You are officially addicted to video games

No, it doesnt sound anything like depression what a bizarre comparison. Depression is a genuine mental illness with a reams of evidence to back that up as well as drugs for treatment.

I happily mock the WHO and their latest idiocy. Because they are wrong and very mockable.

Like many mental disorders, I think “Addiction to Gaming” most likely will be used as a comorbidity with other issues – depression being one of them. If you consider a scenario where a patient is depressed and that manifests, in part, through an addiction to gaming, then specifying gaming as a comorbidity likely will influence the treatment recommended to the patient and approved by insurance. A depressed individual with an addiction to gaming needs different treatment than a depressed individual with an addiction to alcohol or cutting or whatever.

Thank you for improving my vocabulary. Never heard of that word before. Something useful came out of the thread! :)

edit: Oh and as some folks actually want to have a serious discussion about this then I am going to bow out of the thread. I have too much respect and affection for each of you and I fear my open mocking of this may end up coming across as mocking of you. Which I assure you is not my intent. Anyway, enjoy!

Every once in a while, my public heath master’s degree comes in useful ;)

I guess my point is though even if depression is, in part, a cause or a reason for the addiction it’s still an addiction, and we treat different addictions well… differently. This means if gaming is has found itself in the company of alcohol, drugs and gambling… it needs to be studied so we can treat it, and to study something we need to treat it seriously, fund it, get experts involved, etc.

To me, I am a bit with Rod: it looks like another attempt at society (i.e, some very serious old farts) to patronize young adults for their edgy behaviours when discovering and learning to deal with the freedom to fuck up with their own life (and, hopefully, get over it).
I may be out of the loop, but compulsive online gaming leading to noxious behaviour toward others, or one’s self, is becoming widespread? I remember spending 6 unhealthy months in Diablo 2 obsession, eating and breathing Diablo 2, but I thought in retrospect that was a shitty way to spend time, not that I had been in danger of losing all that I hold dear.
I must confess I have a disgust for Diablo-like ARPG since then, the way you can’t stand tabacco smoke when you stop smoking, so maybe there is something.

It’s certainly a matter of degree. As someone who was addicted to certain hard drugs, I feel like this trivializes what I and others have gone through. I also realize that this is just my opinion and is worth nothing.

I have also gone through withdrawals before, for medication I couldn’t afford and had to stop abruptly. I didn’t voice my experience or my opinion… lightly.

I also have alcoholics in the family, they’re not recovering, and a gambling addict who is in recovery. Not all addiction is related to what you put in your body.

I was hesitant to talk about that, but I do share that impression, and to take it a bit sideways, this sounds to me as it actually also may have the pervert effect of making drugs that induce physical dependencies look more “leisurely” (I don’t even know if that is the right word, but I hope I get the idea of what I am trying to express across).
That being said, the paper talks about “disorder” (like gambling), not addiction. But the way it is presented, I doubt that may matter.

I’m no expert, but I’m concerned there’s an element of luddism here.

Didn’t people say we would be addicted to television, movies, comic strips etc when they were all new?

To be fair, I’ve yet to see a skinner box television show, movie, or comic strip. That design is prevalent in a number of video game designs, especially free to play (or not, if you’re battlefront !) + loot box style games.

Doesn’t our community spend more than a little amount of time trying to convince everyone that games can’t be compared to television, movies and books? I know these arguments keep coming up when trying to compare games to, well anything. Games are lot more interactive.

Yeah, this echoes the point I wanted to make, that most video games were originally designed to be addictive so that people would keep pumping quarters into the machines.

WHO just added “hazardous gaming” to the draft list.

Besides their obvious need for a @Mercanis, I love the “the increased risk may be (…) from the adverse consequences of gaming”.

The ESA responds.

There are a lot of people who gamble too, most do not become addicts. That doesn’t mean gambling isn’t addictive. I agree they need to be careful how they approach this, but that statement is ridiculous.

She was so addicted that she wet herself to continue playing

Pfft that’s not addiction, that’s just playing to win. Marathon runners poop themselves.

“When we asked our daughter what the ­problem was, she became unusually ­argumentative and aggressive, which we just put down to her hormones.”

The family also started noticing regular payments of £50 ($67) per month on their credit card, which the daughter said could be from some extras she’d paid for on Fortnite. When they confiscated the console, the girl reportedly hit her father in the face.

To be fair, $67 a month is getting off hella cheap in a free game like Fortnite.

Clearly fake news, girls don’t play video games like Fortnite ;-)

Seriously though, it’s good they’re catching this now. There’s still hope she won’t start guzzling energy drinks and stressing the hell out of her body and doing real damage. A little urine just kills a replaceable couch.

Welp, looks like WHO’s recognition of a gaming disorder that spurred this thread has made it through the draft process and is going to be in the final publication, due today.