Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ORE (An Ontological Reconstruction of Gaming Disorder: A Qualitative Meta-Phenomenological Foundation)
Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2024-11-30
Videogame play, or gaming, has gradually become a significant part of human life across cultures. As parents and policymakers keep asking what kinds of videogames should be played and how much, in 2019 the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed “gaming disorder” as a new mental disorder in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Next to gambling, videogames became the first and only cultural products with a diagnostic category of addictive use. Meanwhile, scholars across disciplines keep debating whether
technology use can be “addictive” to begin with—and if so, what would the lives of such addicts look like, as the empirical evidence consists primarily of surveys. The embryonic state of research is most evident in the experts’ persistent inability to differentiate passionate from pathological play. The emerging culture of “esports”, competitive gaming that is now being considered for an Olympic sport, further confuses psychiatrists and others who must repeatedly decide whether people who seriously commit to gaming are champions or patients.
The implications of the above do not concern gaming alone but represent a greater conflict between cultural and human development. As smartphones, social media, and streaming services like Netflix, among others, are all negotiating their contested role in the mental health discourse in particular, how can science address potential problems in intensive technology use, when intensive use is also globally integrated into healthy everyday living? To make genuine progress in answering this question, a fundamental understanding of what intensive use is should be pursued; however, this would require the paradigm to shift from confirmatory addiction models to explorative research with interdisciplinary tools. The present project aims to do exactly that by embarking a qualitative exploration of intensive gaming experiences across cultures. The project pursues a meta-phenomenological taxonomy of intensive gaming on three levels of lived experience: play, health, and design interaction. Clinical-phenomenological interviews and diary-like data are collected from ~240 participants in South Korea, Slovakia, and Finland longitudinally over three years, and the videogames in their lives are deconstructed with multiverse analysis.
For a long time, research on gaming-related behaviors and health has suffered from a lack of openness and proper reporting practices. A particular holdup has been the closedness of nearly all reported datasets on gaming-related health problems, which prevents the review of old analyses and the reuse of influential materials. To improve on this state, the present project will not only share its data for scientific reuse but also makes use of this process to advance a protocol that aids future qualitative scholars with related challenges. The project paves a way for progressing qualitative registered reports and seeking epistemic as well as technical solutions for qualitative data sharing. The efforts to advance meta-science in the qualitative methodological domain also concern design analyses, which will be organised for public critique and use. Finally, an extended cross-cultural duplication is planned: the project will partly cover expenses for teams willing to repeat the clinical-phenomenological interviews in countries that are marginalized or not well represented in the discourse. Successfully pioneering the global duplication pilot can open a novel methodological door for multicultural qualitative collaborations.
technology use can be “addictive” to begin with—and if so, what would the lives of such addicts look like, as the empirical evidence consists primarily of surveys. The embryonic state of research is most evident in the experts’ persistent inability to differentiate passionate from pathological play. The emerging culture of “esports”, competitive gaming that is now being considered for an Olympic sport, further confuses psychiatrists and others who must repeatedly decide whether people who seriously commit to gaming are champions or patients.
The implications of the above do not concern gaming alone but represent a greater conflict between cultural and human development. As smartphones, social media, and streaming services like Netflix, among others, are all negotiating their contested role in the mental health discourse in particular, how can science address potential problems in intensive technology use, when intensive use is also globally integrated into healthy everyday living? To make genuine progress in answering this question, a fundamental understanding of what intensive use is should be pursued; however, this would require the paradigm to shift from confirmatory addiction models to explorative research with interdisciplinary tools. The present project aims to do exactly that by embarking a qualitative exploration of intensive gaming experiences across cultures. The project pursues a meta-phenomenological taxonomy of intensive gaming on three levels of lived experience: play, health, and design interaction. Clinical-phenomenological interviews and diary-like data are collected from ~240 participants in South Korea, Slovakia, and Finland longitudinally over three years, and the videogames in their lives are deconstructed with multiverse analysis.
For a long time, research on gaming-related behaviors and health has suffered from a lack of openness and proper reporting practices. A particular holdup has been the closedness of nearly all reported datasets on gaming-related health problems, which prevents the review of old analyses and the reuse of influential materials. To improve on this state, the present project will not only share its data for scientific reuse but also makes use of this process to advance a protocol that aids future qualitative scholars with related challenges. The project paves a way for progressing qualitative registered reports and seeking epistemic as well as technical solutions for qualitative data sharing. The efforts to advance meta-science in the qualitative methodological domain also concern design analyses, which will be organised for public critique and use. Finally, an extended cross-cultural duplication is planned: the project will partly cover expenses for teams willing to repeat the clinical-phenomenological interviews in countries that are marginalized or not well represented in the discourse. Successfully pioneering the global duplication pilot can open a novel methodological door for multicultural qualitative collaborations.
After successfully ethics review Finland, South Korea, and Slovakia, the research plan was submitted as a Stage 1 registered report to Peer Community in Registered Reports, which led to revisions and elaborations of detail for both analyses and data generation. The final registration and its open review have been made publicly available. Data collection is ongoing as planned and aims to be completed six months later than planned.
The project has established a website (https://ore.jyu.fi(opens in new window)) which includes relevant information such researcher information, calls for participants, and publications. The website also hosts a call for duplication collaborators, which has already attracted several collaborators around the world. In most countries, the collaborations are currently in ethics review phase.
For now, treatment-seeking participants who consent for the longitudinal design have been extremely difficult to find in all countries. However, at the end of 2024, we have finally met the ambitious sample size goals. To reach that, we have applied alternative methods for reaching the populations, such as online sources in relevant communities.
Notable technical challenges, which were partly foreseen, relate to data processing: transcription, translation, and making the qualitative datasets reusable via the Finnish Social Science Data Archive. Although we have been able to develop an efficient production line for accurately and safely processing the data, the related costs have been high, considering the goal to pursue extremely high quality datasets. In the context of the entire project’s lifetime, the costs are not sustainable and will require logistical and technological adjustments. For example, the host institution has recently developed secure automated transcription services, which may enable streamlining the process cost-effectively.
The project has established a website (https://ore.jyu.fi(opens in new window)) which includes relevant information such researcher information, calls for participants, and publications. The website also hosts a call for duplication collaborators, which has already attracted several collaborators around the world. In most countries, the collaborations are currently in ethics review phase.
For now, treatment-seeking participants who consent for the longitudinal design have been extremely difficult to find in all countries. However, at the end of 2024, we have finally met the ambitious sample size goals. To reach that, we have applied alternative methods for reaching the populations, such as online sources in relevant communities.
Notable technical challenges, which were partly foreseen, relate to data processing: transcription, translation, and making the qualitative datasets reusable via the Finnish Social Science Data Archive. Although we have been able to develop an efficient production line for accurately and safely processing the data, the related costs have been high, considering the goal to pursue extremely high quality datasets. In the context of the entire project’s lifetime, the costs are not sustainable and will require logistical and technological adjustments. For example, the host institution has recently developed secure automated transcription services, which may enable streamlining the process cost-effectively.
In addition to the ongoing tasks in the original research plan, two novel developments have emerged.
First, as part of our review of literature, we observed a lack of systematic qualitative reviews in the field. This led us to develop a specialised methodological approach for reviewing case studies. The research plan was submitted to Peer Community in Registered Reports for review and was approved. The research is currently ongoing and will be completed within ~6 months.
The second development was the discovery of a serious issue with existing gaming disorder measures: they do not distinguish between gaming and gambling, thus inviting us to reassess the entire measurement history of the field. We reported the events of this discovery in a short publication and a systematic review is about to be published soon.
In the meta-methodological domain, duplication was formally presented as part of the Society for Improvement of Psychological Science conference (https://osf.io/xh9jt/(opens in new window)) in 2023 and 2024. Likewise, duplication was presented as a method in the annual Digital Games Research Association Conference in 2023 (https://osf.io/preprints/osf/np82c(opens in new window)) in a panel that gathered no less than 19 countries from six continents to share experiences of gaming-related problems in collective dialogue. For other public results, see https://ore.jyu.fi/english/publications(opens in new window)
Despite participant recruitment challenges, the data that we have obtained so far already represents the largest qualitative dataset ever generated related to gaming disorder. The data processes are still ongoing and it remains to be seen to what degree we will be able to maintain retention in the longitudinal dataset and avoid drop-outs. This core project outcome remains to hold significant potential for allowing the field to take a large step forward.
So far, unexpected access to clinical treatment centre data in Finland has led to an unplanned descriptive publication.
First, as part of our review of literature, we observed a lack of systematic qualitative reviews in the field. This led us to develop a specialised methodological approach for reviewing case studies. The research plan was submitted to Peer Community in Registered Reports for review and was approved. The research is currently ongoing and will be completed within ~6 months.
The second development was the discovery of a serious issue with existing gaming disorder measures: they do not distinguish between gaming and gambling, thus inviting us to reassess the entire measurement history of the field. We reported the events of this discovery in a short publication and a systematic review is about to be published soon.
In the meta-methodological domain, duplication was formally presented as part of the Society for Improvement of Psychological Science conference (https://osf.io/xh9jt/(opens in new window)) in 2023 and 2024. Likewise, duplication was presented as a method in the annual Digital Games Research Association Conference in 2023 (https://osf.io/preprints/osf/np82c(opens in new window)) in a panel that gathered no less than 19 countries from six continents to share experiences of gaming-related problems in collective dialogue. For other public results, see https://ore.jyu.fi/english/publications(opens in new window)
Despite participant recruitment challenges, the data that we have obtained so far already represents the largest qualitative dataset ever generated related to gaming disorder. The data processes are still ongoing and it remains to be seen to what degree we will be able to maintain retention in the longitudinal dataset and avoid drop-outs. This core project outcome remains to hold significant potential for allowing the field to take a large step forward.
So far, unexpected access to clinical treatment centre data in Finland has led to an unplanned descriptive publication.