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.
Related Stories
The World Health Organization (WHO) will officially classify "gaming disorder" as a mental health condition:
The World Health Organization is set to announce "gaming disorder" as a new mental health condition to be included in the 11th edition of its International Classification of Diseases, set to release Monday.
"I'm not creating a precedent," said Dr. Vladimir Poznyak, a member of WHO's Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, which proposed the new diagnosis to WHO's decision-making body, the World Health Assembly. Instead, he said, WHO has followed "the trends, the developments, which have taken place in populations and in the professional field."
However, not all psychologists agree that gaming disorder is worthy of inclusion in the International Classification of Diseases, known as the ICD.
What are the characteristics of gaming disorder?
"One is that the gaming behavior takes precedence over other activities to the extent that other activities are taken to the periphery," he said. The second feature is "impaired control of these behaviors," Poznyak said. "Even when the negative consequences occur, this behavior continues or escalates." A diagnosis of gaming disorder, then, means that a "persistent or recurrent" behavior pattern of "sufficient severity" has emerged, according to the ICD. A third feature is that the condition leads to significant distress and impairment in personal, family, social, educational or occupational functioning, Poznyak said. The impact is real, he said, and may include "disturbed sleep patterns, like diet problems, like a deficiency in the physical activity."
Overall, the main characteristics are "very similar" to the diagnostic features of substance use disorders and gambling disorder, he said. Gambling disorder "is another category of clinical conditions which are not associated with a psychoactive substance use but at the same time being considered as addictive as addictions."
Also at NYT.
Previously: World Health Organization Will Recognize "Gaming Disorder"
The World Health Organization has proposed a behavioral addiction pathology for excessive video-game playing but not for the equivalent obsessiveness applied to smartphones. Maybe the problem is in the economy and industry lobbying more than the mind.
Forget the choice between gaming disorder and smartphone disorder, maybe it's productive to think of both, in part at least, as an invitation to pursue better consumer rights and protections rather than to proliferate more mental disorders. But the nuance of socioeconomics can't hold a candle to the terror of morbidity. To observe that gaming (or tech, or work, or tanning) has some concerning transactional issues isn't as sexy as saying that gaming is going to suck your children in to the maw of imminent harm. "Mental illness sounds scarier than consumer protections," Ferguson laments. "But people want scary."
From The Atlantic : Why Is There a 'Gaming Disorder' But No 'Smartphone Disorder?'
Earlier on SN :
World Health Organization Officially Lists "Gaming Disorder" in ICD (2018)
World Health Organization Will Recognize "Gaming Disorder" (2017)
Wired for Gaming: Brain Differences in Compulsive Video Game Players (2016)
The digital drug: Internet addiction spawns U.S. treatment programs
When Danny Reagan was 13, he began exhibiting signs of what doctors usually associate with drug addiction. He became agitated, secretive and withdrew from friends. He had quit baseball and Boy Scouts, and he stopped doing homework and showering.
But he was not using drugs. He was hooked on YouTube and video games, to the point where he could do nothing else. As doctors would confirm, he was addicted to his electronics.
"After I got my console, I kind of fell in love with it," Danny, now 16 and a junior in a Cincinnati high school, said. "I liked being able to kind of shut everything out and just relax."
Danny was different from typical plugged-in American teenagers. Psychiatrists say internet addiction, characterized by a loss of control over internet use and disregard for the consequences of it, affects up to 8 percent of Americans and is becoming more common around the world.
Show-e-ring? Is that some kind of connected device?
Related: How Facebook Can Be Addictive
Asia's Smartphone Addiction
In South Korea, a Rehab Camp for Internet-Addicted Teenagers
Chinese Teen Dies as a Result of Internet Addiction Camp
World Health Organization Will Recognize "Gaming Disorder"
World Health Organization Officially Lists "Gaming Disorder" in ICD
Why is There a 'Gaming Disorder' but No 'Smartphone Disorder?'
'Gaming Disorder' Is a Now an Official Medical Condition, According to the WHO
Nearly anywhere you go, it's easy to find children and adults alike transfixed by their phones, and while texting and social media certainly claim a big part of that attention, increasingly it's gaming that's drawing us in.
At the World Health Organization's World Health Assembly on Saturday, member states officially recognized gaming addiction as a modern disease. Last year, the WHO voted to include gaming disorder as an official condition in the draft version of its latest International Classification of Diseases (ICD); the vote finalizes that decision. The WHO's ICD, currently in its 11th edition, serves as the international standard for diagnosing and treating health conditions.
According to Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesperson for the WHO, the move is "based on reviews of available evidence," and reflects general agreement among experts around the world that some people show a "pattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control," prioritizing gaming over other daily responsibilities, including attending school or work and keeping social appointments.
According to the WHO experts who analyzed studies on gaming behavior, people's use of gaming is different from their use of the internet, social media, online gambling and online shopping. There isn't sufficient data, they say, to indicate that people's reliance on those is a "behavioral addiction" the way gaming can be.
Previously: World Health Organization Will Recognize "Gaming Disorder"
World Health Organization Officially Lists "Gaming Disorder" in ICD
Why is There a 'Gaming Disorder' but No 'Smartphone Disorder?'
Related: Treatment Centers for Internet Addiction are Popping Up
Burnout is Now an Official Medical Diagnosis, Says the World Health Organization
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday December 26 2017, @12:29PM
It is a problem only when the game sucks.
If the game is good, gaming disorder is like preferring a ride on a Ferrari to washing dishes. Quite understandable really.
Ditch your stupid console controllers, get back at the PC, and run some open source quake knockoff fragfest. After 30 mins you should be burned out and ready to go on with your life.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:03PM
Extra Credits did a series of videos about this topic awhile back which is interesting from the perspective of players and game designers. Their head writer prefers the term "video game compulsion" though the videos are labeled "Game Addiction". First one is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5RSngCFpsc [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:08PM (4 children)
Books? TV? Games? Sex? Anything. Go boating every weekend? Snow skiing every weekend?
Hell my wife walks 2-4 hrs a day 4-5 days a week. Probably addiction!
Anything you enjoy is bad. You are an addict.
Bills paid. Family taken care of. Time to enjoy.
NO! That is addiction!
I get it some might have their lives out of control but most are just enjoying the fruits of their labor.
Now get back to work. Do something productive. Build another widget. Your life has meaning!
Til the robots take your job and you have to live off universal living assistance and play video games all day!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:18PM (1 child)
The left is dominant in society at this time, they are the establishment, and they stole original sin doctrine as a guilt / control mechanism from the Catholics and have extensively weaponized it. One of the most terrifying things to leftists is the modern counter reaction of people laughing at them when they are called addicts or something-ists.
You can control Catholics when you can always primate dominance ritual them with a slap of original sin fire and brimstone. But it makes the powers that be nervous when atheist types laugh in the face of that. Likewise the purpose of saturating a culture with guilt inducing claims of addiction and racism is an effective means of societal control (ask yourself, for what? or whom?) and laughing in their face freaks them out.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:50PM
Meh, addiction and racism are two very different things.
I will agree that some accusations of racism / sexism / ageism / politicism go overboard but welcome to humanity you narcissistic ostrich. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and please PLEASE stop pretending like conservatives are now some poor persecuted group. It is simply laughable seeing how thin skinned conservatives can be when they get a tiny dose of the shit they've been doling out for hundreds of years: racism (no not just a conservative problem, but much moreso these days), and moral judgments spring right to mind. Don't kid yourself that many conservatives do not still have a problem with a) all minorities b) gay people c) women d) drugs e) games f) poor people g) hippies.
(Score: 3, Funny) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:22PM
If you live for the Weekend, you too might be addicted to Weekends.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @03:51PM
Did you even read TFS?
That's not just enjoying the fruits of your labor. The urge to game controls people. It is their top priority, like other addictions. If you think gaming is valid as a top priority in life, then there isn't a problem. But at the end of their lives, few people are going to wish they had spent more time on the computer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:13PM (4 children)
The critical paper is pretty good but poltically constrained.
The problem with video games is it skews white straight male and that demographic is hated by the left, so gaming is getting the SJW treatment with weird entryism and trying to define it as a disease. So the criticism paper can not talk about the real problems but must dance artfully around the real issues.
The current approach is rooted in hatred of white straight males and as such the approaches don't matter because the statement of disease is an expression of racist sexist hatred. A really close analogy is the pathologization of marijuana solely due to hatred of mexicans and then MJ moving into beatnik/jazz culture which was also hated.
A close second is the media vilifies everything teenage straight white males have been interested in since the 60s for some odd reason, what a peculiar coincidence. So 80s era Dungeons and Dragons paranoia is just re imagined as paranoia about video games.
There would be a lot less heroin and alcohol addicts out there if minimal criteria to enter the "hobby" involved moderate amounts of money and relatively high IQ and reflex "sport" ability. 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. Kinda like middle class caffeine addiction to coffee.
Essentially the problem we have is evolution provides us with teenagers who are ready for productive life as a part of a small pre-historic tribe, but modern life has no use for teens until they're like 20-something, so you get this weird mixture of baby sitting and peculiar forms of recreation to fill time. Meanwhile in a "youth centered" society, massive jealousy toward youth exists and manifests as pathologizing everything the youth do, basically a long format version of "youth is wasted on the young".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:54PM
Look, just do us all a favor and drop the tired SJW crap. Today's liberal SJWs are yesterdays religious moralizers, a small group of vocal criticizers that shouldn't be getting so much free press :P Other than that you make some really good points :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:13PM (2 children)
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.
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)
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
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:27PM
South Korea used to have Starcraft as a national pasttime. Then there were a few cases of people dying after 24+hr binges in internet cafes so the government decided they needed to regulate everything related to gaming and the internet. It turned out badly. [archive.is]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by stretch611 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:34PM (5 children)
I'm sure I qualify as an addict in this study. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that I have other mental issues and/or problems too.
HOWEVER...
I am not out drinking to excess and then creating a driving hazard that will kill innocents.
I am not getting high on crack/opiates/coke/pyshcotics/meth or any other hardcore drug.
I am not causing illegal activity to occur in the transport or creation of such drugs that I am causing other people to commit crime to support my habit.
I am not stealing from others to support my habit.
I am not gambling away my life savings... not even on "loot boxes." (I have played games with loot boxes... I have bought them as well... but I did so with reasonable expectations, did not use IRL money to any excess at all, and bought the majority through in-game grinding.)
I am not out raping, killing, or stealing. So until I cause real harm to myself or others, GO FSCK YOURSELF!!!
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:42PM (4 children)
If your “addiction” isn't causing harm to yourself or others then you aren't an addict. To count as having a disorder, your life needs to actually be out of order. Of course, there is a grey area of exactly how “harm to yourself” is defined (e.g. if it's considered okay to have almost no in-person social contact).
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @03:56PM
I'm so fucking addicted to my job, I spend the majority of my waking life building digital widgets! Someone please help me!!! I want to get this monkey off my back so I can live a peaceful life and have time to actually help my community.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:35PM (2 children)
Maybe rather than creating all these new addictions, they should start looking at the root cause.
Most (not all!) addictions are caused by stress in life. As a result of said stress people find outlets. Some of these outlets are recreational drugs (booze, cigs, caffeine, marijuana all go here, as well as more serious drugs), some are recreational activities (lot of sex related stuff, videogames, exercise, hunting, meditation, etc), some are violent/criminal (beating on a wife, stealing cars, breaking other people's shit/person), etc.
For the vast majority of people the compulsion comes as an outlet for other places in their life they can't change and they can't vent.
For me, gaming was like that. For one of my ex's gaming was also like that (I didn't find out until we were breaking up she had probably been raped, and then only by piecing together things she had said. She was from a family that while reasonably 'loose' still had religious/social hangups about certain behaviors/actions, even if they weren't your fault.)
Many people are using videogaming as an outlet to get away from the parts of their life they can't change, can't cope with, and can't get out of. This is as true today as it was 5000+ years ago and yet we still ignore the elephant in the room: The addictions are usually medicating oneself for living a life that is untenable to the 'addicted' person. They try and cope how they can, even if it ends up destroying them socially, physically, and mentally, but can't see another way out. Some people get lucky and find another way out. Whether moving somewhere else to live another life, getting counselling that helps them cope or make changes to their life that reduce the need to cope, etc.
While there are some peopel who fall into addictions from other sources, videogames especially tend to not be one of them. If you are gaming it is making up for something missing in your normal life, whether that be experiences, the satisfaction you should get after a hard day's work, or something else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:32PM (1 child)
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.
"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
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"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @02:46PM (3 children)
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)
^ 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
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
There's nothing wrong with wanting to check out of reality to begin with.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:50PM (1 child)
Maybe boomers just fucked the country up so bad that for a portion of the population the only way to escape the worthlessness that is our lives (excessive debt, lower standard of living, impossibility of buying a home) is to lose themselves in video games until their hearts gives out.
Fix the problem and not the symptom.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:26PM
Or maybe people just like playing video games. What's wrong with that?
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:08PM
Will surely make an interesting case study, and I am looking forward to their analysis.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:24PM
Welp team, good effort, but we couldn't fully infiltrate and destroy from within. Move on to demonize. Kick out some pseudo-scientific "social sciences" papers about how gamers are mean boys who just need to grow up and conform to our wishes and desires. They cannot control their demonic, anti-social urges so we will need to oversee and "curate" video games.