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

Jesús Castro-Calvo; Rafael Ballester-Arnal; Marc N Potenza; Daniel L King; Joël Billieux

doi:10.1556/2006.7.2018.78

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

J Behav Addict. 2018 Sep 1;7(3):501-502. doi: 10.1556/2006.7.2018.78. Epub 2018 Sep 11.

Authors

Jesús Castro-Calvo¹, Rafael Ballester-Arnal², Marc N Potenza³, Daniel L King⁴, Joël Billieux⁵

Affiliations

¹ 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.
² Departamento de Psicología Básica, Clínica y Psicobiología, Universitat Jaume I , Castellón, Spain.
³ 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.
⁴ School of Psychology, The University of Adelaide , Adelaide, SA, Australia.
⁵ 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.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Fortnite; compensation behaviors; gaming; pornography; withdrawal.

MeSH terms

Adaptation, Psychological*
Behavior, Addictive / psychology*
Erotica / psychology*
Humans
Internet*
Video Games / psychology*

Grants and funding

Funding sources: JC-C is financed by a grant APOSTD/2017/005 of the County Council Department of Education, Culture and Sports of the Valencian Community (Spain). MNP received support from the National Center for Responsible Gaming, the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling, and the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (USA).