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Does "forced abstinence" from gaming lead to pornography use? Insight from the April 2018 crash of Fortnite's servers.
Journal article

Does "forced abstinence" from gaming lead to pornography use? Insight from the April 2018 crash of Fortnite's servers.

  • Castro-Calvo J Addictive and Compulsive Behaviours Lab, Institute for Health and Behaviour, University of Luxembourg , Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg Departamento de Psicología Básica, Clínica y Psicobiología, Universitat Jaume I , Castellón, Spain.
  • Ballester-Arnal R Departamento de Psicología Básica, Clínica y Psicobiología, Universitat Jaume I , Castellón, Spain.
  • Potenza MN Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience and Child Study Center, Yale University , New Haven, CT, USA Connecticut Mental Health Center , New Haven, CT, USA Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling , Wethersfield, CT, USA.
  • King DL School of Psychology, The University of Adelaide , Adelaide, SA, Australia.
  • Billieux J Addictive and Compulsive Behaviours Lab, Institute for Health and Behaviour, University of Luxembourg , Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg Centre for Excessive Gambling, Lausanne University Hospitals (CHUV) , Lausanne, Switzerland.
  • 2018-09-12
Published in:
  • Journal of behavioral addictions. - 2018
Fortnite
compensation behaviors
gaming
pornography
withdrawal
Adaptation, Psychological
Behavior, Addictive
Erotica
Humans
Internet
Video Games
English In April 2018, the servers of the popular video game "Fortnite" crashed for 24 hr. During this period, Pornhub (a popular pornographic website) analyzed trends in pornography access, finding that: (a) the percentage of gamers accessing Pornhub increased by 10% and (b) the searches of pornographic videos using the key term "Fortnite" increased by 60%. In this letter, we discuss these observations in the context of ongoing debate regarding the validity of "withdrawal" when applied to problematic involvement in video gaming and the potential use of pornography as a "compensation behavior" during the periods of "forced abstinence" from gaming.
Language
  • English
Open access status
gold
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/1738
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