THE MOLECULE OF MOREconsequences from playing video games. Adolescent brains, however,
have not yet fully developed, so adolescents may act like adults with
brain damage. The biggest difference in the adolescent brain is in the
frontal lobes, which don’t completely develop until their early twenties.
That’s a problem because it’s the frontal lobes that give adults good
judgment. They act like a brake, warning us when we’re about to do
something that might not be such a good idea. Without fully function-
ing frontal lobes, adolescents act impulsively, and are at greater risk of
making unwise decisions, even when they know better.
There’s more to it than that, though. Video games are more com-
plex than slot machines, so there are more opportunities for program-
mers to bake in features that trigger dopamine release in order to make
it hard to stop playing.
Video games are all about imagination. They immerse us in a world
where our fantasies can come true, where reality-shunning dopamine
can bask in endless possibilities. We can explore environments that con-
stantly change, ensuring that the surprises never end. We may start off
in the desert, progress to a rain forest, then a dark alley in a gritty urban
hell, then suddenly we’re on a rocket, hurtling toward an alien world.
Players do more than just explore, though. Video games are about
progress. They’re about making the future better than the present.
Gamers progress through levels while increasing their strength and
abilities. It’s a dopamine dream come true. To keep progress front and
center in a gamer’s mind, the screen constantly displays the accumulat-
ing points or growing progress bars so players never forget. They have
to keep pursuing more.
Video games are full of rewards. Gamers collect coins, hunt for
treasure, or maybe capture magic unicorns to progress to the next level.
Players’ expectations are constantly kept off balance because they never
know where the next reward will be. Some games make you kill mon-
sters to earn points; others make you look inside treasure chests.
When a player opens a newly discovered chest, it may contain what
he’s looking for, but not always. If you needed to collect, say, seven
gems, and every chest you opened contained a gem, it would be com-
pletely predictable. There would be no surprises, no reward prediction