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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 Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:13PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:13PM (#614767)

    So if the victims are cherry picked to be generally more successful than gutter alcoholics and crack whores, then its kind of a tautology that the victims will then be more successful in life than alcohol or heroin or meth addicts. Maybe not superhero successful or even standard boring middle class successful, but they'll be better off. So yeah, low clinical impairment.

    As someone who wasted a year playing video games, because I was didn't want to do what was asked of me, I think you're downplaying the importance of game addiction. Sure, it's not like a physical addiction that has real withdrawal symptoms. But if you think of impairment as a relative measure (how are you doing compared to your potential) vs. an absolute one (how low can you go), people do hurt themselves with it. If you block the games, they might find another outlet that's even worse, but it's still a valid public health concern.

    Kinda like middle class caffeine addiction to coffee.

    I don't think you can waste a year drinking coffee. From an economic perspective, drinking coffee probably raises GDP. Spending excessive time with video games reduces it. Governments want to keep their citizens productive.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:51PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @09:51PM (#614883)

    Governments want to keep their citizens productive.

    And there you have it. How dare you actually enjoy your life! You should be slaving away for a corporation until you want to commit suicide. You need to be a filthy normie: Go to college, get a job, get married, and have kids. This is what is considered "productive" by society, and it's no surprise that some people want nothing to do with that, and nor is it a surprise that society attacks those who refuse to be "productive" since they're not as miserable as everyone else.

    Now go make the 'correct' choice and work until you drop.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28 2017, @03:11AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28 2017, @03:11AM (#614968)
      You don't have to be a 'normie' to value productivity. Where do you think video games come from? They are based on millions of smart-person years of work, if you include the underlying tech.