The Awkwardness of Walking a High School Hallway (or, Digital Tribes: Gamers, Socialites, and Information Seekers)

This thought came to me while reading this New York Times article on app makers' attempts to understand how teens use smartphones and what they want out of the experience. In particular, I was struck by this sentence: "And when your phone is the default security blanket for enduring the awkwardness of walking a high school hallway, it feels nice to have a bunch of digital hellos ready with a swipe."

I thought of my own experience in high school. Indeed, it was awkward. I didn't have a phone as a security blanket. I suppose I just thought about the things that mattered to me as a way of escaping the awkwardness. I thought about the video games I'd play when I got home, or the movies or music I loved. Social media didn't exist. Maybe I thought about hanging out with my friends the following weekend.

Also while reading this sentence, I thought of my nephew (age 9) and niece (age 5). They're both too young for social media and smartphones, but I started thinking about what they'd be like when they are old enough to use these things. My nephew is already enamored with video games, in particular Minecraft. It seems unlikely that he'll be a heavy user of social media, and very likely that he'll spend a lot of time playing video games. My niece plays video games, and I honestly am not sure whether she'll stay interested in video games and/or develop an intense interest in social media, like many middle school and high school girls.

But as I read this article, and as I imagined how my nephew and niece would use media when they get to high school, a picture started to emerge in my head, a picture of at least two, maybe three, relatively distinct "tribes". One tribe spent most of their screen time using social media like Instagram or Snapchat. Another tribe spent most of their screen time playing video games. Of course, there would be some overlap: the gamers wouldn't totally forsake social media, and those who spent a lot of time with social media would also play some games. But they would differ in terms of how these media experiences fulfilled some fundamental needs or desires, how digital media provided a kind of default security blanket for them during the awkward teenage years.

For the gamers, video games would deliver a sense of challenge and accomplishment, and sometimes a sense of esteem (others see what you've accomplished and admire you). They also would provide camaraderie via the community of gamers.

For the social media users (let's call them "socialites"), social media would deliver a sense of social support and esteem, evidence that people are paying attention to you, that people like you, that you're not alone.

And perhaps there would be a third group: information seekers/entertainment consumers - people who use media primarily to consume rather than interact; consume news, consume educational material, consume movies, music, etc. I think I was one of these types of people in high school, and I think they still exist in high schools. Some kids aren't that into gaming or social media. They love movies, music, books, etc.

These are distinct groups driven by distinct desires. This brings me back to the Uses & Gratifications theory, a theory that I'm not too fond of (because I don't think people are very good at reflecting on why they use media), but might be of some use to help determine what the positive or negative effects of media might be.

So what? Why do these categories matter?

Well, for light-to-moderate users, all of these types of media use might help to keep young people happy and engaged with the world around them, give them a sense of belonging and fulfillment. The particular kind of media use that provides that sense of belonging and fulfillment won't be the same for everyone.

What about heavy media use? Well, heavy use is probably bad for all groups, but bad in different ways. For those in the social tribe, heavy use would be associated with a kind of fragile ego and need for validation from others, and preoccupation with this validation. For gamers, heavy use would be associated with not caring about accomplishments in the real, non-game world (i.e., not caring about grades, not caring about social connections with real-world peers, not caring about one's health, etc.), a kind of disappearing into the game world. For information seekers, heavy use might be associated with a kind of "filter bubble" problem: they get further and further into a particular view of the world without being forced to see messages from other perspectives or without interacting with people who, inevitably, will hold at least slightly different opinions.

If you just measure "internet use" or "smartphone use" as they relate to these outcomes, you might not find any effects, simply because the lack of effects in the other two groups "washes out" the significant effect in a single group. That doesn't mean the effects aren't there. By differentiating among these tribes (not necessarily by asking young people how they identify, but by measuring their actual use of video games, social media, and information/entertainment consumption), we would be able to see these different effects.

I'm usually quite skeptical of metaphors used to describe media technologies. Such metaphors tend to highlight the ways in which media technologies are similar to something else while ignoring all the ways in which it is not, and they seem chosen chiefly to support the pre-existing beliefs of the metaphor user. Do you think that a new media technology is harmful? Liken it to cigarettes or crack cocaine. Think that it's benign, or even helpful? Liken it to chess or painting or family.

But the security blanket metaphor seems a bit less...deterministic than these other metaphors. Of course, if one were to take it literally, it does have a negative connotation: the image of teenagers clinging to blankies evokes a kind of pathological arrested development, kind of like a pacifier. But what I like about the metaphor is that as long as you don't take it too literally, it helps you think about what young media users get out of the experience - security, comfort - and, at least for me, it doesn't dictate that this gratification come from a particular type of media experience.

The Gamified Life

Video games are a worthwhile leisure experience, something that can have positive effects on the players. If it occupies a certain place in a person's life, gaming can enrich a player in many ways. In fact, I think we've only scratched the surface on the positive effects gaming can have on individuals and communities. Even if it's a means of relaxation that allows one to more fully engage with reality after playing the game, that's a plus.

On the other hand, if gaming occupies another place in a person's life, it can substitute for real-world experiences. Even if gaming doesn't cause people to kill other people in real life (or some such horrible real-world behavioral consequence), I still wonder about what gamers would have done with the time they spend gaming, and how the gaming experience shapes their non-gaming, real world interactions and experiences.

My key interest is in how gaming is disconnected (and disconnects the player) from reality. A good game creates a kind of alternate reality with challenges, goals, and hazards and, increasingly, a social structure. All of that, it would seem, makes it easy to feel immersed in the gaming experience, to at least temporarily forget about the world outside the game and to focus exclusively on achievement and survival within the game.

There is an attempt to bridge the gap between the substitute reality of the game world and the real world: gamification. The point of gamification seems to be to incentivize a certain real-world behavior (exercise, civic engagement, etc.) by linking it to a reward.

The motive is laudable: instead of just getting people to spend time getting a high score or achieving status in a world that is disconnected from reality, you get them to do something good in the real world: learn about the world, become more civically engaged, etc. So, let's assume that gamification works: it gets people to engage in whatever behavior you're trying to get them to engage in when they would not have done so otherwise. Great! But here's what I'm wondering about:

How challenging is the game, or the gamified aspect of real-life, relative to the un-gamified aspects of life? The rules of games are tweaked so that they are challenging but not too frustrating. If a game were too frustrating, the player would stop playing (and likely pick up a less-frustrating-but-still-challenging game). But real life doesn't adapt to the individual in this respect. Even a successful gamification of reality is not all encompassing. Sooner or later, gamers must confront the un-gamified world.

Here are a few possible consequences of this discontinuity.

Gamification could create the perception that life isn't fair. The experience of the un-gamified challenges in their lives failing to adapt to their ability levels will seem increasingly unfair to gamers. To someone who has no experience with a gamified reality, the fact that day-to-day existence (work, interactions with loved ones, local politics) is very often frustrating is simply a part of life; whether or not it is "fair" isn't really an issue. This perception would be easy to measure: do you agree/disagree with the statement "often, life is not fair" (or some variation of this).

Gamification could create the desire to play more games, particularly the kind of games that adapt in some way when they become too frustrating for the user. Gamers would then disengage with any aspect of reality that does not adapt, including relationships and civic involvement. They go further and further into the adaptable world of the games.

But here's the weirdest possible consequence I've been thinking about.

What if the majority of certain people's realities become gamified? When they encounter an aspect of their realities that are frustrating or boring, they gamify it. They keep doing this until their entire realities (how often they exercise, what they eat, how they interact with their spouses, work, volunteering, local politics, etc.) are gamified, so that no aspect of their daily lives becomes too frustrating or not rewarding enough. I can imagine a small group of people doing this, but I can't imagine every human doing this (at least not for awhile, but who knows?). The problems will occur when the gamified society meets the un-gamified society.

Life is a kind of game, with challenges and goals and a "score" (money, happiness, status, righteousness, or whichever metric you want to use). But the key difference is that life lacks a "user experience" designer. It is continuously and simultaneously created by things that are often indifferent to the needs and desires of the individual. One of the worst consequences for the gamer who becomes increasingly frustrated with un-gamified life might be a kind of despondence that, left unchecked, causes them to quit the game of life.

This, of course, wouldn't be the fate of most gamers. So what is it that causes some gamers to eschew reality? And when we gamify another aspect of our lives, how does this change the way we view the rough edges of the world outside the game?

Do you have a Candy Crush Habit or a Candy Crush Addiction?

Most of my recent research concerns media habits and/or what you might call "unconscious" media use. These are the times when we open up a tab on our web browsers and go to a website without thinking too deeply about why we're doing this or considering the long-term value of such an act. Over time, such behavior become habits, and habits can be hard to break. It seems that if habits are sufficiently difficult to break, we call them addictions.

But I, like many others in the field of psychology, am not too keen on applying the term "addiction" to habitual media use. Why not? If you're playing Candy Crush Saga five hours a day and you feel unable to stop playing, what is the difference if we call this a bad habit or an addiction?

Well, I suppose it has to do with how our culture currently understands addiction. We treat it as a disease that requires professional intervention. We assume, as is the case with most diseases, that the afflicted is not responsible for their affliction and that it is unlikely that they can get better on their own. They need help. This diagnosis is well-meaning in the sense that when people are going through something bad (and the feeling of being unable to stop doing something is usually bad) it would be worse to heap the extra guilt that comes with responsibility for their current condition (and for altering the condition) on top of their existing troubles. In addition, professionals have years of experience dealing with addictions and decades of research to help develop systems for fighting addiction.

But there's something that's lost: the individual's sense of self-efficacy, the sense that they can do something about the behavior. In some cases, it's possible that self-efficacy can be an important part of altering habitual/addictive behavior, that the individual finding a way to change their behavior is more effective and efficient than sending all of those individuals to professionals and/or through a series of institutions.

As more people find themselves with habits/addictions to games like Candy Crush, it's important to address the following questions: What role does self-efficacy play in breaking habits? If we call the habit an addiction, does this diagnosis reduce the person's sense of self-efficacy thereby making it harder (or perhaps more expensive) to quit?

This isn't to say that simply labeling this kind of behavior as "habits" isn't without drawbacks. People may not take the threat that their behavior poses as seriously if they call it a habit (most of us have bad habits, after all). Even when we do call the behavior addiction, we're increasingly liberal in our use of that term which waters it down (much like the term "stalking", which is used in a casual, everyday sense).

So, whether we call this kind of behavior "addiction", I think, is not just a matter of semantics. It is possible that diagnosis affects self-efficacy, which affects likelihood of behavior change. Whether you call it addiction or habit, the end game should be the same: understanding how people stop doing things that they, at first, feel they are unable to stop doing. But it's important to recognize the role of words and diagnoses in that process.