Videogame is a drug? Controversies surrounding the electronic games addiction

• Grant number: 12/09595-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: August 01, 2012
• End date: July 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Stelio Alessandro Marras
• Grantee: Guilherme Pinho Meneses
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The effort to be undertaken in this research will be mapping the practices of the various agents around the issue of video game addiction by investigating the manner in which the rhetoric of drug addiction works in the social regulation of the use of electronic games. In this sense, we'll map the varied semantics of notions, categories or concepts of dependence and addiction, such as enunciated and practiced by the various individuals involved in the controversy: the players themselves (in its multiple gaming environments such as home, school or work), parents or people close to these players, the games industry professionals, scientists from different fields (psychiatry, psychotherapy, education, game studies), politicians, laws and news. Through the analysis of practices and discourses of the actors, articulating the dimensions of the so called "real" world and the "virtual" worlds, without, however, falling into an asymmetrical dichotomy between true and false, we intend to understand the meanings of their relationships with videogames. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

MENESES, Guilherme Pinho. Is videogame a drug? Controversies surrounding the electronic games addiction. 2014. Master's Dissertation - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.