A vacation from your mind: Problematic online gaming

Computers in Human Behavior 38 (2014) 248–260

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Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

A vacation from your mind: Problematic online gaming is a stress response Jeffrey G. Snodgrass a,⇑, Michael G. Lacy b, H.J. Francois Dengah II c, Scarlett Eisenhauer d, Greg Batchelder e, Robert J. Cookson a a

Dept. of Anthropology, Colorado State University, United States Dept. of Sociology, Colorado State University, United States Dept. of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology, Utah State University, United States d Dept. of Anthropology, UCLA, United States e Dept. of Anthropology, University of Alabama, United States b c

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:

Keywords: Online computer games Virtual worlds Stress Cognitive diversion Engagement Internet addiction

a b s t r a c t We present ethnographically-informed survey and interview data suggesting that problematic online gaming in the World of Warcraft (WoW) can be conceptualized as a response to pre-existing life stress, which for highly stressed individuals magnifies rather than relieves their suffering. In particular, we explore how relaxing and arousing in-game experiences and activities provide forms of cognitive diversion that can lead to problematic play among more highly stressed individuals. Our research supports what has been called a ‘‘rich get richer’’ model of problematic Internet use. In this instance, less stressed individuals manage to play WoW so as to enhance their offline lives. By contrast, more highly stressed players further magnify the stress and suffering in their lives by playing problematically the online game within which they sought refuge from their offline problems. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction In the present study of the widely popular online game World of Warcraft (WoW), we use ethnographically-informed survey and interview data to analyze whether problematic online gaming, sometimes viewed as a form of ‘‘addiction,’’ emerges as a response to life stress. We build on previous work suggesting problematic Internet use (PIU) is a behavioral manifestation of perceived life stress (Griffiths, 2005; Widyanto & Griffiths, 2006). We also draw on research showing that massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMOs) in particular can provide relaxation and thus stress relief (Snodgrass et al., 2012; Snodgrass, Dengah, Lacy, & Fagan, 2013; Yee, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). Combining insights from these two bodies of research, we examine whether in-game experiences of stress relief mediate between perceived offline life stress and problematic online gaming experiences. This pattern of relationship has yet to be demonstrated in the PIU and MMO literature. Illuminating these potential causal chains is useful, as it helps in understanding how structural features of MMO play are implicated in the pathogenesis of problematic online gaming, as well as how such features might connect to life ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 (970) 491 5894. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.G. Snodgrass). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.06.004 0747-5632/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

stress to shape individual players’ vulnerability and resilience to such problematic play. In our study, we focus on both relaxing and also stimulating forms of MMO play, for example, the relatively mindless and thus relaxing performance of simple and repetitive in-game tasks (such as killing lower-level monsters or simply leisurely exploring WoW’s virtual landscapes), and highly stimulating collaborative group events (such as ‘‘raids’’ in which a group of players attempt to defeat some of the most challenging of WoW’s monsters or ‘‘bosses’’).1 In the analysis that follows, we treat both relaxing and arousing WoW play experiences as sources of cognitive ‘‘diversion.’’ By distracting gamers’ attention from offline problems, these experiences can serve a stress-management function, providing, in one respondent’s phrasing, a ‘‘vacation from your mind.’’ Working from that perspective, we explore the idea that players with more stress in their lives may over-use that cognitive diversion, with attendant problematic consequences, thus treating problematic play as a ‘‘stress response.’’ Here, environmental stressors produce various psychological and somatic ‘‘strains,’’ from which players escape into the cognitive diversions of WoW and similar games, but which can ultimately lead to problematic online gaming. 1 These WoW activities are described in greater depth elsewhere (Snodgrass, Lacy, Dengah, Fagan, & Most, 2011; Snodgrass et al., 2012).

J.G. Snodgrass et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 38 (2014) 248–260

In these terms, we explore what has been called a ‘‘rich get richer’’ model of problematic Internet use (Kraut et al., 2002). As revealed in our initial qualitative interviews, individuals with higher levels of offline well-being can experience online activities like WoW gaming as either a relaxing or an arousing ‘‘therapeutic’’ escape from offline life and its problems. By contrast, more stressed and distressed individuals suggested in interviews that they were less able to control their online pleasures and experiences, seeming to need them more. As a result, enjoyable and even potentially therapeutic play became instead compulsive and thus disruptive to offline lives, potentially ultimately amplifying rather than minimizing these gamers’ initial stress and distress. Based on these insights and others, we hypothesized that players might end up playing excessively in an attempt to manage and minimize the stress in their lives, if often unsuccessfully, given that these sometimes compulsive efforts could eventually lead to even greater stress and suffering. We test these ideas in an online Web survey, clarifying the revealed relationships between offline stress, in-game cognitive diversion, and problematic gaming through further analysis of interview data. The following pages first lay out the theoretical underpinnings of our own research model and hypotheses related to problematic online gaming and stress, followed by a presentation of our survey and interview results, which are subsequently discussed within the context of both our ethnography and a body of research on problematic online play.

2. Theoretical background and research model 2.1. Review of previous research 2.1.1. Literature on addictive and problematic online gaming Problematic or ‘‘addictive’’ online play—the outcome of interest here—has been conceptualized in varying ways in the literature, and we wish first to clarify our own usage, particularly in relation to contemporary concepts of addiction. Following Goodman (1990), we define ‘‘addiction’’ as the inability to control and curtail a behavior despite negative consequences (Goodman, 1990). In contrast to this view, prevalent medical perspectives often frame addiction neurobiologically, as a chronic, relapsing brain disease involving problems of reward, motivation, memory, and other neurological circuitry (Goldstein & Volkow, 2002; Kalivas & Volkow, 2005; Smith, 2012; Volkow, Fowler, & Wang, 2003). However, it would be more accurate to describe the dominant addiction frame as ‘‘biopsychosocial’’ (Donovan & Marlatt, 2005; Marlatt & Donovan, 2005), in the sense that the substance use that alters brain reward and related circuitry is embedded within and patterned by environmental and sociocultural contexts (Duka, Crombag, & Stephens, 2011; Leshner, 1997). In this dominant view, then, addiction is thought to be caused by complex, mutually reinforcing networks of mechanisms spanning biological, psychological, and contextual/environmental levels of explanation (Kendler, 2011; Kendler, Zachar, & Craver, 2011). Of particular relevance to the current analysis is research suggesting that similar patterns of continued behavior despite adverse consequences can develop in relation to non-substance related activities—such as gambling—to produce states referred to as ‘‘behavioral addictions’’ (Grant, Brewer, & Potenza, 2006; Grant, Potenza, Weinstein, & Gorelick, 2010; Holden, 2001, 2010). Some scholars have proposed ‘‘Internet addiction’’ as characterized by excessive or poorly controlled behaviors, preoccupations, and urges regarding computer use and Internet access that leads to distress or impairment (Block, 2008; Shaw & Black, 2008). They suggest that distressful patterns of Internet use, like other behavioral addictions, can be usefully classified with alcohol and drug use

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disorders, as they share common characteristics related to salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse (Griffiths, 1999). In fact, some neuroimaging studies have found functional and structural brain abnormalities in individuals classified as ‘‘addicted’’ to the Internet, patterns which resemble those among individuals with other substance-related addictions (Kuss & Griffiths, 2012; Yuan, Qin, Liu, & Tian, 2011) However, others question whether problematic Internet use (PIU) shares the ‘‘dependency’’ symptoms characteristic of substance addiction such as increasing tolerance and withdrawal (Davis, 2001). Further, recent reviews urge caution in suggesting certain forms of Internet use—related to online or other forms of gaming—might rewire users’ brain circuitry into ‘‘addicted’’ patterns, including transformed dopaminergic reward circuitry (Bavelier et al., 2011). Other scholars have suggested that Internet use disorders are ‘‘compulsions’’ without attendant reward, rather than addictions (Shaw & Black, 2008). Or, patterns of Internet misuse might best be classified as ‘‘impulse control disorders’’—in that individuals fail to resist temptations, urges, or impulses that may harm oneself or others, though still bringing at least short-term pleasures and thus contrasting to more purely ‘‘compulsive’’ activities—leading to debates about what DSM or other psychiatric nosological category provides the best prototype for these problematic forms of Internet usage (Block, 2008; Shapira, Goldsmith, Keck, Khosla, & McElroy, 2000; Treuer, Fábián, & Füredi, 2001; Young, 1998). Rather than analyzing all problematic online activity similarly, some researchers also suggest that each form may have a distinct etiology and consequences (Davis, 2001; Yee, 2006c; Yellowlees & Marks, 2007). That is, the Internet provides users with diverse activities with ‘‘addictive’’ potential, including gambling, pornography, social networks, and games, which challenges the idea that one could be addicted to the Internet per se, as compared to one of the pleasures of which it is a portal. Thus, an expanding body of research examines uncontrollable and distressful use of online games, studied more narrowly apart from such problematic Internet use conceived as a general phenomenon (Caplan, Williams, & Yee, 2009; Davis, 2001; Davis, Flett, & Besser, 2002; Seay & Kraut, 2007; Yee, 2006c; Yellowlees & Marks, 2007). Likewise, U.S. psychiatrists have yet to reach consensus on exactly what to call or how to parse—or even whether to recognize as a mental disorder—uncontrollable and distressful online activity. In the DSM-5, the sole recognized ‘‘behavioral addiction’’ is ‘‘gambling disorder,’’ grouped with other formerly classified substance ‘‘abuse’’ and ‘‘dependence’’ disorders into a single ‘‘substance-related and addictive disorders’’ category. However, ‘‘Internet gaming disorder’’—like all Internet-related problems—has yet to gain such a recognized status, instead being identified in an appendix of this manual (Section 3) as a condition warranting more clinical research before potentially being included in the main book as a formally recognized disorder (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Given the disputed status of Internet-related use problems, we follow Griffiths and take a ‘‘components’’ approach to such forms of activity and distress (Griffiths, 2005). For our current purposes, we make no definitive claim that PIU is an ‘‘addiction’’ as compared to, for example, a compulsion or an impulse dysfunction. Further, we prefer a more neutral reference to ‘‘problematic play’’ rather than to ‘‘addiction.’’ Overall, we agree with Griffiths and others that problematic usage comprises distinct but interrelated forms of distress, which can meaningfully be summed into a scale that includes diverse experiences of self-reported distress related to Internet activity (or, in our case, more narrowly to online gaming) (Caplan, 2010; Davis et al., 2002; Griffiths, 2005; Young, 1999). Such a conceptualization avoids connoting substance abuse and more narrowly defined underlying neurological reward cycles

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(linked, for example, to the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway), which are possible and even probable, but yet to be fully demonstrated empirically (Bavelier et al., 2011; Holden, 2010; Seay & Kraut, 2007). 2.1.2. Literature on stress and problematic MMO play We define ‘‘stress’’ here as a state of psychic and/or somatic disequilibrium that accompanies the perception that one might not be able to meet the demands of the environment presents (Lazarus, 1966; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Stress is accompanied by both psychological and also physiological changes—a sensation or feeling of pressure and growing anxiety, an elevated autonomic nervous system and hypothalamic–pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis— which can mutually impact each other, ‘‘looping’’ to create a cascade of escalating stress and thus felt psychological and somatic distress (Kirmayer, 2005; Kirmayer & Sartorius, 2007). Various observers have argued that within U.S. cultural contexts in particular, a key feature of stress is the individual’s perception of loss of control, which determine how psychological and physiological stress unfold and potentially escalate (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983; Folkman, 1984). As such, one of the most commonly used measures of stress is Cohen’s ‘‘Perceived Stress Scale’’ (PSS), which relies heavily on individuals’ appraisals of their level of control over life circumstances (Cohen et al., 1983). Stress is a well-known risk factor in the onset and relapse of addiction disorders (Pohorecky, 1991; Sinha, 2008). One hypothesized mechanism is that childhood experiences of stress recalibrate the body’s stress systems to be either hypo- or hyper-responsive, which in turn influences how drugs become and remain addictive (Del Giudice, Ellis, & Shirtcliff, 2011; Kreek, Nielsen, Butelman, & LaForge, 2005; Sinha, 2008). Supporting evidence comes from the observation that heroin addicts have a blunted and thus hyporesponsive hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, while those dependent on cocaine show a hyper-responsive HPA system (Kreek et al., 2005, p. 1454). Such evidence leads some to think that stressful environments and life events could provoke interacting somatic and psychological states that transform stress responsiveness and thus render individuals more vulnerable to addiction (Grant et al., 2003; Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992; Rhodes & Jason, 1990). For example, chronic and/or traumatic stress might lead to the activation of certain genes—and the silencing of others—that ‘‘epigenetically’’ transform the way reward circuits in the mesolimbic pathway function (Johnstone & Baylin, 2010; Maté, 2012; Maze & Nestler, 2011; Robison & Nestler, 2011). Any neurobiological changes would also be experienced psychologically: hypo- or hyper-active stress responders might crave more the high or escape provided by certain drugs of abuse, tending toward distinctive motivations, experiences, and personalities related to impulsivity and risk taking that might render them more vulnerable to drugs of abuse (Eysenck, 1997; Feldman & Eysenck, 1986; Gossop & Eysenck, 1980; Jacobs, 1986; Kreek et al., 2005; Maté, 2012; Sinha, 2008; Williams & Clark, 1998). Research also links stressful life events to an increased risk for addictive and problematic Internet activity among various populations, including adolescents (Lam, Peng, Mai, & Jing, 2009; Leung, 2006; Li, Zhang, Li, Zhen, & Wang, 2010; Yan, Li, & Sui, 2013; Yen, Yen, Chen, Chen, & Ko, 2007) and college students (Li, Wang, & Wang, 2009; Velezmoro, Lacefield, & Roberti, 2010; Yan et al., 2013). These studies suggest, for example, that some react to excessive life stress by increasing Internet use to manage mood, escape from reality, and compensate for unsatisfactory social interactions (Leung, 2006; Yan et al., 2013). These studies typically model how personality traits (neuroticism, psychoticism, sensation seeking, extraversion), avoidant coping styles (fantasy proneness, withdrawal, rationalization, self-blame), perceived control, maladaptive cognitions, and familial circumstances mediate or

moderate between stressful life events and PIU (Li et al., 2009, 2010; Yan et al., 2013). Of interest, a growing body of research also investigates the biopsychology of Internet activity, discovering that distinctive patterns of stress, relaxation, and arousal are linked to particular patterns of Internet use and overuse (Lu, Wang, & Huang, 2010; Mauri, Cipresso, Balgera, Villamira, & Riva, 2011). The preceding research has relevance to MMO play, as players of WoW and other online games in particular seem to be motivated by the desire to find stress relief and relaxation within their virtual playgrounds (Snodgrass et al., 2012, 2013; Yee, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). And the motivation to escape offline problems and responsibilities through immersion in online worlds has been linked to problematic play (Caplan, 2010; Caplan et al., 2009; Charlton & Danforth, 2007; Chou & Ting, 2003; Parsons, 2005; Seay & Kraut, 2007; Snodgrass et al., 2011, 2012, 2013; Yee, 2006a, 2006b). Likewise, aroused and engaged states of ‘‘positive’’ stress—as found for example in multi-player achievement-driven events such as ‘‘raids’’—also factor heavily in MMO play (Charlton & Danforth, 2007; Charlton & Danforth, 2010; Snodgrass et al., 2012, 2013; Yee, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). And such motivations and competitive engagement has also been consistently linked to addictive patterns of MMO play (Bartle, 1996; Charlton & Danforth, 2007; Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999; Kelly, 2004; Snodgrass, Dengah, Lacy, & Fagan, 2011; Snodgrass et al., 2012, 2013; Yee, 2006a, 2006b). 2.2. Theory-driven research model and hypotheses Following other studies of problematic Internet use, we treat MMO play here as in part a behavioral manifestation of perceived stress (Griffiths, 2005; Widyanto & Griffiths, 2006). That is, we anticipate that MMO play, like the Internet more generally, can be used to reliably modify mood, producing either a tranquillizing and de-stressing feeling of ‘‘escape’’ or ‘‘numbing’’ and/or an arousing ‘‘buzz’’ or ‘‘high,’’ analogous to how nicotine is used both for its relaxing and stimulant qualities (Griffiths, 2005, p. 193). We theorize that such mood modifications would distract MMO players from their perceived problems, and that individuals who experience more stress would be more vulnerable to over-using such forms of relief and therefore excessive play, as has been argued in other studies of PIU more broadly defined (Widyanto & Griffiths, 2006). However, drawing more narrowly from previous MMO studies, we try to understand how particular in-game activities and playing experiences—rather than the personality traits and psychological coping strategies highlighted in these general PIU studies—might mediate between offline stress and problematic gaming (Yee, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). We explicitly argue here that problematic play ultimately stems from life stress, but that this causal effect has several pathways, with both direct and indirect effects. And we propose a research model that posits relationships among offline life stress, in-game stress relief, level of engagement in the game, and problematic online play. As Fig. 1 graphically illustrates, we anticipate that individuals perceiving greater stress in their lives will tend to receive greater therapeutic relaxation and thus stress relief in online gaming contexts, making it more likely they’ll over-play WoW. Likewise, individuals perceiving greater stress in their lives will ‘‘engage’’ more fully emotionally, cognitively, and socially with games like WoW, with attendant rewards that can motivate eventual over-play. As shown in this figure, we anticipate positive associations among all four variables of key interest (perceived stress, in-game relaxing escape, in-game engagement, and problematic online play). For example, we think that levels of perceived offline stress will be positively associated with problematic patterns of online play, with individuals experiencing more stress in their offline lives also more likely to over-play WoW. Likewise, we anticipate that perceived


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Relaxing Escape

+

+ +

Perceived Stress

Problematic Play

+

+ Engagement

Fig. 1. Causal diagram of research model.

offline stress will be positively associated with both relaxing escape into WoW and also to positive engagement with the game. Here, more stressed individuals are more likely to need and in fact find cognitive diversion and thus stress relief in their online activities. Finally, we posit that both relaxing escape into and engagement with WoW will be positively associated with problematic play. In these instances, finding too much stress relief within WoW can increase one’s risk of playing this game problematically, thus ultimately potentially magnifying rather than minimizing one’s life stress and distress. Still, as suggested earlier, relationships between some of our key variables have been demonstrated in previous research. For example, prior studies suggest that perceived life stress is positively associated with PIU. And research shows the motivation for stress relief in particular can be linked to problematic online gaming. However, a distinct contribution of the current study is to focus on the potential role of in-game stress-relieving experiences—both relaxing escape and positive engagement—as mediators between perceived offline life stress and problematic online gaming. This claim does not conflict with previous research, but has not yet been demonstrated in the PIU and MMO literature. We thus pose the following two hypotheses as central features of our research: H1. Relaxing escape into WoW will (statistically) mediate between perceived life stress and problematic online play. Rationale: Individuals perceiving greater stress in their offline lives tend to receive greater therapeutic relaxation and thus stress relief in WoW, making it more likely they’ll over-play. H2. Positive engagement with WoW will (statistically) mediate between perceived life stress and problematic online play. Rationale: Individuals perceiving greater stress in their offline lives tend to psychologically ‘‘engage’’ online games more fully, which can lead to even more pleasurable and attention-diverting ‘‘positive’’ stress in WoW and thus a higher risk of eventual overplay. 3. Methods 3.1. Research design and procedures Our research used qualitative and quantitative methods, combining ethnographic observations and interviews with an online survey questionnaire. In the initial ethnographic phase, our research team conducted participant-observation by playing WoW typically at least a few hours a day over several months in spring 2010, with inquiry focused on the relationship between stress and problematic play. By providing firsthand knowledge of the game’s play experiences, this initial qualitative phase of research helped ensure validity of all subsequent measures and analyses. It enabled

development of meaningful interview questions and survey items and enhanced our ability to interpret our results within the context of players’ actual experiences. Following this ethnographic work, we conducted semi-structured interviews, and the study culminated with a formal questionnaire survey administered over the Internet (see http://tinyurl.com/WoWwellness). Survey respondents were self-selected from our play networks, others in the local gaming community, and from network referrals from among these persons. In turn, data from this survey allowed us to more rigorously test our ethnographic insights regarding potential links between gamers’ levels of offline stress, in-game stress relief, and problematic WoW play. We analyzed this survey data with a series of linear regression models, selecting predictors to test our theory-driven hypotheses as described above. More specifically, we compared a regression model with perceived stress (and thus the feeling of control or lack of control in players’ actual lives) as our main predictor and problematic WoW play is the outcome to models that included measures of the two in-game stress responses (relaxation and engagement) that we posited as potential mediators between our perceived stress and problematic play. We used a formal mediation analysis of the effect of Perceived Stress through Relaxing Escape and Engagement, using the procedures implemented in the -khbStata add-on program (Karlson & Holm, 2011). During and subsequent to the survey, our research team continued ethnographic observations and interviews—particularly in fall 2011 and spring 2012—allowing us to further refine our understandings of relationships between stress and WoW play revealed in our survey and other analysis. Overall, the tight interlinking of qualitative and quantitative phases of research helped to ensure the validity of both our data and conclusions. 3.2. Setting: the persistent and immersive World of Warcraft WoW now has approximately 8.3 million monthly subscribers, making it one of the largest subscription-based MMOs and virtual communities in the West, with significant player populations in East Asia as well. Central to this online reality is its quality of persistence: thousands of users interact in a world that persists independently of any single player. Individuals log out of the environment, but other players continue to compete and interact, advancing and changing the contours of the game-space. WoW’s massively multiple play spaces are also immersive. Software with powerful 3D graphics creates spaces that feel virtually real. These persistent and immersive virtual spaces offer gamers a range of tasks, which they complete via avatars (visual representations of the character-self) that respond to player commands. Some tasks are referred to as quests with goals given by computercontrolled non-player characters (‘‘NPC’s’’). In completing these, players advance in levels. Each level acquired, like won gear in the form of swords, armor, and jewelry, bestows additional power and ability on a character, allowing it to complete more difficult game

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challenges, which in turn allows them to advance even further. After completing the game’s highest level, currently 90, players compete in challenging end-game content such as multiplayer instances like dungeons or raids, requiring cooperation between players with groups balanced between different character classes. Typically, the most fearsome monsters are faced and most valuable treasures won in these contexts, though PVP (Player-vs-Player) arena and battleground competitions offer comparable challenges. Overall, WoW’s persistent and immersive environments magnify the potential for gamers to sometimes play more than they might otherwise wish: players find it harder to resist the temptation to lose to themselves too frequently completing engaging tasks in a beautiful virtual world environment, which is available almost always on demand (24 h a day, seven days a week, with only minor breaks for system upgrades). 3.3. Sampling Our initial sampling began in the ethnographic phase described above, in which we obtained informants through friends, acquaintances, and fellow players of research team members, and expanded as we virtually met others during our play of the game. We followed our participant-observation ethnographic research with 28 semi-structured interviews, whose subsequent analysis led us to our hypotheses related to stress and problematic online gaming. Our Internet survey was made available online in spring 2010, and we initially solicited respondents to it from persons associated with our own play networks—both from online guilds of which we were members, and also from local gaming communities and centers with which we were associated—followed by network referrals from these initial respondents. This selection process limited the size of our survey sample (N = 133 provided data useable for the regression analyses reported here). But it had the advantage of linking our survey tightly to our qualitative ethnography and interviews, helping to ensure the meaningfulness and comprehensibility of our survey items to respondents, as well as our ability to interpret those responses. Further, the typically personal bond with respondents promoted openness in interviews and a willingness (and even enthusiasm) to complete our somewhat time-consuming online survey (approximately 160 items), further protecting the validity of our results. 3.4. Measures of key concepts 3.4.1. Perceived stress scale As part of the Internet survey questionnaire, we measured stress with Cohen et al.’s (1983) 4-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), which operationalizes stress as respondents’ perceived level of control over their lives, with a higher score indicating a perceived lack of control and thus higher stress. The PSS is the most widely used instrument for measuring subjective stress (over 7000 citations as of 2014). The simply worded questions are generally applicable across diverse persons and contexts, and this scale has thus been used successfully across a range of populations. (Appendix A contains the exact items for this and other scale measures used in our study and discussed here.) 3.4.2. WoW Relaxing Escape Scale We measured respondents’ experience of WoW as stress-reducing with a two item ‘‘WoW Relaxing Escape Scale’’ that asked them to rate the extent to which they played WoW ‘‘to relax and combat stress’’ and also ‘‘to escape’’ to a relief from real-world problems. 3.4.3. WoW Engagement Here, we intended to measure how much respondents felt committed to and valued their experiences and commitments within

WoW as compared to offline life. This construct was of interest on the presumption that the more seriously an individual took in-game experience, the more positive diversion s/he could gain from playing it. We measured this by posing four scenarios pitting WoW and offline commitments against each other, asking respondents in each instance how ‘‘stressful’’ they would find each situation. Thus, for example, we told respondents to imagine themselves on a date with a person they really liked when their WoW guild called and asked them to join a last-minute raid, asking what they would do, allowing them to choose from a range of responses prioritizing either online or offline life. Other questions asked what players would do in situations where they were in a late night raid taking longer than anticipated and also needed to complete an offline school or work obligation for the next day, were working on an important professional project and were called by WoW friends needing in-game help, and were in a raid and were asked by a significant other who just dropped by to go to a movie together. We subsequently asked how stressful (on a 5-point Likert scale) they would find each situation. On the presumption that players who imagined these situations as more stressful did so because they were more committed to and engaged in the game, we summed their responses on how stressful they would find each of the four imagined situations into a single ‘‘WoW Engagement Scale.’’2 3.4.4. Problematic WoW Play Scale To measure players’ experience of problems associated with WoW play, we adapted Young’s commonly used Internet Addiction Test (IAT) (Young, 1998, 1999, 2004; Young & Rogers, 1998) to contain WoW-specific references, and used it to construct a ‘‘Problematic WoW Play Scale.’’ This scale attempts to captures players’ report of negative consequence associated with their online play. Here, we were interested in measuring how extensively individuals reported negative consequences of WoW play on other dimensions of their lives, eroding their actual world commitments like jobs and relationships. In addition to reported negative outcomes connected to the erosion of actual-world lives, this scale also included items related to experiences of playing WoW against one’s will, cognitive preoccupation with the game, maladaptive/ ineffective use of the game to regulate mood, symptoms of withdrawal when unable to play, and preferring virtual- to actualworld interactions. 3.4.5. Control variables Basic demographic questions (e.g., gender, age, employment, income, relationship status) and a variety of in-game accomplishment and experience items, including hours played per week, were also included in our survey, serving as statistical controls in our analysis. We argue for the quality of our measures on several grounds. The PSS, our primary predictor, has previously been validated and is widely used in psychology and related disciplines as a measure of stress in many populations similar to our own (e.g., U.S. populations with minimally a junior high school education). Regarding our measure of WoW Problematic Play, we argue for its validity on the basis of its close resemblance to the commonly 2 We also experimented with constructing this measure by including the sum of the four survey items showing whether respondents would choose the game over their offline lives (i.e., whether they would choose to join or stay with a raid over spending time with their significant other, etc.). That is, their actual choices on these four scenarios (as opposed to how stressful they found the scenarios) could be used to form an alternate 4-item WoW Engagement Scale, or these four response items could be added to the stress questions to form an 8-item scale. Though not discussed in our upcoming Results, these three alternate formulations of our WoW Engagement scale yielded virtually identical regression results, suggesting robustness in our measure of WoW Engagement. We preferred to use the 4-item stress version of the scale as it is most consistent with the stress and stress diversion/escape themes of this paper.

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used IAT. This scale also has anthropological validity because we relied on our ethnographic interviews and observations to carefully adapt it in a way that spoke especially directly to our WoW respondents. In the case of our measures of in-game Relaxing Escape and Engagement, we cannot claim precedent in previous use. However, these measures also were constructed by our research team based on months of ethnographic interviews and observations, including our own experiences with the game, which helped with the scenario construction in particular. Field-testing of these questions in interviews showed that they were readily understandable and meaningful to respondents and thus valid in the ethnographic sense. 4. Results 4.1. Survey Table 1 shows descriptive statistics for key variables, along with their correlations with each other. Despite focusing only on WoW, our sample demographics parallel other published profiles of MMO gamers more generally as male and relatively young (but not as young as often imagined), with half of our respondents gainfully employed and the average player logging almost 20 h of week online in the game (Yee, 2006b). Regarding our Problematic WoW Play Scale, the mean score of 1.94 corresponds approximately to a report of ‘‘rarely’’ on any given one of the 19 items: At least from the player’s own perspective, experiences of negative consequences from WoW play are not common. The mean rating of 3.34 on the ‘‘Relaxing Escape Scale’’ indicates a typical response between ‘‘sometimes’’ (3) and ‘‘fairly often’’ (4) on the original Likert item rating. For the WoW Engagement Scale, the mean was 2.3, representing a response between ‘‘Disagree’’ (2) and ‘‘Neutral’’ (3). Cronbach’s a values for these scales showed acceptable internal consistency, with 0.66 for the Perceived Stress Scale, 0.67 for WoW Relaxing Escape, 0.80 for WoW Engagement, 0.94 for the and Problematic WoW Play Scale. Table 2 shows relationships between key variables, with bivariate associations as anticipated. Level of perceived stress is positively associated with problematic WoW play experiences, as would be expected if individuals experiencing more stress in their offline lives have positive in-game experience that eventually lead toward problematic over-involvement in WoW. Perceived stress is positively correlated with both the experiences of WoW providing relaxing escape and also positively-stressful engagement. This is also in accord with what we would anticipate if more highly stressed individuals find more potential stress relief and engaging cognitive diversion in their online activities. Finally, we find both relaxing escape into and engagement with WoW are positively associated with problematic play experiences. This too fits our model, as finding too much stress relief within WoW would elevate one’s risk of playing this game problematically. The regression analyses in Table 3 show how respondents’ reports of problematic play experiences with WoW varied as a

Table 1 Descriptive statistics.

Problematic WoW Play Scale Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) WoW Relaxing Escape Scale WoW Engagement Scale Age over 30 Male gender Employed Hours/wk WoW Play

Mean (SD)

Cronbach’s alpha

N

1.94 (0.585) 2.35 (0.678) 3.34 (0.974) 2.31 (0.955) 34.6% 75.2% 51.1% 19.2 (16.2)

0.94 0.66 0.67 0.80

137 137 137 137 133 133 133 133

Table 2 Correlation matrix.

Problematic WoW Play Perceived Stress WoW Relaxing WoW Engagement

Problematic WoW Play

Perceived Stress

WoW Relaxing

WoW Engagement

1.00 0.204 0.434 0.524

1.00 0.233 0.182

1.00 0.319

1.00

function of their perceived life stress (and thus degree of control in their lives), their experience of WoW as providing pleasurable relaxation, and their experience of positively-stressful WoW engagement. (All variables are standardized to facilitate interpretation.) As might be expected, Model 1 showed that persons experiencing less offline stress (and thus more control in real life) reported lower levels of problematic play experience, with a standard deviation difference in Perceived Stress leading to a predicted increase of about 0.2 standard deviations in Problematic WoW Play. In Model 2, which introduces WoW relaxing escape experience as an additional variable, the slope with respect to Perceived Stress decreased substantially, about 40% smaller than it was compared to Model 1, a pattern that is consistent with WoW Relaxing Escape serving as a mediating variable between stress in real life and the tendency toward problem play. The standardized slope for Perceived Stress declined even more in Model 3, which contains WoW Engagement as a further predictor, a result that is consistent with a mediating effect for this variable as well. We conducted a formal analysis of the mediation of the effect of Perceived Stress through WoW Relaxing Escape and WoW Engagement, using the -khb- Stata add-on program (Karlson & Holm, 2011). That analysis indicated that 63% of the total effect of perceived stress on problematic play was mediated through these two variables (p < 0.01 for a test of the difference in slope), with approximately equal parts attributable to each mediator. Table 4 shows the same preceding analyses but adding in various demographic control variables, including age, gender, employment status, and hours per week of WoW play. This analysis is offered to show the robustness of the analysis in Table 3 to these potential correlates. We excluded the control variables from the models reported Table 3, in recognition of the excessively small case-to-variable ratio that would create, given the modest sample size. So, while we do not recommend primary reliance on the results in Table 4, we note that they show that the previous findings of Table 3 were robust with respect to these controls, as the size and direction of the slopes for perceived stress, and the pattern of mediation, remained essentially the same as in the more parsimonious presentation of Table 3. In Table 4, the estimated total effect of perceived stress in Model 1 was 0.192 (vs. 0.207 in Table 3), which declined to 0.053 in Model 3 (vs. 0.073 in Table 3), representing a total of 72% mediation (vs. 63% in Table 3). In summation, players who report more offline stress—more absence of control in their actual lives—demonstrate more frequent symptoms associated with problematic gameplay. And the impact of perceived stress on problematic gameplay appears to be mediated by in-game experiences of both relaxation and engagement. 4.2. Ethnographic interviews This article’s statistical results find support in our ethnographic and qualitative research. In relation to the first pathway toward compulsive play, interview respondents often explicitly said that they enter WoW for relaxing stress relief and thus escape from the offline world, with many comparing it to ‘‘zoning out’’ in front of the television, but even better because it is more immersive and

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Table 3 Regression of problematic WoW Play Scale on our Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), WoW Relaxing Escape Scale, and WoW Engagement Scale.a

Perceived Stress Scale

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

0.207 (0.084)*

0.121 (0.079) 0.414 (0.079)***

0.076 (0.072) 0.290 (0.075)*** 0.407 (0.074)*** 0.35*** 137

WoW Relaxing Escape WoW Engagement R2 N a * ***

0.04* 137

0.21*** 137

Mediation Pct.

29% 34%

Coming into the game it’s nice to know what to expect. It’s pretty much always the same going on. . . . Yeah, I would say it [WoW] benefits me at least in my situation. Me being a bill collector, I talk to 100–150 people a day that do nothing but cuss me out and call me names and stuff all day long. So to get onto Warcraft and am able to talk to other people and do things with other people, have success and joke around and have fun, definitely a fresh change of pace for me. Another compared certain forms of WoW play to meditation: Especially if I’m doing something mindless, I do need to make it [WoW] meditative if it’s a quest I’ve done many, many times before. And the music helps with that, especially if it’s uh, well any kind of music, but it just helps me get into a state of, ‘ok, this is what I’m doing, I’m going to do it.’ It’s kind of like muscle memory at that point where I’m not really thinking about it.

Table entries are standardized slopes, with standard errors in parentheses. p < 0.05. p < 0.001.

thus gamers feel like they are ‘‘really there,’’ in the fiction so to speak, and thus more fully separated from a sometimes stressful offline world. As one player told us, straightforwardly: When I use the game to release stress I feel a lot better after I play the game. It’s like it’s time to kill monsters. And it gets that frustration out without harming anybody. Yeah, World of Warcraft, when there is like a lot of stress in my day, and I decide I just need to kill monsters for about an hour. I do feel better. Definitely, I do feel better. Another respondent told us that the game slows his mind down after returning from work. It’s really easy for my mind to be in full gear when I come home from work. My mind’s already seeing things I need to do, and didn’t do, and what I should have said, and it’s a way to just swoosh, change focus. . . . As I said, when I get home from work my mind is racing, and playing WoW takes my mind off of it. And then I’ll play for an hour or two or whatever it is, when I’m done everything is kind of calmed down. I can proceed with the chores or other things in the evening. By that time my brain has been shut off and I can proceed as normal. A third said that he finds the predictability and regularity of WoW a refreshing and relaxing change of pace from his chaotic life: Well pretty much the majority of my days are not relaxing. I have four small kids. I run around every day and like I said I’m a bill collector and definitely my days are the same chaos.

This respondent also suggested WoW was like smoking marijuana, drinking alcohol, and other ‘‘mindless’’ stuff that takes your mind off real-world problems and, indeed, keeps you from thinking altogether. In fact, many interviewees spoke of diverse features of WoW—its soothing music, beautiful landscapes, chatty and even inane socializing, sometimes simple and repetitive activities like repeating a familiar quest—as providing welcome respite from a sometimes distressful and unpredictable offline world. Here, WoW’s sometimes simple and ordered structure diverts attention from offline stress and into the game, thus providing relief from an often distressful offline life. Nevertheless, interviewees explicitly told us that when life stress is particularly high and even overwhelming, they found it difficult to extract themselves from the game. For example, Kira reflected on how she reacted to the stress accompanying her impending wedding, illuminating the link between overwhelming stress and problematic WoW play: I mean I think at that point I was so stressed out from planning my own wedding that I just wanted to get away from it. So, logging in and talking to people who had no idea what my life was like was kind of refreshing. So it was more of that escapism, it was very much that, I just wanted to get away, and just go hang out with my friends who, of course, my fiancé didn’t quite understand cuz he’s not an online gamer, so that always causes tension between us because when I met him I was playing Everquest so it’s always been this meeting online people tension. So

Table 4 Regression of problematic WoW Play Scale on demographic variables, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), WoW Relaxing Escape Scale, and WoW Engagement Scale.a

Age (over 30 = 1) Gender (male = 1) Employed (yes = 1) Hours/week WoW Play in 10s

Controls Only

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

0.228 (0.180) 0.364 (0.185) 0.094 (0.172) 0.233 (0.082)**

0.215 (0.177) 0.382 (0.182)* 0.112 (0.169) 0.228 (0.081)** 0.192 (0.078)*

0.210 (0.162) 0.385 (0.167)* 0.062 (0.155) 0.197 (0.074)** 0.105 (0.074) 0.378 (0.075)***

0.257 (0.143) 0.175 (0.151) 0.147 (0.137) 0.261 (0.066)*** 0.053 (0.066) 0.242 (0.070)*** 0.433 (0.070)*** 0.45*** 133

Perceived Stress Scale WoW Relaxing Escape Scale WoW Engagement Scale 2

R N a * ** ***

*

0.09 133

*

0.13 133

0.28 133

***

Table entries are standardized slopes except for the binary control variables, for which the slope is standardized on the response variable only. p < 0.05. p < 0.01. p < 0.001.

Mediation Pct.

29% 43%


it’s just the wanting to get away, from him and ‘how he didn’t understand’ [finger quotes], stuff like that, so yeah I definitely played way more than I should’ve. Here, Kira tells us that her life stress at this point was not manageable, so relaxing in the game questing or simply socializing with her guild-mates was preferable to life offline, leading her to over play. In fact, many respondents made references to how unmanageable and potentially overwhelming life stress led them to seek too much therapeutic comfort in the game, be it from, to cite a few examples from our interviews, a recent death in the family, an out of work father who was miserable and always at home, or a painful breakup with a significant other. As one respondent said, she could sometimes play until 4am, forgetting to eat dinner, but only if stressed: ‘‘Once I start playing it’s hard to tell whether or not I’ll have the will power to stop if I’m feeling stressed out or something.’’ Particularly in need of relief from offline stress, these WoW gamers, in their own estimation, no longer played wisely, and an activity that initially provided satisfying escape from their lives and thus stress relief instead produced further stress and distress. Similarly, in relationship to our second stress-related pathway toward problematic WoW play, interviewees also spoke of exhilarating in-game pleasures, such as collaborative and highly challenging multi-player events like, to take one player’s words, ‘‘epic and huge freakin’ raids’’ and player-vs-player (PVP) battlegrounds where ‘‘everybody’s dying.’’ This form of play, too, can provide relief from offline problems by diverting gamers’ attention away from them, this time in the form of stimulating ‘‘positive stress’’ rather than relaxation. That is, WoW gaming functions much like what one player, James, described as an attention ‘‘redirect’’ coping strategy that he picked up in the military while fighting in Iraq. There, when faced with life problems, he learned to focus on accomplishing immediate tasks at hand, thus avoiding potentially dangerous rumination on stressful situations that might have cost him his life. Mimicking how he spoke to fellow soldiers in order to help them survive, he told us: ‘‘Redirect, don’t focus on the stress, dude, don’t focus on the suck, focus on what you need to do. What do you have to do? Go fix that shit! Don’t think about fucking SusieQ fucking your best friend at home. You know what, there is nothing you can fucking do about it, get your shit together and focus!’’ This same individual suggested that one needed to focus in the same manner during WoW’s collaborative raids in order to survive, thus ensuring that one’s mind was diverted from offline problems and stress. Such attention diversion certainly could be therapeutic, providing temporary escape from life’s problems, as many players told us. However, players also told us that to reach these challenging ‘‘endgame’’ points in the game required enormous investments of time, which could be stressful and lead to over-play. One player described these time investments as a ‘‘rat cage’’ and a ‘‘gerbil wheel,’’ which led to over-playing and created further problems in his life: I mean if you just needed to get your mind off of something for a little bit, you need to help relieve the stress just, you know, I think there’s definitely a therapeutic aspect to a change of pace. You know doing something differently for a while. But I think when you’re unwilling to work on stuff that’s happening around you or in real life because you’re pouring a lot of time into the game then there you have a problem, it’s being detrimental. I mean I am not going to lie, to maintain a level of competitiveness in the game, you really have to invest time and there’s no getting around that. That can be stressful in many ways, taking time away from your family, putting time in the game, doing things you really don’t want to do, the parts of the game

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you don’t enjoy but you realize they are going to help you in the long run. And, and it gets taxing after a while. Further, in order to complete these more difficult tasks, one is beholden to other players. This topic emerged frequently in our interviews, leading us to make them the focus of our four scenarios, asking players to assess the level of stress they experienced when offline and online others competed for their time. As we saw in that analysis of these scenarios, players who found such situations more stressful, thus potentially demonstrating particularly high levels of commitment to in-game others and tasks, were more likely to demonstrate problematic online behaviors. The problematic nature of such group play that is no longer ‘‘just a game’’ led one individual, Derek, to reflect on the differences between more relaxed and casual play and the collaborative efforts of he and his guild-mates, which he referred to as ‘‘the late night pain train,’’ because of an obsessive focus on progression that often led them to continue playing into the early morning, leaving him exhausted the next day: I think when you’re doing the casual aspect of the game it’s a stress reliever, it’s almost always a stress reliever. You’re just having fun in 5-mans, you’re joking with friends, you’re just hanging out, it’s a stress reliever. In raids when progression happens, when you down that new boss it’s a great rush, it’s a really good feeling, you feel really good about what you’ve done in your time. But it’s definitely stress creation when you work a long time and people are getting frustrated and agitated and you don’t get anywhere. That takes so much time to get started and then once you get started you have to keep going, it’s not something you can just quit like some of the lower level instances, you have to keep going. If you quit, you feel bad because you’re leaving a group in the lurch. Questing also takes hours, but not nearly as much time as instancing and groups and stuff. Generally, you can solo your way through and you can quit whenever you want but once you get into a group it’s that pressure again, if you quit you’re screwing over everybody else. The pressure comes right back into play. Importantly, we learned through interviews that many players committed to WoW (and to their guilds) in this way when they were trying to avoid something painful in their offline lives. For example, James, who was featured above, told us that the stress of serving in Iraq led to his struggles with over-play, a habit he found easier to break once back stateside. Likewise, Derek, who eventually joined the ‘‘late night pain train’’ spoke of an earlier instance of over-playing when he and his brother both needed a ‘‘change of pace’’ from arguing and soon-to-be-divorced parents. Expressing regret afterwards, he told us: And so I was playing with my brother because he wanted to get up to as high rank as he could. For an entire summer we put in probably close to 8 to 10 h a day every day. And looking back on that summer, you know, it feels, it feels really kind of hollow. I spent some time with my brother, but it’s almost like a wasted summer, like one of the lost ones I guess in way. Summarizing the motivations behind these compulsive play patterns, and these two stress-related pathways, one informant, Justin, told us the following: I could definitely see how people would get addicted to playing it [WoW]. Like I said, it’s kinda’ like a vacation from your mind, a little vacation from reality, even if things were stressful or complicated or anything else. The game, even if it’s stressful, it’s still not as stressful, never as bad, as things can be in real life. And so I can definitely see how people play for six hours or whatever and have no idea that six hours had gone by. So I think it’d be

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very easy for people to kill a lot of time playing that game and, yeah, I could totally see how people would be addicted to that. It is a little vacation from your mind, and it isn’t reality. It’s the same reason people get addicted to drugs, it’s relaxing, or whatever it does, it’s a form of escape, definitely. I definitely think it could be bad, like any addiction, if it starts to interfere with things like your job or your schoolwork, or if it starts to interfere with responsibilities in your real day-to-day life, then that would definitely be a negative thing. . . Too much of anything isn’t good, but, at the same time I think it could totally be a positive thing too by granting people some social freedoms and also allowing people to do things that they wouldn’t do in day-today life. It’s definitely got positive aspects to it, like a friend of mine used to play Everquest and was, you know, a total shutin, just playing Everquest twenty-four-seven, like this kid would not leave the house and well eventually we got him to leave the house, you know, and we told him you gotta’ stop playing these computer games, you gotta’ get out in the real world and really live, you’re avoiding reality, but things were really going great for him when he was playing the computer. When he did stop playing computer games and would go into the real world he would do things like hit people with pool sticks, and rob people or do copious amounts of drugs or, you know, he was just a complete train-wreck. He ended up doing time in prison as a matter of fact, which is crazy, as he went from this shy, quiet computer nerd to this guy that was dealing cocaine and getting in bar fights all the time. So, I think in that way the computer games would be a very positive thing, a very positive outlet for him, as opposed to cocaine and bar fights, and whatever. . . This complex quote alludes to themes present in each of our pathways to problematic WoW play. To begin, Justin shows how WoW play can be therapeutic, allowing for escapes from a ‘‘stressful or complicated’’ offline reality, what he calls ‘‘vacations from your mind.’’ Justin tells us that WoW in part provides such relief through relaxation, alluding to themes present in H1. True, play in this online virtual reality itself can be stressful, Justin admits. But life online is ‘‘never as bad’’ as things can be in the so-called ‘‘real’’ world, in this interviewee’s opinion, thus pointing to the potential therapeutic escape and gain of even WoW’s positive stress, themes present in our H2. Further, Justin firmly links these therapeutic gains related to relaxation and diverting positive stress to the risks inherent in online play. The need to escape life stress leads his friend to play WoW compulsively, becoming a ‘‘shut-in’’ almost fully separated from offline reality. Of note, Justin sees his friend’s play as a good thing, even though it is compulsive and interferes with other social relationships. It is an addiction, he thinks, though a better outlet for his offline stress and frustration than the alternatives—alcohol, cocaine, and bar fights. 5. Discussion 5.1. Interpretation of results Our survey results demonstrate the relation of WoW players’ self-assessed offline stress and problematic online gaming. Further, the relationship between offline stress and problematic online play was significantly weaker in models that included addition of two stress-related variables, which is consistent with the idea that the latter two mediate a causal relationship between offline stress and problematic WoW play. Interpreting these results further, more overwhelming life distress might lead gamers to experience greater relaxation and stress relief in online worlds like WoW, making them less willing to return to offline contexts (H1). In fact, as we saw, interview respondents explicitly said that they enter WoW for stress relief and thus escape from the offline world, with

many comparing it to ‘‘zoning out’’ in front of television and other relaxing forms of recreation. Still, many respondents made references to how unmanageable and potentially overwhelming life stress led them to seek too much therapeutic comfort and relaxation in the game. In these cases, players found it difficult to extract themselves from WoW, reaffirming statistical results related to H1’s posited pathway toward addiction. Also, our survey suggests that individuals with higher offline stress engage and experience more fully the aroused and engaged ‘‘positive stress’’ dimensions of WoW, which might push them toward to overplay and thus escape the offline world via an alternate non-relaxing feel-good path (H2). Again, interviews confirmed such findings, with respondents emphasizing how WoW play provided relief from offline problems by diverting gamers’ attention away from them, this time in the form of stimulating ‘‘positive stress’’ rather than relaxation. Here, WoW challenges allowed such players to focus on more manageable problems in the game rather than on more overwhelming offline ‘‘suck,’’ to take one respondent’s phrasing. That is, WoW gaming functions much like James’ ‘‘redirect’’ coping strategy he picked up in Iraq. There, when faced with life problems, he learned to focus on accomplishing immediate tasks at hand, thus avoiding potentially dangerous rumination on stressful situations that might have cost him his life. Such positive in-game stress could be therapeutic, much like relaxing WoW play. However, players also told us that to reach challenging ‘‘endgame’’ points in the game, like collaborative ‘‘raids,’’ required enormous investments of time and commitments to in-game social others, which led many players to spend more time in the WoW ‘‘rat cage’’ than they might otherwise wish. Thus, these positive stress therapeutic dimensions of WoW also led many players down the path of compulsive over-play—leading one player, Derek, to play with his guild to exhaustion into the wee hours of the morning, his ‘‘late night pain train.’’ Here, too, it was when players were trying to avoid something painful in their lives—like an impending parental divorce in Derek’s case—that they committed to WoW play and progression in this way. In a moment of self-reflection echoing the pathway we posit in H2, Derek acknowledged that his family’s problems and thus his own stress led him to play in this compulsive way, obsessed on progression, resulting in a ‘‘wasted,’’ ‘‘hollow,’’ and ‘‘lost’’ summer. Overall, our findings lead us to frame problematic WoW play as in part a stress response. That is, it is pre-existing life stress that leads one into problematic patterns of online play. Inhabiting WoW represents an attempt to manage, minimize, and, indeed, escape such pre-existing life stress—either through relaxation or engagement, both of which divert attention away from offline stressors. WoW’s more regular and controllable tasks and relationships provide a welcome respite from a typically more chaotic and thus stressful offline world. But, when the offline stress is overwhelming, attempts to manage offline distress through WoW can lead to over-play. Thus, Justin described his WoW play as providing a ‘‘vacation from your mind,’’ allowing one to escape offline reality, though such a vacation was risky, as, in his words, WoW ‘‘does kinda suck you in’’ to the point ‘‘you spend more time in some fantasy world than dealing with things that might suck in day to day life.’’ In these instances, short rejuvenating vacations from one’s offline life change into more permanent inhabitations in WoW, with such long-term avoidance of one’s problems potentially magnifying rather than relieving distress. 5.2. Relationship to previous literature Our research builds most particularly on ‘‘components’’ approaches to Internet-related use problems (Griffiths, 2005). We confirm the relationship between stress and addiction-like experiences and behaviors, findings spanning a range of diverse forms of


uncontrollable and distressful behaviors, from substance abuse to so-called ‘‘behavioral addictions’’ like problematic online gaming (Caplan et al., 2009; Charlton & Danforth, 2007; Charlton & Danforth, 2010; Grant et al., 2003; Hawkins et al., 1992; Kreek et al., 2005; Maté, 2012; Rhodes & Jason, 1990; Sinha, 2008; Yee, 2006c). We utilize a stress–strain framework in which MMO play, similar to other Internet activity, is viewed as a behavioral manifestation of offline stressors and the perception of such stressors (Griffiths, 2005; Widyanto & Griffiths, 2006). We uncover processes that mediate between offline stressors and problematic Internet activity generally defined, where the Internet provides a source of escape from offline problems (Li et al., 2009, 2010; Yan et al., 2013). However, our research draws on MMO studies more narrowly to point to how specific in-game stress-related experiences and activities such as relaxing or arousing WoW play—rather than psychological propensities and offline coping strategies, for example, which are highlighted in other PIU studies—mediate between offline stress and problematic play (Yee, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). Overall, we use a general stress–strain framework to model processes connecting offline stressors and problematic online play, rendering explicit through mediation models processes not captured as clearly in other MMO analyses. These other analyses typically reveal either the effect of offline stress or game-related variables on problematic play. But, unlike our study, they have not explicitly examined the mediating pathways through which offline stress and in-game play variables simultaneously and in relationship to each other impact such patterns of distress (Caplan et al., 2009). Further, we elucidate how offline perceived stress compounds and amplifies rather than simply creates distressful forms of PIU, thus leading us to link our work to studies that speak of a ‘‘rich get richer’’ model of Internet activity (Kraut et al., 2002). Here, individuals with less stressful offline lives, and who self-profess higher levels of control in their lives, are more resilient and thus more easily manage to use the game therapeutically to improve their lives. By contrast, stressed individuals can further magnify the stress in their lives by compulsively playing WoW, with such subsequently elevated stress potentially pushing them to ever deeper and more distressful levels of online immersion. Finally, methodologically, we combine quantitative survey and qualitative interview results to reach our conclusions regarding the stressrelated experiences and mechanisms involved in these PIU processes. This lends our findings a degree of detail and nuance— and also confidence—not possible in the many excellent studies relying on survey data alone that currently dominate the field. 5.3. Study limitations Given the cross-sectional and correlational nature of our survey data, it is difficult for us to say definitively whether stress leads to problematic online addiction, or vice versa. Our study does lead us to suggest that an underlying problem with stress leads to problematic play, which is ultimately a somewhat counter-productive attempt to relieve that stress. However, the causal arrow can certainly run the other way, with problematic online play creating stress and distress, a common theme in our interviews. Nevertheless, we would still point out the important inter-relationship between stress and problematic online play, even if the precise causal pathways cannot be fully determined through our data. And our qualitative ethnography and interviews do further support our posited causal pathways. Our small to moderately sized sample was adequate for our statistical purposes. Still, studies using larger and even random samples would be necessary to confirm and extend our findings to MMOs more generally. Our results best represent the particular WoW gamers playing on typically North American servers who shaped our understanding of the game

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especially during spring 2010 when the bulk of our observations, interviews, and survey responses were conducted and collected. As well, our analysis relies largely on self-reports collected in our online survey. Here, we’d like to state a different qualification than usually accompanies this point, where researchers urge caution, for example, not to confuse such reports with objective measures of physical suffering, stress, and distress (which is of course true). Players often spoke of WoW being ‘‘addictive.’’ Sometimes they meant by this roughly what clinicians might mean: compulsive WoW play could crowd out other activities in their lives and thus create distress. Other times, more ironically, they meant to say that the game was designed well and thus fun and ‘‘addicting.’’ Likewise, as we see in Justin’s quote, players commonly spoke about each of the stress-related addiction pathways we discuss, explicitly saying, for example, offline stress led to the need for relaxing game-play and in cases where stress was overwhelming overplay. In these terms, we would say that speaking of WoW as both addictive and as stress relief could be considered a culturespecific way of expressing and framing suffering—what anthropologists call an ‘‘idiom of distress’’ (Nichter, 1981) or a ‘‘cultural frame’’ (Room, 2003). This is not to say that individuals do not really suffer from offline stress or online addiction. But we should be aware that such framings are also idioms of communication used to make sense of suffering, whose exact underlying contours remain opaque. Finally, a well-established literature now shows that PIU is associated and thus comorbid with various forms of offline suffering, including pre-existing mental illness (like depression and anxiety), loneliness, and lack of satisfaction and success in life (Cao, Sun, Wan, Hao, & Tao, 2011; Caplan et al., 2009; Ko, Yen, Yen, Chen, & Chen, 2012; Kraut et al., 2002; Shaw & Black, 2008; Snodgrass, Dengah, et al., 2011; Snodgrass et al., 2013). Each of these challenges would potentially compromise individuals’ perceived control over their lives, and thus would each entail some form of perceived negative stress or ‘‘distress’’ (as opposed to positive stress or ‘‘eustress’’). Indeed, further analysis of our own survey data reveals, for example, that low life satisfaction and low life success are both associated with higher rates of PIU. And, tellingly, the relationship between these two variables (life satisfaction and life success) and PIU is mediated in each case by our two in-game stress relieving variables (relaxation and engagement) via pathways virtually identical to those reported in this article for the relationship between perceived stress and PIU.3 This suggests processes related to stress and its relief do indeed connect other forms of offline suffering and challenge to PIU. Overall, we believe that the ‘‘stress–strain-relief’’ framework presented in this paper provides a useful schematic model for how offline suffering of various kinds connects to problematic MMO play. However, further research is needed to better specify how the relationship between offline stress (as a perceived lack of control over one’s life) and other forms of suffering (like depression, anxiety, dissatisfaction, or loneliness) connect in turn to problematic MMO use. Such research may allow us to better understand how these other forms of suffering’s association with PIU is due to a ‘‘distressful’’ lack of perceived control in life, and how much is due to unique factors characteristic of each of these particular forms of challenge and suffering.

3 That is, the relationship in our models between both self-reported life satisfaction and success and PIU decreased substantially (and in roughly the same proportions reported in this article for relationships between PSS and PIU) with the addition of the relaxing escape and engagement variables, which is consistent with these latter two variables serving as mediators between either life satisfaction/success and the tendency toward problem play.

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6. Conclusion Our research indicates that WoW problematic play can be usefully framed as a stress response. Readers should be careful not to use such an argument to pathologize online gaming. To begin, we would point out that most gamers play in a healthy manner, feeling that the game enhances their offline life rather than detracts from it. Also, it is offline distress that ultimately best explains compulsive play, not the game itself. WoW is simply a medium or tool used in an attempt to relieve the negative perceived stress, which, in many cases, actually works. In this sense, online video-gaming is not so different from other hobbies or passions initially pursued for pleasure but which can turn compulsive, be it long-distance running, chess and bridge, or sports fandom. Further, as in Justin’s quote, we must keep in mind that compulsive WoW play should be considered alongside these and also potentially destructive ‘‘self-medication’’ alternatives, such as violence and substance abuse or, we would add, even passively ‘‘zoning out’’ in front of the television for hours on end. Even players who self-profess to play problematically still describe many positive aspects to their ‘‘problem,’’ which is less clearly the case, Justin reminds us, when one’s pain and suffering lead one to bar fights, a life of crime, or potentially crippling substance abuse. Appendix A. Survey instrument key measures Scale 1: Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)

1. 2. 3. 4.

1 Never, 2 Almost never, 3 Sometimes, 4 Fairly often, 5 Very often Items 2 and 3 were reverse coded. In the last month, how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your real-world life? In the last month, how often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your real-world personal problems? In the last month, how often have you felt that things in the real-world were going your way? In the last month, how often have you felt real-world difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them? Scale 2: WoW Relaxing Escape Scale

1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Agree, 5 Strongly Agree 1. WoW helps me to relax and combat stress in my life. 2. I escape into WoW when I need relief from my real-world problems.

4. Imagine you are joining your friends for a high level raid or instance. Unexpectedly, your significant other drops in for a visit and insists that you go to a movie together. What do you do? Scale 4: Problematic WoW Play Scale 1 Never, 2 Rarely, 3 Sometimes, 4 Often, 5 Always 1. How often do you neglect household chores to spend more time WoW? 2. How often do you prefer the excitement of WoW to intimacy with your partner? 3. How often do you form new relationships with fellow WoW users? 4. How often do others in your life complain to you about the amount of time you spend on WoW? 5. How often do your grades or school work suffer because of the amount of time you spend on WoW? 6. How often do you regret the amount of time you spend on WoW? 7. How often does your job performance or productivity suffer because of WoW? 8. How often do you become defensive or secretive when anyone asks you about WoW? 9. How often do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with positive thoughts related to WoW? 10. How often do you find yourself anticipating when you will go on WoW again? 11. How often do you fear that life without WoW would be boring, empty, and joyless? 12. How often do you snap, yell, or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are playing WoW? 13. How often do you lose sleep due to late-night WoW playing? 14. How often do you feel preoccupied with WoW when off-line, or fantasize about being on WoW? 15. How often do you find yourself saying ‘‘just a few more minutes’’ when on WoW? 16. How often do you try to cut down the amount of time you spend on WoW and fail? 17. How often do you try to hide how long you are on WoW? 18. How often do you choose to spend more time on WoW over going out with others? 19. How often do you feel depressed, moody, or nervous when you are not playing WoW, which goes away once you are back on-line?

References Scale 3: WoW Engagement Scale (Summing Reported Stress to Each of the Following Four Scenarios) Each scenario is followed by: ‘‘I would find the above situation stressful.’’ 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Agree, 5 Strongly Agree 1. Imagine you are on a date with a person that you really like and your guild calls you to join a last-minute raid or instance? What would you do? 2. You are in the middle of a raid or instance where you expect to gain a high level item and it has taken longer than you anticipated. It is now very late at night and you have a school paper or work project due the next morning. What do you do? 3. Imagine you are working on a professional project that might lead to a promotion and your WoW friends call and say that they need you foursome in game activity. What do you do?

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