Is videogame a drug? Controversies surrounding the electronic games addiction

Author(s)

Guilherme Pinho Meneses

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2014-12-15

Examining board members

Stelio Alessandro Marras; Jose Guilherme Cantor Magnani; Theophilos Rifiotis

• Advisor: Stelio Alessandro Marras

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, well 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)

• FAPESP's process: 12/09595-4 - Videogame is a drug? Controversies surrounding the electronic games addiction
• Grantee: Guilherme Pinho Meneses
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master