“Shut it off!”

“How does one adult ‘limit’ another adult’s access to something?” said one researcher.

How often have you said that to someone you love and want to spend time with — someone you know needs sleep but can’t pull himself (or herself) away from their personal devices?

If you struggle to keep your spouse, your friends, or your kids away from gaming, a new study shows you’ve got plenty of company. In fact, nighttime appears to be one of the hardest times to keep people from gaming.

Researchers from the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC) and Sleep Research Lab presented their findings this week at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting in Denver. Their survey of 963 gamers found that on average, gamers delayed going to bed 36 percent of the nights they played video games. Participants also stayed up an average of 101 minutes later than they would have in a dark, quiet, device-free room. The research was published recently in an online supplement of the journal Sleep.

“Our data shows video gaming is quite an important factor that frequently leads to missed sleep for 67 percent of gamers,” said lead author and principal investigator Brandy M. Roane, Ph.D., director of the UNTHSC Sleep Research Lab.

In other words, video gaming is pretty close to an addictive behavior.

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“The biggest take-home is recognizing the amount of time spent gaming by the average gamer,” Roane told LifeZette. “Other studies have found that limiting electronic use by parents decreases their children’s and teen’s use. The difficult aspect of this comes into play with adults — how does one adult ‘limit’ another adult’s access to something? That is where it gets tricky and really requires the individual to be more self-aware.”

The most severe cases are in individuals who report being unable to stay awake if they are not allowed to be on their video games, he added. That may sound extreme — but he’s had patients who would start playing video games or engage in video gaming behaviors from the time they awoke until the time they finally shut down for the night.

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Most people don’t take it that far. And there is no specific number of hours online at this point that defines someone as an addict.

But if you have any concerns about a family member, a child, or a colleague, dig in a bit more. How much additional time is spent thinking about gaming, researching gaming, or walking through demos? Roane said it is often more helpful to look at the impact versus the specific number of hours.

“Take a look at all the associated behaviors that go along with gaming — and figure out if these gaming behaviors are impacting other areas of loved ones’ lives. Are they missing out on other activities? Is their gaming interfering with relationships? School? Work? If you answer ‘yes’ to any of these, it might be a problem,” said Roane.