In touch with… Dan King

Many parents would be grateful for the work of Dr Dan King, whose interests include building our understanding of addictive gaming and social media use, and developing interventions to manage these issues. 

What is your role at Flinders?

Hello! I am a Senior Research Fellow in Psychology. I joined the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work last year. Before that I worked at the University of Adelaide for about 10 years. My research area is the study of behavioural addictions with a focus on digital technologies, including gaming, gambling and social media. Current research projects involve investigating the psychological processes involved in excessive gaming and in-game spending, including inhibitory control and avatar identification. I’m also interested in interventions and guidelines to reduce problem gaming and how parents and partners of problematic users of digital media tend to manage these issues.

Can you briefly describe the work journey that took you to this point in your career?

I didn’t have much of a plan of what I wanted to do after finishing my PhD, but wanted to learn more and get practical experience in clinical psychology. I was fortunate to complete the Clinical Masters program at Flinders, which led to my first job as a psychologist at Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Murray Bridge. I worked in part-time research roles on the side, which helped me think about how each job could influence the other. In 2016, a kind of ‘sliding doors’ moment, I received an ARC fellowship that enabled me to pursue research full-time for a few years and led to my current role at Flinders.

Can you describe a challenge in your life and how you dealt with it?

Moving house last year was a major challenge, but just about all challenges can be approached in the same way. Find out as much as one can about the problem, identify how others have solved it (or not) or ask for help, work out what’s controllable, and then break it down into steps. And coffee.

What is something you are most proud of?

Probably the times in my life I did something new for the first time. Travelling alone overseas, learning how to wakeboard, making my grumpy English teacher in high school laugh at my short story. I feel proud of my kids for their regular acts of bravery and creativity. And I’m proud of my students and what they achieve in the course of their study. It is very motivating to talk through research problems together and work out next steps.

I guess people try to be humble for this question but I’ll add that I’m proud of my book (titled Internet Gaming Disorder), even though it’s far from perfect and books aren’t cited and are often derided as a worthless output in psychology, but it’s important to me because it forced me to learn a lot of self-discipline – I got up every day at 5am for about 6 months so I could work on it for a few hours before I started my normal workday.

What does a normal day look like for you – has this changed with the COVID-19 pandemic?

I remember back in March it was a very uncertain and stressful time. Plans to run face-to-face studies had to be scrapped or changed, which was unfortunate. But some new opportunities came about too, I’ve been working with some overseas colleagues on studies of how digital technology use has changed in the pandemic context. Some gaming activities increased by 75% and hit record high subscription numbers. A “normal” day – most of the time I’m writing papers, grant applications, or meeting with students or colleagues. A lot of emails! COVID-19 has meant more online meetings, which still feel unnatural to me. I look forward to things returning to normal as much as they can.

How do you like to relax or spend your spare time?

Not much spare time at this stage in my life. There is always something to do for work and it’s not easy to switch off from it. Watching my AFL team lose badly to Gold Coast helps me to prioritise work. I spend free time with the family and we have “Sunday adventures” like trips to the beach or bushwalks. I’m also a connoisseur of fine arts and culture, like building LEGO spaceships with my son and making a fritz sandwich in the shape of a ninja turtle.

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