By: Eric Jia
According to a recent meeting of Australian and New Zealand psychiatrists, diehard gamers are at risk of developing a disorder that causes them to hallucinate images or sounds from the games they play in real life. This condition is known as Gaming transfer phenomenon, or GTP, and is thought to be related to video game addiction or gaming disorder (GD) where gamers can’t stop playing video games and will even skip meals so they can keep playing.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) believes that about 10 percent of young people have GD and that cases have exploded since the pandemic. To counteract this, Perth’s Fiona Stanley Hospital (FSH) opened a clinic dealing with cases of GD in 2021. Psychiatrist Kavita Seth said the problems begin when gamers are playing to the point where they are unable to stop themselves and become angry if someone else tries to stop them. “They prioritize it over sleep, over having meals, going to school, completing school homework, completing social activities,” Dr Seth said.
Some GD patients can develop GTP when gamers start seeing or hearing elements of the game, long after they put down the controller. Psychologist Dr Angelica Ortiz de Gortari claims to have come up with the name “GTP” during a study in 2010. She said a 17-year-old gamer that featured in the study started seeing “health bars” in real life. “When I really was a hardcore player in WoW (World of Warcraft), when I got my adrenaline pumping, I started seeing health bars above people’s heads,” the gamer said.
Experts say gaming should be done in healthy doses such as resting your eyes after an hour on your computer. Another consequence of excessive gaming was pointed out by Daniel Owens who described his experience with insomnia while playing Portal 2: “It was to the point that it interrupted my sleeping patterns[…] It felt as if my body went to sleep but my mind was still working.
Dr de Gortari said some of the key factors in prolonged game-play such as sensory overload and entering a trance state played a part in the condition. She said GTP is a good reason to reflect on how well the human mind will cope as technology continues to advance. So, it’s important for gamers to be aware of their gaming habits and make sure they are engaging in healthy doses of gaming.