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posted by janrinok on Tuesday December 26 2017, @12:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the play-on dept.

Do you find yourself playing video games for hours on end without realizing it? Does your gaming habit have a negative effect on your daily life and hygiene? Do you keep on grinding instead of focusing on your career or IRL relationships? You may have gaming disorder:

Gaming addiction will become a mental disorder officially recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) next year.

The WHO, originally founded in 1946 as an agency of the United Nations dedicated to international health, is set to publish an updated International Classification of Diseases in 2018; one could say it's about time since the last revision (ICD-10) was endorsed in May 1990.

There is already a beta draft available online for ICD-11 and we can find gaming addiction filed under Mental, behavioral or neurodevelopmental disorders\Impulse control disorders. Here's the current, work-in-progress description by the WHO:

Gaming disorder is characterized by a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour ('digital gaming' or 'video-gaming'), which may be online (i.e., over the internet) or offline, manifested by: 1) impaired control over gaming (e.g., onset, frequency, intensity, duration, termination, context); 2) increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities; and 3) continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences. The behaviour pattern is of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning. The pattern of gaming behaviour may be continuous or episodic and recurrent. The gaming behaviour and other features are normally evident over a period of at least 12 months in order for a diagnosis to be assigned, although the required duration may be shortened if all diagnostic requirements are met and symptoms are severe.

Paper critical of the proposal: Video game addiction: The push to pathologize video games. (DOI: 10.1037/pro0000150) (DX)

See also: LAD.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:46PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:46PM (#614303)

    but I'm a realist. And this sold called disorder is not a disorder, it's laziness and people wanting to check out of reality. Just like "reality tv" has nothing to do with real life. "Gaming disorder", ADD, ADHD, all made up and designed to shift the focus from the real problem.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:09PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:09PM (#614331)

    ^ reality is often boring with few opportunities for doing things outside of your job. Live in a city? There is probably zero space outside of the home where one can do a project. Socializing with other people has definite limits, and quickly turns into "I dunno what do you wanna do?" What is truly missing from most 1st world societies is true community building. People don't have may free places to pursue activities and doing anything outside the home often has significant monetary costs. The malls used to be the hangout for teens cause the could socialize there for free, what does THAT say about our society?? No fucking WONDER so many kids say "video games please".

    Doing productive and useful things is difficult, and especially for kids usually requires some adult guidance to get them on track. If we slowed down the general pace of life and focused more on our communities we could work on actually making things better. Currently our societal focus is on corporate profits and consumerism, it is a hollow life devoid of meaning.

    If we slowed down the frantic pace of life I could see many employers joining with educational programs to involve the young with REAL projects, and I bet we could even reduce our general garbage problem by reusing those few extra screws, those wood scraps etc. for kid projects. So many possibilities unrealized because of the daily grind which keeps people from interacting beyond their little life bubble.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:00PM (#614438)

      A lot of families no longer have 'community building' because some or all of the family members are trying to one up each other, or take what they can from others.

      I was just having a long discussion with a family member about this. While rows between family members have always happened, usually they would split a family, but some family would remain in contact/together. Nowadays, outside of the much larger families, a row like that can result in the family breaking up into such small pieces that only 1-2 people from each part are in touch (there was always some of this, but it was usually kicking out an individual for not living up to the family expectations, or doing something the family considered fundamentally 'wrong'.) Combined this with a similiar form of societal corrosion in our 'get yours/your cliques and fuck everyone else' societal attitude and we're rapidly approaching a place where everyone is isolated, unless they are part of a religious group, gang (police included), or political organization (lots of 'activist groups' here, as well as actual parties). There are also some actual social groups where people may not have much in common outside of them, but most of those are in fact commercialized in various forms, from boy/girl scouts, to drama groups, to dog walking, etc. Almost all of them have some commercial aspect to them, as well as social aspects where the group can quickly turn against you for many reasons that may not be at first obvious.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:19PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:19PM (#614391)

    There's nothing wrong with wanting to check out of reality to begin with.