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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, @09:32PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:32PM (#614457)

    If you are gaming it is making up for something missing in your normal life

    Like entertainment, which video games can provide? Some people are extremely introverted and have more fun with solitary activities, and there's nothing wrong with that.

    the satisfaction you should get after a hard day's work

    "Should," huh? Maybe you should stop assuming that everyone else enjoys the same things you do, or that they are wrong for not doing so.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Thursday December 28 2017, @06:48PM

    by Freeman (732) on Thursday December 28 2017, @06:48PM (#615206) Journal

    Hard work can be very satisfying. It's a natural thing to feel a sense of accomplishment when picking food from your garden. It's also natural to feel a sense of accomplishment after beating XYZ Game on the hardest difficulty. The difference is that one activity is deemed as beneficial to society and the other isn't. The problem is that, computers are still relatively new and we have lots of old people, that didn't grow up with a computer in the home. So, gaming == devilry, while spending 2 hours watching the news == productive. Never mind the fact that the news could be consumed in 5 minutes on the internet and the rest of the time could be spent gaming. Gaming is too new to be deemed a viable hobby. At some point, we want to be entertained and gaming is a fun activity. Personally, I play games for a good portion of my entertainment time. I also like to dabble in Python and have created useful programs. I'm also working on a game, probably won't ever see any monetary return on it, but I do it for fun. There's something called a Workaholic, which people also say is "bad", but society in general doesn't put them into the same area as the "addicted" gamer.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"