Vivendi

Marc Valleur, Psychiatrist and Head Physician at the Hôpital Marmottan specializing in care and accompaniment of addictive practices) (ASDR 2009)

[Increasing parental awareness and helping young people control themselves

« What is addiction? Addiction is an interaction between a product, a personality, and an environment. For the person affected, it is a desire to reduce or cease a practice without being able to. Addiction implies the loss of the freedom not to do something. It is easy to see why that should be an obvious concern of sustainable development in its societal aspect: it is one of the limits on the positive aspect of consumption. If we want to reduce or cease consuming, it is because it no longer brings us the pleasure and enrichment we found in it at the beginning. It becomes a purely stereotyped practice, and what was desire has become simply a need. Excessive playing of video games is a qualitatively different problem from addictions like drug or alcohol dependency.
What we are dealing with is a reassurance mechanism. Repeated immersion in network games is a refuge, an avoidance of risk taking. Vivendi’s responsibility as world leader in video games is manifest, because we are dealing with cultural problems, and refl ection on these cultural objects is fundamental. What can we do, for example, to limit “addiction” to network games? We can warn parents and help people control themselves. Parental control mechanisms can be used by players themselves to help set limits, which is not always possible with all forms of games. Displaying signage, such as the PEGI system, is absolutely essential. But the most important thing is to diversify and increase the quality of the games, because the more captivating, interesting, complicated and multifarious games there are, the less addictive rapports with these games will occur.
In parallel, Vivendi must continue to work with sociologists and anthropologists who are studying this new form of socialization made possible by the Internet, mobile telephony, network games, etc., so that basic research can be conducted. »