The Gaming Addiction Problem and its Economic and Social Consequences: A Comprehensive, Dynamic Approach

Abstract

We examine the economic and social implications of the gaming addiction problem, and in turn, its impact on the wellbeing

of society. As many more younger males in any society increasingly spend more and more hours playing video games, they cannot

acquire the skills and capabilities that schools and universities would have otherwise endowed them with, and which are necessary

for employment in the modern workplace. Without the on-the-job training and re-skilling that serve to supplement and eventually

supplant the skills acquired in academic settings, these unemployed or underemployed youth lose their ability to stay relevant over the

remaining three or four decades of their careers for the demands of today’s hypercompetitive, global marketplace. This inability to find

or retain meaningful employment leads to a disproportionately larger number of males dropping out of the workforce, as evidenced

by the precipitous drop in the male workforce participation rate since 2008. This, in turn, will very likely have a seriously adverse

impact on GDP growth, birth rate, etc., currently as well as in the future, on an intergenerational basis. Without any regulation or policy

intervention, the growth of internet gaming addiction will continue or even accelerate, with seriously negative consequences. Similarly,

an active and proactive approach, rather than a passive and reactive one, is called for - otherwise it will be too little, too late to deal with

what is a growing and increasingly serious socio-economic problem.