How to Prove Video Game Addiction in Court

Video Transcript

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

Hi, welcome to Attorneys.Media – In The News.

I’m your host, Ray Hrdlicka. Today we have Steve Gacovino, a personal injury attorney that specializes in social media youth harm cases in New York and actually all over the country.

So let’s get right into it because I want to ask a question about a current litigation going on. It’s video games addiction litigation and you partner with a number of law firms across the country and you’re on the forefront of this litigation.

So tell me a little bit about what is video games addiction criteria that allows you to be able to actually bring a lawsuit.

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY

Ray, thanks for having me on, and thank you for having me talk about this important subject. This is something that’s affecting families throughout the country. As you likely know, video gaming is extremely popular. Particularly with young men, but many young women, but we’re looking mostly at children ages 6 to 16. We take cases with people into their late teens and early 20s, so long as they’ve become what we deem to be addicted at some point earlier in their lives.

What we’re targeting and what we’re looking at is not just the age group, but how they’ve been affected by it, what’s been observed about their behaviors, whether that’s in the area of education. In other words, did their grades start to falter as they spent more and more time video gaming? Do they act out in violence, meaning have they become self-harmful or harmful to other people, rage, anger?

We have another area that we call social behavior. Many times people start to let their own hygiene fall by the wayside, for instance. They don’t clean themselves. They don’t go to the bathroom properly because they’re so locked in and so addicted to the game that they can’t leave the room to take care of the most basic of basic needs.

But I’d say the very, very biggest category would be in the mental health area. We’ve seen many, many mental illnesses – which we can dig into – associated with video gaming addiction. And then finally, if they’ve been medically affected. When I say medically affected, we’re looking at people that are sitting in front of games, not getting physical activity, not getting outside, not moving their bodies, not getting around. Obesity.

We see vision loss from people that are just staring at the screen for hours and hours and hours. These are primarily the cases that we’re looking at.

Now, the other qualification, we’re focusing really on three games that are very, very popular. A game known as Fortnite, another one known as Minecraft, and then the Roblox platform.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

Actually, I’m kind of surprised that some of the other major games, the military games, are not in that mix. Why did you pick those? Excuse me. Why did, as an attorney, did you focus in on those three games?

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY

Well, it’s a very detailed answer, and I’ll try to give you just really something very general. From the highest level, we feel that the liability is strongest on these three platforms. We think that the algorithms are specifically directed to try to addict children to it.

I know what games you’re talking about. There may be some consideration for those cases in the near future, but primarily we’re looking at these three.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

Well, you mentioned boys, but I think on those games, girls also are playing those games quite a bit, am I correct?

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY

By no means do we represent exclusively boys in this arena. There’s plenty of girls. I would say, if I was to give you a proportion, estimated, I would say 80% of my clients are boys, maybe 20% are female.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

You know, in looking at the criteria before we started speaking today, I noticed that the requirement for the amount of games, the amount of time that a child should spend, that has to be spent on the game as a minimum before the criteria becomes pertinent to litigation, is actually not that much. I think it was, if I remember correctly, an average of 14 hours a week for only one and a half years.

If that’s the case, that’s telling me damage is done in a very short period of time. So essentially, the question is very simply, it doesn’t, it seems that there isn’t a lot of time that has to go by before a child is affected and litigation can start.  I mean, one and a half years, 14 and a half hours per week.  Realistically, it’s two hours a day.

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY

Realistically, it’s two hours a day for really what we’re considering a minimum. But really what we are seeing, in some instances, we’re talking about children that are playing 8, 10, 12 hours consecutively. On the weekends, maybe 16 hours, 18 hours consecutively. People that are staying up all night.

So it looks like it’s having much more profound effects in terms of taking up their time.

By the way, I know that we didn’t really say this, but in terms of the medical aspect, and it really crosses over to the medical aspect of it, the sleep disorders that are associated with all of this, kids are staying up all night. They are deprived of sleep or falling asleep during the day during important stuff while they’re awake playing video games.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

Well, the period of time as a teenager, you have obviously a significant growth in a human body. And there are a lot of personality changes. I’ve been through them. And of course, my kids have been through them.

So as a parent, I look at that and I go, well, some of those aspects could be attributable to simply adolescence and puberty. But this is to the extreme. That’s where there’s a line there where it goes, this is way beyond normal adolescent angst and issues that are often associated with, obviously, maturing. This is way beyond it.

And so it’s permanent harm, correct me if I’m wrong, from this period of time during in this age. Can they recover from it?

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY

Well, I think that that’s a question better directed towards doctors, but there are actual diagnoses associated with these cases, including something that’s flat out called “video gaming addiction.” It’s recognized by the World Health Organization. There’s a medical code for it.

And we know that it has profound effects on people’s lives. We’ve seen, I know that you’re probably interested in knowing what type of harm are we talking about? I know that we hit these general categories, but as we whittle into specifically the mental health aspect of it: anxiety, depression, we’ve seen suicides, suicidal ideation, attempted suicides, self-harm, ADHD qualities are finding their way to these individuals.

So can these symptoms be reversed or minimized or alleviated in some way? With the right mental health intervention, I’m certain that they can. Again, that’s probably a question that’s better directed toward a doctor. But any kind of treatment that would be associated with addiction is going to be necessary here for these folks, just like as if they were addicted to nicotine or more harmful drugs. It plays in that same area of the brain and playing with the same brain chemicals that get kids to become addicted to these products.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

This is not a short-term problem. This, of course, with the advent of video games technology, we’re going to be living with this. It doesn’t seem like, you know, there’s a clear cut. Hey, we see some light at the end of the tunnel where it won’t happen. It’s like alcohol or drugs. It’s going to be around.

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY

One of the aims of the litigation is to get these companies to modify the addictive quality of these games. And part of that might be curtailing how long people can play continuously. And some of the features of the games that are directed to be more addictive, maybe they can be eliminated. So I think that there’s a safer way to coexist with video gaming.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

One of the questions that I wanted to ask as I was reading this, looking at it from the other side’s point of view: how do, or how will, and how or how does the other side defend against a video game addiction lawsuit? What is their stance?

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY

Well, I would say first and foremost, there’s going to be a First Amendment nature defense, which is going to say, look, these games are creative, they’re artistic, they’re retaining. Who are you to punish us for essentially creating something that just people want to engage in, how people want to spend their time? You’re going to come down on us and punish us for it. They’ll kind of depend it on a First Amendment platform.

I think that they will also jump into causation, which is, I think, something that you were alluding to earlier. Of course, young people, growing brains have angst, anxiety, et cetera, might be latent in many people. They will dig into what else is going on in this individual’s life. Are your parents divorced? Did you have a death in the family? Has there been some trouble at school? Are you having trouble socializing with friends, et cetera? So they may look to some other outside influences that might be causing mental harm on some of these young individuals.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

Well, but, I mean, just to jump in here, the defense against that is, well, that’s great, but that may be a small segment, but we have a large population of children being affected, and the commonality between all of that is your video games. And it’s a huge section, I mean, a huge section of the childhood population. I mean, that’s the response.

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY

I would agree with your statement and certainly we would combat this idea of causation. We could medically back it up in most instances.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

Go ahead.  Well, I was going to say one more thing about the First Amendment issue. There are exceptions to that, just like you cannot yell fire in a crowded movie theater. And so, you know, that wouldn’t stand if it’s creating harm, which is what yelling fire in a movie theater would create.

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY

I can say that I’m not overly concerned about the First Amendment aspect of it, but, you know, so I think that we would be successful in overcoming that kind of a defense.

There’s arbitration clauses, though, in some of these platforms as well, but I think that we have some pretty good pushback on that as well. In the instance of 230 immunity, which I know that you and I had talked about on social media platforms, where really the place where the content is provided says we’re not going to be liable for the content that’s created by a third party or where there might be third party interference.

I’m going to give you a for instance, particularly in the Roblox platform, there is what we would call sexual exploitation, where the Roblox platform, in our view, has made it pretty easy for people that are looking to do harm – particularly to young people from a sexual predator standpoint – that they’ve made it kind of an easy entry for them to have direct contact with young people.

They would certainly try to depend that one on 230 Immunity, saying, well, look, we can’t be responsible for the acts of a third party that’s essentially putting content on our platform. So we’ll see some defenses in that respect as well.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

Interesting. Well, this is a topic that I want to stay in touch with you on throughout the months and see how it develops and, you know, what new circumstances occur within the litigation and within the industry.

So thank you very much for appearing with us today. We’ll talk to you again.

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY

Thank you for having me on, Ray.

Steven Gacovino – Personal Injury Attorney – Suffolk County (Long Island), NY