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"
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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.
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: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Monday June 18 2018, @05:31PM (3 children)
We need a new "Social Networking Disorder".
Symptoms include:
* inability to put down phone
* even when real people are around
* even family
* walking into fountains, park benches, falling off curbs, etc
* attention to driving takes 2nd (or lower) priority
Various "social network" applications are anything but. Anti-social networking is more apt.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @05:35PM
Symptoms include: using social media.
FTFY
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @08:10PM (1 child)
Maybe burying your face in your phone is just a symptom of a different issue. Did anyone eve consider that?
I know when I'm forced to interact with people on family events, I frequently bury my face in my phone. Because let's face it.. Sometimes you'd just rather be somewhere else, rather than the place you're stuck at currently for whatever reason! I frequently get complaints that I should be present in the here-and-now, rather than inside my mind, or a book, or a screen.
Previously at social events, you were expected to be civil and to interact with others for the entire duration of your presence. Now with the rise of powerful handheld information display and communication devices, we finally have excuses to not talk to people standing right in front of us. It's heaven for us introverts! And if anyone calls us out on it, we can simply blame it on addiction to social media. So convenient!
Obviously the above is meant to be tongue-in-cheek. But there's a very real kernel of truth in there. There's a whole world of information literally at my fingertips. Most of it is vastly more interesting than talking to most people, excepted some rare individuals. Can we honestly blame people for tuning out? Should we expect people to be social when they don't want to? Why should we all constantly force ourselves to fit in and be social. Why can't we all just live and let live?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @06:09AM
You're not. If you're an adult, you're not forced to do any such thing. I just don't go to such events.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Monday June 18 2018, @05:39PM (33 children)
How much of this is a disorder, vs simply difference between generations that annoys older people.
With jobs and careers becoming harder to find and keep (and probably more so in the future), gaming seems to be a good a way to pass the time as anything else. Probably better than opiod addiction.
And probably provides much more social interaction than twitter or Facebook.
The whole description seems like such a judgment call, not only by the "doctors" but by people around the gamer.
Do gamers themselves ever go to the doctor complaining that they just can't kick the addiction? Or do they just turn it off and walk away?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @05:44PM (5 children)
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Monday June 18 2018, @06:18PM
There's a "classic" 1982 movie called "The Toy" which opens with Richard Pryor having nothing better to do all day than play the card game Spades with his equally unemployed buddies, so its not like this is new or strictly video game related.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday June 18 2018, @07:55PM
What you describe also fits for the previous SN topic on opioids.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @03:13AM (2 children)
I just want to ask one question: why was watching TV all day long never classified as a gaming disorder, since for the majority of people it was held more important than doing household chores.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday June 19 2018, @03:37AM (1 child)
The TV isn't exactly interactive. Games are. That means that you have reward mechanisms at work, similar to gambling disorder.
Basically, gaming is more addictive than TV. Unless you're super lazy.
I can't wait for the Virtual Reality Disorder.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @06:12AM
Sure it is. Which is why a lot of people did and do sit around watching TV for hours. Sounds like TV addiction to me, if we're going to go by the logic that doing anything you enjoy longer than some people think you should is an addiction.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @05:56PM
I can walk away any time I want.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by BsAtHome on Monday June 18 2018, @06:01PM (1 child)
Once a behavior becomes compulsive you start talking about a disorder. It is unimportant whether the drive is conditioned by a physical or a psychological source. They have both a trait of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and traditional addiction. However, the treatment always depends highly on all the sources and causes that are involved.
A disorder is a problem, regardless source, once it has consequences for your life up until becoming completely self-destructive. That means that at some stage "using social media" can become an OCD problem. Certainly, computer gaming has the potential for all the classic psychological and physiological markers of a disorder. Not being able to leave your phone/computer, or "online life", for a moment is just one more manifestation of a similar underlying problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @06:16PM
Can we mod this up to +5 please? I'm a big gamer myself and dislike the negativity associated with my chosen hobby, but any hobby can be taken to unhealthy levels.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday June 18 2018, @06:10PM
You haven't seen the poker machine zombies, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday June 18 2018, @06:25PM (7 children)
Politics and signalling, too. Check out some stuff on the WHO site.
Trans is good and normal and healthy, not a mental disorder at all, and everything else has to change to fit that way of looking at biology and psychology, but too many right wing video gamers mean video gaming is a disease, a scourge to be eradicated.
The point is they're not in the political business of absolutes, but in relatives, and they have an agenda to push such that a guy feeling an uncontrollable urge to chop his dick off is a normal and healthy holy act to be supported and cherished as superior and more important than all other ways to relate to a dick, but a guy who wants to play Fortnite after a long day at work is obviously mentally ill.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 18 2018, @06:31PM
Why do you insist that the brain is not a gendered organ and that gender is nothing but a social construct?
I think you are wrong. Men and women are different, regardless of what you want to be true.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 18 2018, @07:22PM (3 children)
Check out some stuff on the WHO site.
Done! Nope, I don't see anything you claim to be there.
Why don't you provide some citations for your claims?
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday June 18 2018, @09:13PM (2 children)
Is the blatant lying from this lot getting worse or am I just noticing it more?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Monday June 18 2018, @09:56PM (1 child)
I think it is getting worse, and it seems to be coming from the top down. It's clearer every day that Trump's degenerated to where most of what he says is provably false to the point of being almost comical, and is clearly aimed only at those who'll believe anything/everything he says. And yea...this fabricated WHO trans stuff or whatever it is...bullshit to perpetuate some myth that anything from any "World" organization or the U.N. or anything un-MAGA must be pure commie-euro-libtard-don't-bother-me-while-I'm-eating-my-freedom-fries bullshit...I guess. All getting really really old, and a bit scary seeing as it works on so many.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @12:57AM
It must be the R team's Trump Derangement Syndrome reaching critical mass.
This timeline may yet see riots in every major city come late August.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ben_white on Monday June 18 2018, @08:14PM (1 child)
This is not remotely what they are talking about. From TFA: " the condition leads to significant distress and impairment in personal, family, social, educational or occupational functioning." Blowing off some steam after work playing video games doesn't even come close to meeting the definition, and frankly is perfectly healthy behavior. Missing work, getting fired, divorced, and becoming homeless because of playing video games is pathologic behavior and should be studied and when appropriate, treated like other compulsive, destructive behaviors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @03:20AM
All those things apply to TV, an entertainment medium consumed mostly by women. You know, "missing household work, getting fired = divorced and becoming
homelessalimony dependent".I know, Trump [time.com] is the last refuge your blind dogma has left. Carry on in your blind stead. Those who are secure enough to see it for what it is, are not going away.
It is going to get worse and the blame lies with you.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday June 18 2018, @07:52PM (8 children)
Years ago I heard something insightful about the music kids listen to.
Q. In any generation. What will kids listen to?
A. Whatever is most shocking to the older generation!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday June 18 2018, @08:11PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMVSQVn97es [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKNdVQKHsFc [youtube.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 18 2018, @08:29PM (6 children)
I don't disagree with the basic premise of your comment, but the thing that shocks me about pop music of today is how bland it is.
I was subjected to several pop songs yesterday including a song by Lady Gaga and the thing that struck me most was how uninteresting they all were. Sort of like the aural equivilant of a big mac.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday June 18 2018, @09:04PM (4 children)
Do you think it is for the exactly same reason that the Big Mac is bland?
Corporate, frozen, prepackaged, pre-determined checkbox list of ingredients. Rapidly prepared using high tech automated tools to remove both manual labor and creativity from the production process.
Nailed it in one Mr. Garibaldi.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 18 2018, @09:28PM (3 children)
Yes, I think you're quite correct.
That's exactly right. Just an endless lineup of prepacked, disposable garbage.
It's very sad, but I'm sure there are plenty of talented creative musicians all over the world making great music that will never get a major label contract, but will still have a rewarding career. I hope so anyway.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Monday June 18 2018, @11:05PM
I highly recommend "Electric Six". I find their music more addicting than most video games.
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Monday June 18 2018, @11:07PM (1 child)
But consider the flip side.
Making music once required labor. Perspiration. Inspiration. Planning. Teamwork. And something in short supply today: Talent.
The tools for scoring, recording, editing and mixing music were shockingly primitive. Analog tape? The tools for performing music were also typically old inventions dating back possibly centuries.
Consider the improvements today. We have amazing synthesizers for performing. And other tools for recording, editing and mixing.
But finally, we also have a modern answer for that missing thing I mentioned: Talent.
Today's talent: add a bass line and drums on top of modem noise and you've got music!
Could it get any simpler or cheaper?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday June 19 2018, @12:23AM
I should have mentioned AutoTune.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @11:51AM
"Pop music" isn't what the kids listen to these days. They listen to rap. So-called "Trap music". Your teenage daughter isn't going to play that for you though, she will show you the safe and bland BS.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Monday June 18 2018, @08:05PM (5 children)
An interesting question. I think there are two people being conflated here:
1) A gamer. Somebody who actively chooses video games, and those genres of entertainment (Twitch), versus other past times that involve "IRL", people, and the outdoors.
2) People addicted to gaming to the extent their infant child dies horribly in the same room with them. Imagine the scene from Trainspotting when the woman finds the dead baby, except in this case, the gamers didn't even bother to check what the smell was (true story).
The real distinction here is whether or not there is:
I knew somebody that was impairing their personal life (girlfriend leaving over MMO), but was otherwise doing just fine with work and education. Social did decline a bit because it was difficult for us to get him involved as much in our activities, but it was still a choice. He had new friends online that he was grinding with. I want to say this was Everquest?
I think there are people that just choose to spend their free time playing video games. That's okay too. Forgot where I heard it, but adults in America are becoming more and more isolated anyways. Perhaps it's just part of a larger issue? Maybe excessive time spend playing video games in indicative of a need for some therapy?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday June 18 2018, @08:13PM
It helps when you are drenched and caked in your own bodily emissions. Submersed in unreality.
https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/06/10/girl_9_in_rehab_after_getting_so_addicted_to_fortnite_she_wet_herself [hardocp.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday June 18 2018, @08:19PM
Stop it! I don't come here for well reasoned responses. I want ill-informed rants.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Monday June 18 2018, @08:35PM
Not necessarily. Rather, if you continue to spend excessive time after you noticed (or someone else noticed to you) that you do, then you need therapy.
Case in point: At some point in time, I was playing some free-to-play online game excessively. But when I noticed that I'm putting more time in than is healthy for me, I stopped playing it, and had no trouble to do so. Which demonstrates that despite excessive playing, I wasn't addicted.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Touché) by acid andy on Monday June 18 2018, @11:25PM
Man. She could at least have left him over the phone!
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday June 19 2018, @03:28AM
Which doesn't have any clear scientific definition. It is purposefully left for interpretation by both the doctor and patient. It is slightly more sophisticated way of saying "it is bad". It is designed to open 1 door: how to sell you something medication.
But my personal beef is that in a time when family doesn't mean jack-shit, and we know gamers are primarily men, what measures are there in defining this "disorder" that take into account a man going through divorce and taking stress out through video games? How easy it is to turn a stressful marriage being coped with video games into stressful marriage because of video games?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday June 19 2018, @12:26AM (2 children)
Say it with me.....
It's. not. a. DISEASE!
How about we just grow up?
Yes, gaming is more fun than actually dealing with problems.
Yes, drinking is more fun than actually dealing with problems.
Shit. Neither is a DISEASE, it is a personal choice: I don't want to go to work, I don't want to deal with life. I just want to plaaaaaaay! Cos it's easier!
Grow up. Go to work. Go on date with GF. Deal. Be a man, not a child.
Stop hiding and deal...deal. with. life.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @06:26AM (1 child)
It's also possible that some people just prefer doing these things and don't have the same desires as you. Not everyone wants a girlfriend; not only because not everyone is a straight male, but because some people are aromantic. Also, nice No True Scotsman there with your "be a man" bit.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday June 19 2018, @02:54PM
Okay, so you agree with me it's NOT a disease?.....I guess?....
....or wtf you talking about.
And that's not a true Scotsman thing: it's a reality. If you're letting people down in some way because you want to game, you need to grow up and "be a man".
Children let you down, adults don't.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 19 2018, @01:08AM
I mis-read the title as 'gambling disorder' and was sure we were on the biggest side tangent in SN history. I'm realizing people aren't mad because gamming hypothetically could be what is gone after next.
Gambling addiction is a real thing though right?