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from the today-I-learned-that-gaming-disorder-is-real dept.
Increase in gaming disorder in UK forcing people into private treatment at home or abroad
Jan Willem Poot, 40, a former addict turned entrepreneur who set up the clinic, said it was seeing a 20-30% annual increase in people – mainly young men – coming in with gaming dependency. "Also, in the beginning it was eight to 10 hours of playing but at this moment we have got kids who game 18-19 hours a day. They sometimes go weeks without showers and are not eating."
Gaming disorder is defined by the World Health Organization as a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour so severe that it takes "precedence over other life interests". Symptoms include impaired control over gaming and continuation or escalation of gaming despite negative consequences.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 19 2019, @03:07PM
Except they do cause disease and health problems [sciencedaily.com]. People who play lots of games tend to be more likely to be obese, to have cardiovascular health issues, etc.
Gambling can be a serious addiction, and the NHS has some advice about that [www.nhs.uk]. It's probably less likely to have direct health consequences than gaming, I'd imagine. But in some cases it indicates (or is a consequence of) serious mental health problems.
As noted above, compulsive gaming tends to contribute to higher rates of obesity, worse cardiovascular health, more sleep disorders, etc. Obesity has serious health costs for society (including things like diabetes, etc.) and treating heart disease isn't cheap either. Sleep disorders tend to contribute to overall health problems that lead to things like obesity and other illness. As for your concern about "death" expressed at the beginning of the post, note that heart disease actually tends to be the most common cause of death in adults (greater even than cancer). And gaming addiction coupled with these problems has other costs for society (like general illness, missed work, decreased productivity, etc.).
Note that I am NOT claiming that gaming addiction should necessarily be a high priority. I'm not claiming that I know the best way to allocate resources. But pretending that it doesn't contribute to significant health problems that could lead to "disease or death" is just not looking at what it actually does. "Gaming addiction" isn't just playing games a little each day -- it's playing them to a point that it's disrupting a normal lifestyle, leading to neglect of common things (like reasonable eating and sleeping and exercise habits) that could otherwise keep you healthy.