” or “animals”. Do we recall the archetype embodied in the image of the Minotaur?
If you understand the labyrinth as a metaphor of life, it becomes clear why many ancient sanctuaries were built on the principle of a maze. In India, for example, labyrinths endowed a magical force that facilitates childbearing, so each woman had to go through the maze. The Hopi Indians passed through the sacred labyrinth not only women in labor, but also elderly people. It was believed that the passage through the maze allowed the soul to be born again after the death of the body.
Christian culture has also preserved this ancient symbol. The fact is that the classical Cretan labyrinth was built on the basis of a cross, so it easily fit into the symbolic system of Christians.
For example, a labyrinth on the floor of the Gothic cathedral in Chartres and the cathedral of the twentieth century in San Francisco.
What was the purpose of the journey through the sacral labyrinth?
At the end of the labyrinth, in its center, a man had to acquire some kind of treasure. The ancients considered this “treasure” the acquisition of a genuine, holistic soul by man. Having passed the labyrinth, the young man gained the ability to overcome all the trials of life, and the old man could enter into eternal life. For Christians, the main treasure was the same cross in the center of the labyrinth. By the way, Karl Jung considered the cross to be one of the main symbols of the self - the integrity of the personality. The sacral labyrinth is a model of the eternal movement of a person through the labyrinth of life - the path to the attainment of spiritual treasure, which modern people would call the goal or meaning of life.
What does all this have to do with computer games? The most direct. I want to say that the labyrinth of a computer game has become a substitution for the sacred labyrinth: after all, a gamer, moving from level to level of computer game, in the image of a character goes through a kind of “initiation” - overcomes obstacles, acquires some superpowers and finds his “treasures”.
No, no, I do not suggest that all gamers march off to wander through real labyrinths that are still preserved in landscape architecture. After all, the ancient labyrinth or modern labyrinth of a computer game is only a symbol, a material embodiment of our inner experiences. A true “labyrinth” in which we wander, trying to choose the right path, find the meaning of life and defeat our “monsters”, is a space of our imagination, dreams and dreams.
American psychotherapist Arnold Mindell argued that the plots of our dreams always unfold in a space that has a clear structure. Simply put, in a dream, we always wander through some kind of individual "castle" or "house." The house we wander around in a dream can be represented as a multi-level labyrinth ... in 3D format. Summarizing, the plots of our dreams can be described as the search for a way out of the various dead ends of this space and meetings with the monsters that prevent us from finding a way out.
Dreams are a reflection of our day dreams. But in a dream, as in real life, we are not omnipotent. Unlike a computer game, which you can enter at any time, reincarnate as a hero and become a winner.
The computer game substitutes our own dreams, and therefore the desire to translate them into real life. There is no need to overcome internal deadlocks - just go to the next level; no need to strive for the fulfillment of a dream - just finish the game.
Boredom and entertainment, or how spiritual quest is different from playing
Each of us has to discover the meaning of our existence, just thinking about the meaning ... as boring as the monotonous wandering through the maze.
The complaint of boredom is one of the most frequent complaints of modern people who turn to a psychotherapist. Boredom - this is the “monster” that prevents us from moving through the maze of thoughts. It is we who need to conquer it in order for life to acquire meaning, and dreams began to be embodied in reality.
Inside the real labyrinth, as in the maze of thoughts, a person finds himself alone with himself. Therefore, the labyrinths were used for spiritual initiation: a person had to go one-on-one a monotonous and long way, despite the boredom and the feeling of "deadlock".
The labyrinth, like the inner space of the imagination, is a monotonous environment, where there are a lot of monotonous sensations and very few will take to find the right direction. The labyrinth corridor, formed, for example, in solid rows of shrubs above human growth, requires the utmost concentration of attention on trifles - broken branches, leaf growth features, etc.
Monotonous repetition of mental or physical effort, requiring constant attention stress, we call the word "work." At the mere mention of this word, I want to yawn and it becomes incredibly boring. However, the principle of temple labyrinths that exist in reality lies precisely in the training of such mental effort. For example, in labyrinths painted on the floor of Christian churches, a person had to move on his knees, repeating the same prayer. In order to achieve the feeling of the presence of God, the monk or neophyte had to learn to overcome the feeling of monotony and boredom, while maintaining vigilance, allowing to notice even the slightest signs of the presence of a divine principle. "Sparks in the impenetrable darkness" called them Thomas Merton - one of the main specialists in Christian meditation. The Jesuits believed: God manifests himself only in insignificant movements, hidden in the depths of the human mind. They learned internal vigilance and ... were able to conquer half the world.
I think that I’m not mistaken if I say that something similar is happening while playing shooters: the player must remain vigilant, “be alert” all the time.
What is the difference between spiritual searches in the space of the sacral labyrinth and traveling through the virtual labyrinths of a computer game?
The fact that the maze of the game has nothing to do with the inner world of the player. A game is entertainment: it was created by other people to distract us from boring thoughts about our own lives. Solving the tasks set by the authors of the game, we forget about the reality in which each next step requires our focus and meaningfulness. A game is an absolutely defined system, even despite the creators' attempt to fill it with realistic details and give game objects some kind of “soul” - a complex system of conditions that, in combination, gives a sense of “randomness” of what is happening and the ability to make independent steps. But, in fact, each next step in the game ... other people came up with for us. Moving through the maze of a computer game, we are looking for other people's treasures, forgetting about the need to look for their own.
That is why every gamer once realizes that he spent a huge amount of time is meaningless, nowhere. After all, the game, unlike meditation, study, self-knowledge and other "boring" activities, brings to the life of the player noticeably less than he subconsciously expects from it.
I don’t want to say that computer games are bad. I just want to say that in addition to traveling in ready-made labyrinths created by other people, a person must build their own internal labyrinths and learn to travel in them.
I can not tell you that our radio program “Silver Threads” on Radio Russia has the format of the “Fantasy Theater Radio”, in the framework of which we learn to make trips to the inner spaces through symbols and images. The journeys “Magic City” and “Magic Island” are devoted to traveling within one’s own imagination; these programs are recorded on the Internet. I say this because “Magic Island” and “Magic City” are such models of imaginary labyrinths and games that you can play with your imagination and with which you can learn, for example, to concentrate on your desires and effectively fulfill them.
If a game in imaginary labyrinths or mazes of board-based role-playing games, for example, starts to enthrall you, the degree of your enthusiasm for Doom-shaped games on your computer screen will fall very quickly.
At the same time, I do not at all think that it is necessary to give up or get rid of Doom-shaped games. Escape from the dead ends of internal labyrinths is also sometimes necessary, and here a shooter may well help. For example, help relieve tension, relieve stress, hide from frustration, or restore wounded pride by playing on monsters.
The main thing in matters of dependence is not the total exclusion of the factor that caused the dependence from life, but control over it. If you are fond of building internal labyrinths, fond of traveling around the world of the tabletop role-playing game, that is, you are fond of what requires your own thinking, and not speed of reaction, you can easily control your attitude to Doom-shaped games.
Answers to users' questions:
Today there is a lot of talk about games provoking aggressive behavior. What do you think about it?
I'll start from afar. Ray Bradbury has a prophetic tale called Veld. In the distant future, children have a playroom that can reproduce everything they think and fantasize about. Once parents pay attention to the fact that their children began to represent strange things: the room embodies the image of African lions tearing up carcasses and eating flesh. Excited by the interest of children in this spectacle, parents turn to a psychologist with a question: is it dangerous? The doctor confirms the danger, and parents forbid children to play in the nursery. However, when parents try to turn off the room, the children lock them there. Those same lions who blood-thirsty ate carcasses in the fantasies of children, go straight to their parents and ... eat them.
The point is that it is not the computer game itself that generates aggression, but “withdrawal syndrome”. Children invented their own life in a game that they find fascinating: the parents' attempt to bring the children back to real life leads to aggression. But to reality, the children from the Bradbury novel are indifferent. The virtual game gives rise not to aggression - it gives rise to indifference to life, and, as a result, indifference to death.
Only the inevitability of death makes our life valuable. Players in shooters always have a “supply of lives” (both “heroes” and “monsters”). The player, replacing the labyrinth of his own thoughts with the maze of the game, inevitably begins to confuse game and reality. The better the graphical interface, the more the game looks like life, the more chances to confuse something most important.
The passion for virtual games is related to real life, which is more typical of Eastern civilization. The similarity of the mental labyrinth and the maze of the game causes a feeling close to confidence in the possibility of reincarnation. Adherents of Eastern religions consider real life as "maya" as an illusion, and call for an indifferent attitude towards it. Overcoming boredom with a shooter leads to the fact that the importance of virtual reality becomes more important than the reality of the external world. External reality is beginning to annoy. If it is not an illusion, then gamers really want to consider it as such. Here you have the reasons for aggressive emotional outbursts of the player.
It can be said in another way: the idea of ​​reincarnation, meditation and play help a person overcome the fear of death. The reality of the external world constantly reminds man that he has only one life and its term is limited. A person who prohibits a gamer from playing a game returns him to the fear of death and the need to do something without any hope of quick success.
What determines the degree of dependence on a computer game, or why some of them “sit down” on the game more than others?
The mysterious American psychiatrist Ronald Laing wrote about the existence in humans of the initial position of knowledge. He called this initial position “ontological confidence”, that is, the confidence of a person in his own being. The higher the “ontological confidence”, the less fear of death and the easier it is for a person to interact with external reality.
The degree of dependence on a computer game is not determined by the game itself, but by this very immeasurable measure of the fear of death - the fear of one’s own non-existence for a particular person, who defines his relationship with reality. The less confident a person feels in outer reality or the stronger his fear of death, the higher the likelihood that he will run away from reality into the maze of a computer game and get stuck there for a long time.
Many teenagers feel insecure and are afraid that the people around them will not appreciate them, they will not be able to understand, they will laugh or humiliate them. Reality often makes us feel like an “empty place” (that is, something that does not exist does not matter). It feels dangerous, as if it can "absorb" or "dissolve" our "I".
Virtual game can not do anything like this. It is safe precisely because it is a commodity that we can acquire in the property. Assigning, or rather, mastering the reality of the external world, alas, is not so easy to succeed: you still have to fight with your own fear and go to build your relations with the world.
There is an opinion that shooters have a positive effect on a person and help cope with stress, apathy and depression [“In 2009, a psychologist ... Leonard Reinecke discovered that video games are surprisingly effective for relieving combat stress, apathy and depression. This proved wrong to many critics who claim that games provoke isolation, and have a negative effect on the individual and society as a whole. In other words, the success of Doom and subsequent similar games did not plunge us into the world of violence. On the other hand, the mountains of virtual corpses, ironically, can show us the only possible way to a happier and better life ”]. Do you agree with this opinion?
I can partly agree with him. But only partially, because stress, apathy and depression are completely different things.
Psychological help with stress (more precisely, “distress”) consists in switching attention and fighting internal aggression. This means that virtual games here can really help.
Depression, in the classic sense of the word, is primarily due to feelings of guilt. Shooters can distract from this feeling, but ... as soon as a person stops the game, the feeling of guilt "for aimlessly lived years" suddenly increases. So, shooters do not save from depression. The game is just a way to forget for a while. The same can be said about apathy: as soon as a gamer stops playing and goes, for example, to study or work, he becomes mortally bored again and does not want anything ...
I can not refrain from asking the authors of statements about the positive impact of shooters the question: what would we do if the Doom-shaped games did not appear and how did humanity cope with stress, apathy and depression before 1996?
It is terrible to think about how the people who lived before 1960 coped with the above-mentioned problems - only this year the first psychotropic drugs appeared! What can we say unfortunate Europeans, who until the beginning of the XVIII century were not familiar with the substances that we call today "drugs". As soon as people lived before that, without regulating their own state and behavior with chemicals or a game !?
But they lived, and not bad.Each culture has taught people to cope with stress, apathy and depression in their own way through internal efforts, meditative practices, worldview searches and philosophical reflections.
I have already spoken a lot about this in the article. I just wanted to emphasize that serving shooters as a panacea is to deny the possibility of other ways to cope with stress, apathy and depression, which culture offers us in abundance.
A.G. Danilin
Psychotherapist narcologist, writer and radio host.
twitter.com/serebniti
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/210740/
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