POTENTIAL AS A 'GATEWAY BEHAVIOUR'

Could pretending to order food, shopping or having “fun with a virtual cigarette” have any downsides?

These dopamine apps and websites are relatively new, so we don’t yet have specific research on how much, if at all, they might serve as “gateway behaviours”. A gateway behaviour is an initial behaviour that opens a pathway toward later behaviours becoming more likely.

However, this is an area that’s been well studied before in other areas, such as gambling and gaming. And that past research raises potential concerns - particularly since these dopamine apps involve some level of gamification.

For example, a notable 2014 study followed 409 people who played social casino games, but who had never gambled online with real money. Six months later, about 26 per cent had migrated to real online gambling.

A 2016 study of 521 social casino users found 19 per cent reported gambling for real money as a direct result of social casino gaming.

And a 2018 study of 1,178 German teens, aged 11 to 19, found that engagement with simulated gambling predicted subsequent real money gambling one year later.