On Air with Natasha Dow Schüll, Ph.D
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FNC | radio talk On Air With Natasha Dow Schüll, Ph.D. Natasha Dow Schüll, Ph.D., is associate professor in the Program in described it as this almost a trancelike state, a kind Science, Technology and Society at the of dissociated state, where they were so focused Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). on the game they were playing, that their daily She is a cultural anthropologist, whose worries, and their social demands, and even in documentary, “BUFFET: All You Can Eat some cases a sense of bodily awareness, would fade Las Vegas,” has screened multiple times away.... So at the extreme end of the spectrum, on PBS and appeared in numerous film some gamblers will sit whole weekends in this festivals. More recently, she is the author of zone, and it’s a sort of state where you really forget the groundbreaking new book, Addiction By the whole world around you. One gambler I spoke Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, to said he would even forget his children’s names which is based on her extended research when he played these machines. And you know among compulsive gamblers and the once you are in the zone, you’re not playing to win designers of slot and video poker machines in Las Vegas. any more; you’re playing to keep playing for as long as possible.... The following is an edited transcript of an interview with Dr. Schüll, which was conducted by Bill Brooks, president of the North Carolina BB: What I found interesting is that you also Family Policy Council. An edited version of this interview aired in three heard about the “zone” from executives in the parts in January 2013 on the Council’s weekly radio program, “Family gambling industry. How much does the gambling Policy Matters.” Dr. Schüll discussed findings from her bookAddiction industry know about the “zone,” and what are some By Design, and shared how her findings relate specifically to video ways they use this knowledge? sweepstakes gambling, as well as other forms of machine gambling. This interview can be heard at www.ncfamily.org/radioshowarchives2012.html NS: Well, here’s one quote I heard from a designer, or on iTunes® Podcast—Family Policy Matters. “Our best customers are not interested in enter- tainment, they want to be totally absorbed ... get into a rhythm.” Here’s another quote I heard from a gambling [industry] executive, “What gamblers Bill Brooks: Before we get into some of your really want to do from all the research I’ve ever research findings, would you define machine gam- seen is to play and forget and lose themselves. So bling for us—what types of gambling machines the more I bombard them with auditory and visual would that include? cues that interrupt what they’re focused on the more I can have a negative impact on their impulse Natasha Schüll: That would include your classic to, as players say, ‘get in the zone’.” Now that sec- one-armed bandit, the three-real slot machine. It ond quote I read, this was at the Global Gaming would include a lot of the more popular machines Expo, and it was on a panel, where this executive today, which have video screens and many symbols, was speaking to her peers, and she was advising where you can win on three, four, five, sometimes a them ... “you know some of these fancy new bonus hundred different lines. It would also include video features you’re doing are actually going be counter- poker, and what’s called video lottery terminals, productive, because our best customers really want or VLTs…. It would include Keno machines, and to sit there and keep playing continuously in this actually the video sweepstakes kind of games that zone, so let’s not take them out of the zone, let’s you see popping up…. remember we want to keep them in there….” BB: At the beginning of your book, you quote a BB: You write that, “The story of problem gam- compulsive gambler named “Mollie,” who talked bling is not just a story of problem gamblers; it is about not really playing the gambling machines to also a story of problem machines, problem environ- win but to stay in something she called the “ma- ments, and problem business practices.” Explain chine zone.” What is the “zone”? what you mean by that. NS: Well, we often think about gambling as being NS: The question that gets asked a lot in the an activity that’s about fun and excitement, and the conversation around slot machines and addic- hope of winning, and very often it does begin that tion is, “Does problem gambling stem from inside way. But for some people it turns into something the device or inside the gambler?” And I really else. And actually most regular slot players that think that’s the wrong way to frame the question, I’ve talked to describe the aim of their gambling because addiction, if you think about it, it’s never a as reaching the “zone.” That’s a word I got from question of inside, it’s a question of between. Ad- sitting in gamblers anonymous meetings, [where] diction is something that emerges through an in- everyone kept talking about this “zone,” and they teraction between a person and a drug, or between 36 Family North Carolina a person and a thing or an activity. And in the case of gambling addictions, most often attention has been focused on the individual side of things— what might be wrong with the gambler, their What really draws players motivations, their psychiatric profiles, their neu- in and holds them there in rochemistry, genetics, and their particular social background. In part, that’s because the gambling the zone is the speed of industry and governmental economic interests have tended to drive funding in a direction that focuses play and the continuous on individuals, rather than focusing on the prod- nature of the play. ucts of the gambling industry. My own work is an attempt to balance that attention, by focusing on the less examined object side, [which is] the thing side of the addiction relationship, which would be machine, but how this experience colors the larger the technology and the environments that gamblers life world of these gamblers. are interacting with. So, are some people more vulnerable to addiction? Of course they are. But by BB: I’ve been on speaking engagements with Tom the same token, some things are more likely to ad- S., who heads a gamblers anonymous here in North dict people, and I try to show in my book how slot Carolina, and he talks about starting to gamble machines are one case of those things.... when he was young going to the racetrack, and then getting hooked on casino gambling and even BB: In your interview with the problem gambler playing the lottery. And it seems like part of what named Mollie, she drew a map of her every day life you’re saying about Mollie is the same story that in Las Vegas, which interestingly did not include her you hear from a lot of compulsive gamblers, ir- home. Tell us about the map, and why it is impor- respective of what their gambling addiction started tant to understand the life of a machine gambler? as, and what they’re involved in currently. Has that NS: Well, I said you know what is it like to live in been your experience in your research? Las Vegas where you’re just surrounded by gam- NS: Yes…. [W]hether it’s machines or sports bling, and you have a problem with gambling. And betting, or live poker, there is a similar experience so she had this self-help, 12-step literature in front there. I do think there’s something qualitatively of her, and she flipped it over and she drew me this different about slot machines, and studies have picture. And in the upper left there’s the MGM demonstrated … that the former trajectory back casino, the MGM Grand, where she had worked in the day was that if you were a live poker player making room reservations, and then she put the or you bet on sports, it would typically take you 7-Eleven next to that, and she said, “That’s where about 10 years to develop a full fledged problem to I pump gas on the way home, and sometimes I a point where you would go and seek help, and feel gamble.” Then next to that she put another casino, that you’d become a gambling addict. And on slot the Palace Station, and she said, “I gamble there machines, instead of five to 10 years, it takes one to at night and on weekends.” And below that she three years. And that’s really striking. If you think put The Lucky Supermarket, and she said, “That’s about a lottery or even the horse track … there’s al- where I go to shop and that’s also where I gamble,” ways a kind of time lag. And if you think about slot because most listeners probably know [in] Las Ve- machine gambling, you can play up to 1,200 hands gas you can gamble in the supermarkets. And then an hour on some of these machines—that’s a hand she had a free clinic, where she picked up medica- every three to four seconds. And that is incred- tions to treat her anxiety disorder, which had to do ibly rapid! You’re doing a lot of gambling [with no] with her gambling, and then finally in the lower social cues to interrupt you—it’s just you and the left corner she said, “Here’s a strip mall where ev- machine.