Full length articleThe partial truths of compensatory and poor-get-poorer internet use theories: More highly involved videogame players experience greater psychosocial benefits
Graphical abstract
Lonely gamers’ more highly involved play produces positive social and experiential outcomes, as well as decreased disordered “addictive” gaming (IGD-9).
Introduction
Research has established loneliness as a good predictor of intensive Internet use (Amichai-Hamburger and Ben-Artzi, 2003, Bozoglan et al., 2013, Hardie and Tee, 2007, Moody, 2001, Morahan-Martin and Schumacher, 2003, Turkle, 2012). However, it is not fully understood whether Internet activity lessens lonely individuals’ felt distress or by contrast further magnifies it. In the first instance, research shows how distressed and vulnerable individuals can benefit from the kinds of interactions provided by the Internet, in some cases allowing them to successfully compensate for their felt problems such as loneliness (Campbell et al., 2006, Desjarlais and Willoughby, 2010, Kardefelt-Winther, 2014, McKenna et al., 2002, Selfhout et al., 2009, Snodgrass et al., 2016b, Valkenburg and Peter, 2009). Contrastingly, a substantial body of “rich get richer” and “poor-get-poorer” thinking posits that psychosocially healthy individuals tend to prosper in online contexts, while vulnerable individuals further erode their well-being (Desjarlais and Willoughby, 2010, Kraut et al., 2002, Kraut et al., 1998, Selfhout et al., 2009, Snodgrass et al., 2014b, Valkenburg and Peter, 2009).
In this article, we empirically test a potential resolution to this debate about loneliness and the Internet in the context of online videogame play. Specifically, building on research on the psychosocial foundations of videogame involvement (Caplan et al., 2009, Schiano et al., 2014, Snodgrass et al., 2017, Williams et al., 2006, Yee, 2006b), we hypothesize that becoming more intensively involved in online videogames will benefit lonely gamers, while casual play will not. Through intensive videogame play, lonely individuals, we anticipate, have the opportunity to demonstrate and “signal” to other gamers their mastery and commitment to gaming and also to gaming communities, with social boundary establishment of this kind associated with distinctive psychosocial benefits and risks (Dengah, 2017, Snodgrass et al., 2016b). Such demonstrations of mastery and commitment in turn bond them to those gamers, winning them friends and giving rise to greater feelings of social inclusion and support, relieving their felt loneliness. By contrast, we anticipate that lonely gamers who fail to engage videogames in this intensively involved manner will not establish such social bonds, instead spending time online in ways that could even further compromise their offline social support and thus increase their loneliness, distress potentially further compounded by problem play symptomology.
To explore this idea, we utilize a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative cultural psychiatric interviews (N = 20) with a large web survey (N = 3629). In the first case, we interview players of both World of Warcraft (WoW) and Guild Wars 2 (GW2), subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing games (“MMORPGs” or “MMOs” for short) popular in the West with significant player populations in Asia and other parts of the world. The goal of the interview analysis is to illuminate potential pathways connecting loneliness with both positive and negative online experiences, with an eye to clarifying in particular the role that highly involved versus casual gaming might play in mediating loneliness with positive and negative psychosocial gaming outcomes. The interview analysis sets the stage for a consideration of our web survey, whose data we model with path analysis to examine connections between loneliness, videogame involvement, and well-being. That analysis has implications beyond MMOs to a variety of other online games, including first-person shooters (FPS), multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs), and real-time strategy games (RTS), thus expanding the broader generalizability of our ideas about the relationships between felt loneliness, videogame involvement, and psychosocial well-being.
Overall, we aim in our research to add nuance to debates about how Internet gaming shapes the mental well-being of distressed players. Rather than pointing to one uniform effect, we instead posit that the outcome depends on how lonely individuals engage with the Internet. In the videogame case, we argue that under certain conditions online games can play positive and even therapeutic roles in the lives of lonely and distressed young adults. In this article, we examine in particular how more intensive online videogame involvement can foment positive senses of achievement, immersion, and social connection, which improve both online experiences and also psychosocial well-being more generally. We nevertheless remain attentive to how Internet use can magnify the life problems experienced by some gamers, and especially lonely gamers. Engaging contemporary scholarship, we argue that it is important to consider simultaneously in the same study both the positive and negative roles videogames play in the lives of lonely gamers, given that therapeutic and problem play are oftentimes intricately connected.
Section snippets
Background theory
Loneliness has been defined as negative emotional reactions to felt isolation (Hughes et al., 2004, Peplau and Cutrona, 1980, Russell, 1996, Weiss, 1973), with substantial negative health effects (Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010). Research suggests that lonely individuals in particular go online, including getting involved in online games, in an attempt to relieve the negative emotions associated with their felt isolation (Caplan et al., 2009, LaRose et al., 2003). Besides the prosaic use of online
Research model and hypotheses
Based on the above line of thinking, our key insight is that it is important to consider the diverse paths by which loneliness can affect players’ experience and gaming, and thereby play positive or negative roles in their lives, including relieving their feelings of felt isolation and loneliness. Following social signaling theory in particular, we anticipate that more highly involved lonely gamers will be more likely to bond socially with other gamers, which will in turn will bring
Data collection
In fall 2014, alongside participant observation of online play of the MMO Guild Wars 2 (GW2), we conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with emerging adults. The interviews were typically about an hour in length. The protocol was a modification the McGill Illness Narrative Interview format (Groleau, Young, & Kirmayer, 2006), which in our case focused on our gamer respondents’ positive and negative MMO experiences rather than illness per se, in an attempt to capture cultural insider
Interviews
Key interview findings are summarized in Table 1. To begin, a quarter of our interview respondents (5/20) did report sometimes struggling with the emotional experience of loneliness. This is roughly equivalent to the fraction of American adults (1 in 4) reporting that they have no one with whom they can talk about their personal troubles and triumphs (Smith, Hout, & Marsden, 2013), belying the image of lonely gamers out of step with the general population. But only one of the five interviewees
Discussion
The negative health effects of loneliness are increasingly well-documented (Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010), though it is debated how closely tied loneliness is to intensive Internet activity, as seen in involvement in online games for example (Caplan et al., 2009, LaRose et al., 2003). Only a minority of gamers in our interview and survey samples struggle with loneliness. In our interviews, around 25% of our sample reported such problems, with one of our interviewees (and thus 5% of our interview
Conclusion
In discussing social connection and disconnection in online gaming, our research highlights the manner that studies of online games tend to focus either on the highly social nature of gaming or on the link between loneliness and problem gaming, but not both. We suggest that remedying this theoretical disconnect and instead considering these two processes together provides a fuller understanding of the online gaming experience. Online videogames' very power to connect players separated by
Acknowledgments
We'd like thank the Colorado State University students from fall 2014 ANTH 444: Cultures of Virtual Worlds: Research Methods and spring 2015 ANTH 566: Field Methods in Online Environments, who helped with this research, and especially Tyler Beeton, Noah Benedict, Madison Brandt, Angela Huxel, Brandi Megrew, Evan Polzer, and Emmy Swisher. We further thank other Colorado State University and Utah State University students who helped us with our interviews and survey construction and recruitment.
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