Slashdot Mirror


WHO Classifies 'Gaming Disorder' as Mental Health Condition (cnn.com)

The World Health Organization has announced "gaming disorder" as a new mental health condition included in the 11th edition of its International Classification of Diseases, released Monday. From a report: "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.

A diagnosis standard, the ICD defines the universe of diseases, disorders, injuries and other related health conditions. Researchers use it to count deaths, diseases, injuries and symptoms, and doctors and other medical practitioners use it to diagnose disease and other conditions. In many cases, health care companies and insurers use the ICD as a basis for reimbursement. Poznyak said the expectation is that the classification of gaming disorder means health professionals and systems will be more "alerted to the existence of this condition" while boosting the possibility that "people who suffer from these conditions can get appropriate help."

201 comments

  1. Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Gamer dysphoria is not a disorder.
    I identify as a gamer and demand to be treated as one, not as a mentally ill person.
    No to gamerphobia!

    1. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Playing video games 24/7 is a mental disorder.

      Dressing up in women's clothes and thinking you are a woman, to the point of cutting off your dick is, "Normal"

      I see.

    2. Re:Not a disorder by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      Playing video games 24/7 is a mental disorder.

      Dressing up in women's clothes and thinking you are a woman, to the point of cutting off your dick is, "Normal"

      I see.

      Don't forget that pushing it onto 3 year old kids is okay. But pointing out that it's child abuse isn't okay. Putting preteens on hormone blocks is okay too. Never mind that children have wild ideas like wanting to be a train/truck/street light/etc when they grow up.

      There's going to be an entire generation of completely fucked up people, and in the worst case a lot of cases of parents getting killed by their kids for fucking up their lives.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    3. Re: Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      There is no such thing as women's clothing, men and women are equal, it's people's clothing.

    4. Re:Not a disorder by mrclevesque · · Score: 2

      "Gamer dysphoria is not a disorder."

      Of course. A Gaming Disorder diagnosis would mean a person's symptoms (eg gaming obsession and compulsion) cause them significant distress, affect their ability to function in daily life and the level of intensity, and duration, of the dysfunction exceeds the minimum diagnosis criteria.

    5. Re:Not a disorder by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      I try to consider the upside. Can I throw a harness on my dog and call him a "service dog"? Every time I take him out for a walk it's therapy for my gaming addiction. He's very well trained and quite persistent, I'd argue he is essential to my recovery.

      The downside is my cat. He also is responsible for some gaming therapy, but I don't want an excuse to have him tethered to me.

    6. Re: Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      LMFAO right! your son wears a peoples bra because he's lazy and plays too many games and is growing tits because of it.....men and women are equal but clothing is not the same thing......male and female have different bodies and so clothing is designed with that in mind! are there really people that cannot see this for what it is!?

    7. Re:Not a disorder by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      No, but if you can get a shrink to sign a paper that says that your pets increase your quality of life, you can get them registered as comfort animals and then landlords in California have to permit you to keep them in the rental unit unless they are highly unsuitable for the space. And not just the normal kind of unsuitable, like a dog too big for an apartment, but more like a horse too big for an apartment.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    8. Re:Not a disorder by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      Pushing it onto 3 year old kids is child abuse. Thankfully in the vast majority of cases in normal countries, nothing is being "pushed onto" these kids. Before these kids - and most adults as well - get anywhere near medicine, treatment or surgery, there's plenty of psychological evaluation, and the experts are very well capable of separating deluded cross dressers and kids with weird flights of fancy from those suffering from actual gender dysphoria. And those who actually do go through with the treatment are well motivated: this is not a journey you'll complete on a whim.

      In normal cases, kids are being taught that the condition is an exception rather than the norm, but that there's nothing bad about it... and that it's a genuine condition that can manifest itself at a very early age, not some attention seeking crap from a neglected millenial. The best thing for such kids is recognition, diagnosis and if necessary the start of the process, not attempts to dismiss their condition or "pray the gay away" boot camps.

      This generation of fucked up people will not spring up because kids are being taught about gender dysphoria. Where things go wrong is people catering to the attention seeking crap. People who added god nows how many letters now to LGBT or demanded that 3rd type of bathroom. The kind of people who demand that every flight of fancy is valid, to be accepted and recognized. And if that kind of thinking results in real or made up conditions being pushed on kids who aren't really suffering from them, then by all means treat that as the child abuse it is. But don't think that there are no children who genuinely have gender dysphoria, who'd benefit from early diagnosis and treatment.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    9. Re:Not a disorder by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

      gaymophobia

      FTFY.

    10. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can only assume, due to the moderation, that Slashdot is filled with cross dressing gamers living in their mother's basement.

    11. Re:Not a disorder by atrex · · Score: 1

      A child has to be diagnosed by a certified and trained psychologist with gender dysphoria before being able to receive treatment with prescription hormone supplements and blockers. 3 years old is probably too young for such a diagnosis.

      Meanwhile, children that do suffer from gender dysphoria whose parents refuse to acknowledge it, (or worse, whose parents display an attitude of bigotry against it) often end up committing suicide or blaming their parents for "fucking up their lives" as you so eloquently put it.

      The best hope a gender dysphoric child has of having a normal life is to receive love, acceptance, and treatment prior to puberty (ie before all the hormones get released and cause their body to mature in a way that is foreign to them).

    12. Re:Not a disorder by atrex · · Score: 1

      Pardon, I meant psychiatrist. Psychologists can't issue prescriptions.

    13. Re:Not a disorder by sycodon · · Score: 0

      Children that do go through treatment often end up committing suicide anyway later in life.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    14. Re:Not a disorder by Megol · · Score: 1

      So you are a sadist. Why do you want others to suffer unnecessarily when we have the technology to avoid it?

      This was about gaming addiction BTW, your obsession is unhealthy but not at the level of a disorder.

    15. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. It is. So is living in your moms basement. Move the fuck out, and stop being a gaymer. Get a real life.

    16. Re: Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whoever said that gaming is and was to be classified as a, "Mental disorder" in ANY organization against kids people, those people can go fuck themselves in a psychiatric and psychological asylum with their BULLSHIT teachings and so called science and then they can stick their sciences up their asses in HELL!!

    17. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is actually why I have a problem calling it a gaming disorder. Is there not already a disorder that covers when a person's actions "cause them significant distress, affect their ability to function in daily life and the level of intensity, and duration, of the dysfunction exceeds the minimum diagnosis criteria"? Why can't they just be diagnosed with that? What is so special about creating a separate diagnosis for when the actions are "on a computer"?

      Yes that last bit is supposed to be a bit of a jab at the whole "It's like X, but on a computer" that seems to run rampant with regard to patents.

    18. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Citation?

    19. Re: Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Itâ(TM)s that. Something existing but on a computer. Unfortunately it has to be recognized specifically like this for many to accept it and even then not everyone can as we see in the comments here.

      Iâ(TM)ve seen it myself. Guy I shared an apartment with during university âoehad itâ. In the beginning it was just like most of us, weâ(TM)d have fun playing games together. But at some point he started building his entire life around one specific game even getting up in the middle of the night to do certain things that had a cool down period and such. MMO. Soon he skipped lectures, wouldnâ(TM)t come to learning sessions with us any longer, stopped tutoring the weaker guys in our clique and fell behind himself. I think he never finished university and he was actually pretty talented and one of the better ones in our group. None of were able to pull him out of it.

    20. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Of course. A Gaming Disorder diagnosis would mean a person's symptoms (eg gaming obsession and compulsion) cause them significant distress, affect their ability to function in daily life and the level of intensity, and duration, of the dysfunction exceeds the minimum diagnosis criteria.

      Hmm... Still not really to me. I agree that the addiction could interfere with the person's life because the person would always have a thought of playing game at all time; thus, the person can't focus on anything else. My brother was one of them. When he was going to high school, he skipped school for a whole month without my father knew about it until the school sent a letter to the house. He was taken out of school. Then a year later, my father put him back to school again. Sadly, he did it again so he was taken out of school again. The saving grace was that he went to religious school afterward, and this time he didn't skip school (no where to go from there). After he finished the school, his addiction was much less but still exists. To me, the way to fix addiction is to redirect the addict's mind to something else. Religious seems to be one of solutions though.

    21. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Newsflash: Every generation since before the Roaring 20's has been completely fucked up. It's slowly getting better as the less intelligent purge themselves though. Hence why more conservatives need to eat Tide pods.

    22. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh yes he is. Mashiki is one of the resident conservatards who ALWAYS pops up in every gay or gay-related story. Since he is such a devout and diehard conservative, I would say the overall issue besides the sadism, control, and general enjoyment from torment of others is that he is, in fact, a raging queer himself. He most likely LOVES the cock but he's a greedy fuck so he wants to be the only person allowed to suck the cock. He doesn't want anyone to know he sucks the cawk, but you better not even think about sucking peen cause it's his and he's the only one that gets to be a cocksmoker. No shit, you know I'm right. How many times have we seen this play out on the 6 o clock news from your local crack motel? Do as I say, not as I do. That's the First Commandment.

    23. Re: Not a disorder by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      Pretty much never. I have not seen it on the news.

      You're projecting, but since you've done it anonymously, we sadly can't help you.

    24. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But should a gamer be allowed to marry another gamer?

    25. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Precisely. Don't forget that they are cutting off their testicles too. Completely natural and sane behaviour.

      And my EMPLOYER is forcing me to pretend that this is the case - if I speak out, I get sacked from my job, can't get another job because I've been sack for 'hate', and lose my house and then family.

      Sound like tyranny to anybody?

    26. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL at " there's plenty of psychological evaluation" and "the experts"...

      As if their jobs don't depend on going along with this complete and utter bullshit. It's bad enough where I work, which is nothing to do with looking after 'mentally ill' people, imagine how impossible it is to stand up to this bollocks when you work in psychology and mental health.

      You're talking rubbish. People who "think they are born in the wrong body" have a MENTAL ILLNESS, not something wrong with their body. As do homosexuals.

    27. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Playing video games 24/7 is a mental disorder.

      Dressing up in women's clothes and thinking you are a woman, to the point of cutting off your dick is, "Normal"

      I see.

      I played fallout 4 using the female skin. I guess I'm mental either way. Time to check myself into mental institution, jeez...

    28. Re:Not a disorder by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      3.8 second search will find you plenty of psychiatrists who are more then happy to start diagnosing toddlers, and quite happy to give them drugs too. Let's not forget that most and by most, I mean nearly all kids grow out of gender dysphoria when left to their own devices. But let's not forget that dramatic spike in teen patients, or the 40% attempted suicide rate pre-transition and 70% post-transitition suicide rates either. Suicide rates that high screams serious mental problems, but the psychiatric community in many areas have already declared this to be 'transphobic' unlike the neurology-psychiatric community.

      The best hope is to leave children to their own devices, and let them figure out where they fit in the world. The moment you start screwing with them prior to puberty, you're setting them on a path that will irrevocably screw up their life.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    29. Re:Not a disorder by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      So you're a psychopath? Why do you want to impose a view on children when they're mentally, psychologically, and physically unable to understand the consequences. This is before they can legally have sex in every western country. Because that's what you're doing.

      Or are you going to tell everyone that a 6-9 year old can fully understand the consequences of this. Never mind that in nearly all of the west, the mens rea(that's guilty mind) for committing of crime is leveled at ages 11-13. Even then, we have youth criminal codes because those kids do not understand their actions. And yes, you can easily find the people pushing this on kids. If you have one, or a niece, or a nephew, or worked with children in any form, you already know exactly how malleable their views are and how easily a person in authority can abuse it. Round this out with the fact that children work to please parents, they will readily adopt whatever position is presented to them at that age.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    30. Re:Not a disorder by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Nice projection. It's good to know my personal trolls are getting so unhinged these days, maybe you'll take the next big step and enter a psychiatric care program. One can only hope.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    31. Re:Not a disorder by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but that's just transphobic you filthy bigot. Sticking sexual identity on 3, 5, 7 year olds is just plainly acceptable. Just look at those court rulings. It's just like the community that goes out of their way to attack psychologists and psychiatrists who have published studies showing that 'trans kids' grow out of it, the number of number of cases are so infinitesimally small in reality that it doesn't justify building specialized hospitals and treatment centers either, but they're both happening. The reality is, this isn't any different then the attention seeking "my kid has autism, woe is me" attention seeking by parents, doctors, and so on several years ago.

      I also didn't say 'taught' rather that it's being forced on the kids, and you can easily find that without any trouble either. Problem is, because it's the trendy hot-shit right now, arguing that this is child abuse is transphobic. And so the lynch mobs will come for you, your job, and likely anything else they can get their fingers on.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    32. Re:Not a disorder by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      You seem to have made the argument that conservatives are smarter then your average progressive because they don't eat tide pods. Would you like to know more?

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    33. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NOBODY suffers from "gender dysphoria", it is a made up term to describe something non-existent - "being born in the wrong body".
      Fuck off with your insanity. Nobody believes you.

    34. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you want to impose a view on children when they're mentally, psychologically, and physically unable to understand the consequences.

      Why not? We impose views on impressionable kids all the time. If anything, it's strongly defended by the religious right as the freedom of the parents/guardians.

      If we really cared for imposing dangerous ideas into impressionable kids, we'd have to start with expose kids to the Bible or the Quran. The First Amendment makes this a non-starter.

    35. Re:Not a disorder by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, we will never be able to have the conversation about gene therapy treatments to restore a male or female's desire for the opposite sex because we are already committed to the narrative that it is a lifestyle choice that gay people make. We are close to a cure, but we long ago silenced the people who dared entertain the notion that it could be reversed. Perhaps when we are ruled under the Chinese they will make the cure available. It won't be a choice then.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    36. Re:Not a disorder by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Gene therapy wouldn't change anything anyway. You're not going to be growing new organs, or reabsorbing them anyway. And if you're going that far to modify a body, you might as well just cut your brain out and slap it into a shell and go on your way.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    37. Re:Not a disorder by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Why not? We impose views on impressionable kids all the time. If anything, it's strongly defended by the religious right as the freedom of the parents/guardians.

      If we really cared for imposing dangerous ideas into impressionable kids, we'd have to start with expose kids to the Bible or the Quran. The First Amendment makes this a non-starter.

      And here's the difference. In one case, a person can change their mind. Get up, walk away, no consequences and even rail about it until they drop dead of old age. In the other case, they're fundamentally screwing with their biology that's not reversible, will cause long term damage to every organ in their body, and fundamentally screw up their brain chemistry for life.

      Yep, sounds just like the same thing. Gotta line up Jimmy so he can become Janey, and make the choice for them and fully dictate their life before they understand even the most basic consequences. Very good plan, yes, very good.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    38. Re:Not a disorder by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      It happens.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    39. Re: Not a disorder by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Talented people usually do not survive University. You have to be somewhere in the realm of sociopathy-to-desperate-loser in order to value it and stick through. Perfect employees and managers they make.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    40. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And here's the difference. In one case, a person can change their mind.

      ::Richard Dawkins impression:: what's the punishment for apostasy in Islam? (answer is death, not exactly reversible)

      In other words, we've never had problems with religion imposing ideas which could lead to irreversible changes.

      Well, irreversible by today's technology. What Jews do to their boys used to be irreversible, but foreskin restoration is a thing now. So who knows, maybe Jimmy can become Janey then back again in the future. Just because you're getting triggered and don't like it doesn't mean they (Jimmy/Janey's parents) don't have the same freedom of religion as you do!

    41. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Speaking of...why aren't we able yet to skip the psychiatric evaluations and just test for the gene(s) that affect sexual orientation? Then we would have hard evidence that a particular child is or isn't going through some type of sexual identity crisis.

      I wonder if there is a gaming disorder gene that certain people have making them predisposed to become addicted to games???

    42. Re: Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cutting off testicles is minor unless you genuinely want kids. Testosterone is pretty easy to replace.

      Ironically, trans women often have the best sex of their lives if they change their minds about being a woman after having penile-inversion surgery. Pre-transition, most were gay men and total 120% bottoms whose penises went mostly unused (at least, for actual sex). Post-transition & surgery, but with testosterone and now living as a gay man with a (sort of) vagina, they can get fucked in their neovag & get the same stimulation they'd have gotten as "the top they never were pre-trans" (because their "vagina" in their former penis, turned inside-out, but nerves intact).

    43. Re:Not a disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately, we will never be able to have the conversation about gene therapy treatments to restore a male or female's desire for the opposite sex because we are already committed to the narrative that it is a lifestyle choice that gay people make. We are close to a cure, but we long ago silenced the people who dared entertain the notion that it could be reversed. Perhaps when we are ruled under the Chinese they will make the cure available. It won't be a choice then.

      Only the Chinese idea of a "cure" is labour camp or firing squad rather than something that values the individual to some degree.

  2. Just another type of Addiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    https://www.healthyplace.com/addictions/addictions-information/types-of-addiction-list-of-addictions

    Even though it's a behavioral and applies to almost everything in the world (gamification of anything).

    1. Re:Just another type of Addiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, I don't really see a difference between this and gambling addiction.

    2. Re:Just another type of Addiction by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Spot on....it has a much lower barrier to entry and no cap on the impact other than totally failing to do anything with your life and ending up severely depressed.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  3. Great! One more by mark_reh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    preexisting condition that health insurance companies can use to deny coverage ...

    We are stupid and deserve everything that is happening to us.

  4. The Differnce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    OK then so the difference between being a mental disorder or not is 100% dependent on how much you move around.

    -Brain damage from Football: OK
    -Inhuman multitasking from RTS: Disorder

    OK then

    1. Re: The Differnce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      American football is for retards. Does not apply to humans.

    2. Re: The Differnce? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Odd comparison there. If the football player is incapable of not playing because heâ(TM)s so addicted to it then maybe you might have a worthy comparison.

      And odd use of inhuman; self aggrandizement is a sign of a few other mental disorders btw

  5. Health condition? by Kohath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If the cure for your disease is "just stop doing it", then is it really a health condition? Humans have agency. We decide what we do.

    Perhaps we should change society so that we have two classes of individuals: people who are victims of their own choices (because they can’t control them), and people who control their choices and are therefore treated as full citizens.

    Some of us are tired of being dragged down.

    1. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      What do the liberals offer you? Powders and liquids for the sick?
      We Klingons believe as you do. The weak should die.

    2. Re:Health condition? by gnick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the cure for your disease is "just stop doing it", then is it really a health condition?

      I drank so much over about 5 years that my liver failed and damn near killed me. That takes dedicated drinking to the level of mental illness. When I was in the hospital being rescued from liver failure, I would have kept drinking if I could have figured out how to get alcohol into the hospital. The drinking resumed when I was discharged. Is mental illness manifesting as suicidally self-destructive behavior a health condition? I think so.

      It's been almost 3 years since I "just stopped", but until you've been there you can't appreciate how difficult "just stopping" can be. For one, alcohol withdrawals are a bitch and weaning off requires control that most alcoholics don't have.

      Victim of my own choices? Sure. Just like every other suicide.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    3. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree. We should have two classes:

      1. people who've pulled themselves up by their bootstraps
      2. people who need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps

    4. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should try to "just stop" being an asshole. I'll bet you can't.

    5. Re:Health condition? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2

      3. People who had their bootstraps superglued to the ceiling from birth.

    6. Re:Health condition? by lucasnate1 · · Score: 1

      I think that the disease here is that people lack agency.

    7. Re:Health condition? by war4peace · · Score: 1

      If the cure for your disease is "just stop doing it", then is it really a health condition?

      Doesn't this apply to possibly EVERY addiction? I struggle to think of an addiction which doesn't involve "stop doing it" as a solution.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    8. Re:Health condition? by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Plenty of other addictions are considered genuine medical problems, so why not gaming? It has many of the typical attributes of addictive behaviours - it rewards continued use, creates feelings of joy and has a built in feedback mechanism.

      We also know that some developers have studied addictive behaviours in order to incorporate them into their games, particularly "free to play" mobile ones but these days everything seems to have loot crates (literal gambling) and the like.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You should try to "just stop" being an asshole. I'll bet you can't.

      Sure.

      Because nature, biology, and the laws of physics are going to ignore you and allow you to drink 8 litres of vodka a day without consequences.

      YOU should just accept responsibility for yourself, and quit expecting others to hold your pee-pee so you don't piss all over yourself.

      I'll bet you WON'T.

      You fucking candy-ass baby.

    10. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the cure for your disease is "just stop doing it", then is it really a health condition? Humans have agency. We decide what we do.

      Perhaps we should change society so that we have two classes of individuals: people who are victims of their own choices (because they canâ(TM)t control them), and people who control their choices and are therefore treated as full citizens.

      Some of us are tired of being dragged down.

      *Checks UID*....Yep...OK, I'll bite.

      So under your model then we'd have entire generations of people who under the current group think and TFA, would be ineligible for health insurance due to the pre-existing crime of enjoying video games, and you believe that's them dragging down society!?

      What's your favorite thing to do then? Maybe that needs to be classified as a mental disorder so we can demand that you be forced to take psychotic meds, be demonized as the one true cause for every societal ill, stripped of your rights constantly, and/or be involuntarily locked up for being a "danger" to society. After all, you've already indicated that anyone who enjoys themselves should not be treated as a full member of society, so I guess we should be forced to give up our voting rights too, right? Can't have the scapegoats for society's ills having a voice or equal protection under the law now can we? No, that would eventually allow them to get out from under our prejudice and hatred.

      Perhaps we should change society so that we have two classes of individuals: people who are victims of their own choices (because they canâ(TM)t control them), and people who control their choices and are therefore treated as full citizens.

      Demanding that others be treated as less of a person just because of X, is a good way to strip yourself of "personhood." This is true not just for video games but anything you substitute for X. You may not like video games, you may despise their existence and those who play them, but for every inch you give to those with power, they will take a mile. Today they come for the gamers, tomorrow they come for the moviegoers, next week they come for the binge-viewers, etc. They will continue this because it gives them more power, and they love it because they have the backings of idiots like you who think that someone else enjoying themselves without causing harm to anyone else is somehow infringing your rights, or negatively impacting you in some grave way, and therefore needs to be punished. Grow up. Given the length of your UID, you should know better than this by now.

    11. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So an alcoholic can just decide on a whim to throw away the bottle and just never buy one again? It's really that simple?

      This is a huge breakthrough! You need to get that in as many medical journals as possible!

    12. Re:Health condition? by jythie · · Score: 1

      You forget that the people who say this have no particular interest in other people stopping, only their own sense of superiority. It is a method of dealing with anxiety, not a proposed solution, kinda like rich people saying that the problem with poor people is they don't make enough money.

    13. Re:Health condition? by jythie · · Score: 1

      The real debate is not 'is it a problem?', but 'is it a distinct problem that requires its own classification?'. So the question is really about it having unique attributes that help in diagnosis or impact treatment methods.

    14. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some of us are tired of being dragged down.

      Maybe humanity isn't for you then. Perhaps you can choose to live with some other species of life where you have 0 dependence on members, nor they on you.

    15. Re:Health condition? by Sumus+Semper+Una · · Score: 2

      If the cure for your disease is "just stop doing it", then is it really a health condition? Humans have agency. We decide what we do.

      If humans were good at that then politics, laws, and government would be unnecessary and would not exist. We humans are surprisingly generally bad as individuals at making important decisions in a lot of situations. And decisions made by one very often end up affecting others. One who chooses to imbibe alcohol in excess is far more likely to make rash decisions towards others while inebriated.

      Perhaps we should change society so that we have two classes of individuals: people who are victims of their own choices (because they can’t control them), and people who control their choices and are therefore treated as full citizens.

      The problem is you usually don't figure out which category you might fall into until it's far too late to change it. Most people seem to want to lend a hand to help the people who want out but can't figure out how. You seem to want to treat them as subhuman. I find that abhorrent and similar in motivation to the worst parts of humanity from recorded history.

      With all that being said, do I think gaming addiction is a major world problem? No. I'll agree that it *can* be a disorder, but there are certainly more serious mental health issues worth devoting resources to over this one.

    16. Re:Health condition? by AlanBDee · · Score: 1

      It's been almost 3 years since I "just stopped", but until you've been there you can't appreciate how difficult "just stopping" can be. For one, alcohol withdrawals are a bitch and weaning off requires control that most alcoholics don't have.

      Well done on your 3 years. I count myself very lucky to have never found myself addicted to alcohol, suffer from depression or any other number of mental illnesses. It is very ignorant for anyone to assume that just because they didn't struggle with any of these that others should "just be able to stop". If it were easy then it wouldn't be such big a problem.

      I will never really understand what's it's like but that shouldn't stop me from having sympathy for those who do.

    17. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed, I'd be curious to know if modern psychology considers 'addiction to X' to be all that different from 'addiction to Y' to the extent that one is a classified disorder and the other isn't. If I sit in my room all day doing nothing but eating peanut butter and it hurts my livelihood and personal relationships, does the WHO not consider that a disorder simply because 'peanut butter eating disorder' isn't explicitly listed in their book? Should the WHO further break it down between console gaming disorder, PC gaming disorder, and board gaming disorder with unique entries for each?

    18. Re:Health condition? by Train0987 · · Score: 1

      The problem isn't that there aren't enough defined mental illnesses, it's that there are too many. The field of psychiatry has jumped the shark. It seems their only purpose now is to increase the number of paying patients to include everyone and then medicating the entire planet. They're just legal drug dealers at this point.

    19. Re:Health condition? by jythie · · Score: 1

      Generally the way it works is there are general disorder classifications. It isn't that one is a disorder while the other is not, but that one might fall under a more generic category while something else might be different enough that it deserves its own. So you probably would not have 'peanut butter eating' as a disorder, but 'eating' might, while 'eating non food items' gets another category.

    20. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah I mean, why can't mentally ill people just STOP being mentally ill?

      This is a pathetic and moronic argument. Educate yourself before you make everyone around you think you're a complete fool.

      P.S. - Your moronism is showing.

    21. Re:Health condition? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      So an alcoholic can just decide on a whim to throw away the bottle and just never buy one again?

      Don’t they have to? Is there another acceptable option where alcoholics just keep drinking?

    22. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem isn't that there aren't enough software architectures, it's that there are too many. The field of software development has jumped the shark. It seems their only purpose now is to increase the number of paying clients to include everyone and then cloudifying the entire planet. They're just legal racketeers at this point.

    23. Re:Health condition? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      Doesn't this apply to possibly EVERY addiction? I struggle to think of an addiction which doesn't involve "stop doing it" as a solution.

      For an addicted person, what’s the acceptable alternative to stopping?

      No one said it was easy. Sometimes you have to do things that aren’t easy.

    24. Re:Health condition? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      Do you think you are better off having been treated as a full member of society with all the freedoms everyone else has to buy and drink liquor? Or would you have been better off in a society that took a more parental approach to you specifically?

      What if it were voluntary and temporary— subject to a test to get full citizenship status back: liquor is made available to you and you decline it for a period of time (like a year)?

      Because the current society is a strong enabler of self-destructive behavior. And it doesn’t seem to be helping either the people who need help or the people who don’t.

    25. Re:Health condition? by gnick · · Score: 1

      Or would you have been better off in a society that took a more parental approach to you specifically?

      Like one that said that I'd have to hit a breathalyzer 4 times a day for a year if I wanted to see my kids? That was a fine place for me to start. Never been arrested or accused of a crime, not even neglect, just accurately described to the court as a drunk by Mrs. gnick #1.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    26. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the cure for your disease is "just stop doing it", then is it really a health condition? Humans have agency. We decide what we do.

      Get back to us when you figure out how to "just stop" being a condescending asshole who knows nothing about the subject but thinks he knows better than people who actually study compulsive behavior for a living.

      Generally, the cure for your kind of affliction is graduating kindergarten, but given your low UID, I'm guessing it didn't take.

    27. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are advocating for the dehumanization of all right wingers.

      I am not a fan of them myself, but I wouldn't go so far as to consider them second class citizens. That's a slippery slope that can lead to terrible things. I'd rather educate them (or at the least, neuter their ability to hurt themselves and pretend it's someone else doing it).

    28. Re:Health condition? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      I “just stopped” 3 times already today.

    29. Re:Health condition? by Kohath · · Score: 1

      Does "white knighting" self-destructive behavior help? Or does it mostly just enable the behavior?

    30. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the cure for your disease is "just stop doing it", then is it really a health condition? Humans have agency. We decide what we do.

      You could demonstrate the truth of your theory by voluntarily stopping your heart from beating, while voluntarily not dying from it.

      But in real life each human's will and agency are highly variable; "just say no" and "just stop doing it" are not applicable to many, many addicts. They are not capable of it, any more than you are capable of speaking a language you've never been taught or capable of playing major league football. Yet, most of these addicts can be helped, through application of compassion.

    31. Re: Health condition? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      That sounds pretty awkward, even a handicap. Definitely more disabling than cases 1 or 2.

    32. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That really isn't that far off. I won't discount that after years of drinking you don't just stop without mitigating the physical addiction. Failing to do this can have severe consequences up to and including death. However, that doesn't last very long. The primary problem with any addiction is getting to the bottom of why you feel like doing something that's ultimately not in your best interests. Sometimes it's a combination of things. But when you start to analyze why, you can mitigate those things in different ways that are more productive and then it becomes very easy to give up the addiction. No one starts out wanting to destroy themselves. Sometimes it really is "this makes me feel good" but realizing that the "feeling" isn't consistent with reality. In that it feels really good now, and very bad later. In this case it's a matter of looking at the whole of the addiction rather than just the "fun" part. Either way it's completely doable on your own without medical attention, without checking into a treatment program, without sacrificing your job, family, future, etc. If it hurts when you do that, don't do that.

    33. Re:Health condition? by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Yeah this "addictive behavior" complex is called a skinner box, you might have learned about them in high school. That doesn't make it a medical condition though, not anymore then say...working for a living to make money and "get stuff to survive." Which is also a skinner box called life.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    34. Re:Health condition? by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

      The problem isn't that there aren't enough defined mental illnesses, it's that there are too many. The field of psychiatry has jumped the shark. It seems their only purpose now is to increase the number of paying patients to include everyone and then medicating the entire planet. They're just legal drug dealers at this point.

      How would you know this?

      Any more than you (and I do mean you, not "one") could know if "too many" beta blockers are being prescribed nowadays, as compared to 1950?

    35. Re:Health condition? by war4peace · · Score: 1

      For an addicted person, what’s the acceptable alternative to stopping?

      None, but the GP challenged it being a disorder based on "stop doing it" being the solution.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    36. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Victim of my own choices? Sure. Just like every other suicide.

      Actually, a large percentage of suicides are people with incurable and painful physical conditions that are not a function of their own choices.

      In some cases, cures are available, but are too expensive. In places like the EU, access to the cure might simply be denied because one is too old to be productive so it's not in society's interest to supply the cure. If you look at the international comparisons at suicide dot org, it's probably not an accident that a number of modern developed nations with strict gun control have higher suicide rates listed than the USA. Admittedly, those number change from year to year, as do the policies, but there will always be limits on what society can afford - money does not grow on trees.

      In the USA, access to cure might be unavailable because one wasn't in the right place at the right time to become wealthy - there is very little correlation between ability and wealth (and even less correlation for the second generation, though inheriting wealth is still the easiest way to gain it).

      But in most cases, there simply are not options, or the available options might fail, through no fault of the individual. Entropy increases in systems over time, leading to failures. In other words, aging sucks, youth is wasted on the young.

      You might have trouble understanding what it is like to have such a condition, until you have experienced a serious issue along these lines. In my case, fortunately, surgery was able to correct the problem - and I went from extreme pain to none, with only a small loss of function - but that isn't always successful. It certainly gave me an appreciation for why people might choose to end things - and a strong hatred for the religious fanatics that try to interfere with that option. It also helped me understand why alcoholism was such a big problem in the old days - as the medical options available were much more limited.

    37. Re:Health condition? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      If you have never been depressed...even in the slightest, there is no way you can possibly sympathize. I am very optimistic, rosey-eyed, but not goofy--level headed. I get waves of depression (probably not clinical) that shut me down for days. The whole time I'm trying to work through it and talk myself off the ledge. It is truly fucked up. I cannot imagine how it is for someone who is clinically depressed--how do they not end it all? You literally cannot care for anything under that subliminal mind fuck. I try to beat it out with intense excersize...and that does work to some extent but it is often just suppressed for a short while. It is not depression if you can get an ice cream cone or go for a run to get rid of the anxiety--or so they say.

      Due to my achievements in life, resulting from my constant optimism, I can't put my finger on where this is coming from. I sometimes theorize that some Soros character is beaming radio waves tuned to make successful white men crack up. Perhaps it is due to a testosterone reduction that comes with age? Staying super busy on creative projects seems to prevent it. I wouldn't try to grind this out on extra hours at Wal-Mart.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    38. Re: Health condition? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      It is but they run with it anyway.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    39. Re:Health condition? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      You forgot to mention that the feelings of joy lead to a big drop were the person seeks the joy that created the drop to fix the drop. It doesn't just cut off with the joy part.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    40. Re:Health condition? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      It is just addiction/gambling. There is no need for any other classification. Why do we have to have a codified law for everything named after the specific affliction. No such thing as a hate crime. Fucking cults.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    41. Re:Health condition? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      What you describe is not life and the fact that a lot of people would not question your definition is perhaps the reason for so much angst and turmoil in the western world.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    42. Re:Health condition? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      " pre-existing crime of enjoying video games"

      They are NOT enjoying them if they are addicted!

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    43. Re:Health condition? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      I did it but everyone is different. I "handle" my alcohol whereas some people cannot--in any way shape or form of the imagination. Have you ever seen someone go completely off the rails after a few drinks? I have. Really super ugly--sad. The only way to deal with it is to lock them up and control their life/environment. That is a violation of their human rights.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    44. Re:Health condition? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      ...and accidentally save the country whereas your alternative would have been the same old wonderful magical grind that has done us so well?

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    45. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not ignorant dude,if you really believe in free will then you won't believe people don't have a choice. Just because you take the opposite philosophical view point does make those you disagree with ignorant.

      At the end of the day there is a difference between not wanting to make a difficult choice and actually not being able to choose.

    46. Re:Health condition? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are the enabler, by telling people they have no choice you make it seem true to them and you excuse them making the choice to not try.

  6. ADHD by lucasnate1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Isn't this just a private case of attention span deficit disorder? To me it looks like one is incapable to control what one gives attention to, and I see no difference between a "gaming addict" and a "facebook addict".

    1. Re:ADHD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ...I see no difference between a "gaming addict" and a "facebook addict".

      Oh, you don't? Here, let me clarify.

      There is no such thing as a facebook addict according to the social media generation. Everyone does it, so it must be normal and accepted.

      As far as gaming addicts go, THOSE fucking losers have a real problem, and should get help.

    2. Re:ADHD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      true adhd (not some regular kid's mom getting him diagnosed to receive amphetamines for boosting his school grades) is infinitely worse than whatever this crap is

    3. Re:ADHD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't this just a private case of attention span deficit disorder? To me it looks like one is incapable to control what one gives attention to, and I see no difference between a "gaming addict" and a "facebook addict".

      ADHD is about not being able to focus on one thing and at the same time being hyperactive. That does NOT describe addiction. Gaming addiction is that the mind of the person is stuck in a loop thinking and/or focusing on playing games. See the differences?

      And speaking of ADHD in children, I don't see that it is actually a real problem. Most children have ADD or ADHD. They will eventually grow out of it, and parenting is the key. However, parents from modern families want "magic pill" and don't want to nurture their young the right way. As a result, a lot of kids are drugged and that is very unnatural for their growth. I can't remember or know whether or not there are any studies of relationship between treating ADD or ADHD with drug and bi-polar and/or depression when the kids grow up. I can see the relationship, but I can't guarantee unless there are some studies on the issue first.

    4. Re:ADHD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So drug addictions are just a form of ADHD because those people spend too much time focused on their drugs?

      Fuck no!. Addictions aren't ADHD.

    5. Re:ADHD by danomac · · Score: 1

      20 years ago if you were online in chat rooms all the time it was quite frowned on, actually. Amazing how once the general populous does it all of a sudden it's OK.

    6. Re: ADHD by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      I have never wanted to log onto facebook and 'just hang out.' I have an account and log onto it a few times a year for family stuff, but it has never been something I compulsively engage in.

      I know that I am not alone, nor that unusual. I just don't care about Facebook.

    7. Re:ADHD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only thing your post clarified is that being a total shitheel of an asshole is what is "normal" these days.

    8. Re:ADHD by sd4f · · Score: 1

      There was an article written over 3 years ago about the sexodus, I have my suspicions that pathologising gaming addiction is specifically targeted because of a group of predominantly male gamers who are 'checking out' of society and regressing into non productivity. They're in bliss living a subsistence life that provides enough for them to just play their games.

      I suspect that this has not gone on unnoticed, and as a result, attempts are being made to seriously address this with serious academics behind it (read; NOT humanities)

    9. Re:ADHD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only thing your post clarified is that being a total shitheel of an asshole is what is "normal" these days.

      The battery has run out on your sarcasm detector, please re-charge it. Hey! You can read Facebook while you are waiting for it to re-charge!

    10. Re:ADHD by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Right. We are on a slippery slope here. If they keep running their mouth about game addiction they are afraid of losing credibility when it leads to that same conclusion you point out about facebook. Sort of like when the Supreme Court is debating a sensitive ruling/case and they weasel out of it to maintain credibility with the proletariat.

      We have known the dangers of sugar for years but we keep on stuffing it in our neck by the pound. The state trying to do somethihng about it would be too risky because even though it may be the right measure to ban it or limit its production or volume in food the backlash from society would erase the effort and persecute the sponsors.

      Imagine trying to tell everyone that their facebook use is harmful, codifying it in a peer-reviewed medical journal. The AMA wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole lest they lose the credibility and power they have over us right now. Not tot mention they are addicted as well.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    11. Re:ADHD by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      There is a laundry list of behavior we could enumerate.

      Sugar, the drug everyone can agree on. Main ingredient for cancer---cant sell any food without loading it in.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    12. Re:ADHD by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      I can live like that without video games--and have. I think most men have always been that way--it is our nature bestowed by evolution. I programmed instead of playing video games though. Another form of addiction I guess.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    13. Re:ADHD by lucasnate1 · · Score: 1

      I don't know how it is with Americans, but as a rabid Facebook user with similar friends, we're quite aware that it we have a bad habit (although for some of us there are also positive things about Facebook use).

  7. Re:Great! One more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    preexisting condition that health insurance companies can use to deny coverage ...

    We are stupid and deserve everything that is happening to us.

    Those who allow a problem to become an addiction are stupid and tend to deserve what happens to them, particularly when an addiction is NOT instantaneous and does not create a physical dependency. That kind of addiction takes time and dedication to create. Society as a whole should not be forced to subsidize treatments for such a problem, and yet that is exactly what you're asking for when you want to remove any preexisting condition limiters.

  8. and then stop working and go on SSDI where work is by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    and then stop working and go on SSDI where work is bad = a few more hours at a low wage job = health insurance as you are under 30 hours a week but make over medcade / ssdi cutoff.

  9. Neat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Now when are they finally going to classify religion as a mental disorder?

    1. Re: Neat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you an islamophobe?

    2. Re:Neat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice anti-semitism there, Hitler!

    3. Re: Neat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That happened in 1783.

    4. Re:Neat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm proud to be an antisemite. Support human rights for Palestine? You're an antisemite. Support ending aid to apartheid Israel? Antisemite. Support not calling Jews white people in demographics to highlight the fact that non-Jewish whites are actually drastically underrepresented at elite universities while Jews are drastically overrepresented? Antisemite. You're God damn right I'm an antisemite. Because I have morals.

    5. Re:Neat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And where do you think your "morals" of caring for the downtrodden poor masses came from? From some pagan cult? From antique money changers? That type of morality (slave morality in Nietzsche's words) comes from the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Christian movement.

    6. Re:Neat by PPH · · Score: 0

      Jesus Christ and the "I need a fourth business jet" Christian movement

      FTFY.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    7. Re:Neat by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Perhaps it is. As pointed out by Joseph Campbell though, religion is like software: a code of laws aimed at a specific goal. It works, but only in the context of its invention. Using it in the wrong domain creates problems.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    8. Re:Neat by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      The Jesus Myth was just a way to impart a new way of thinking about how to organize ourselves and our governments to be compassionate and happy without accumulating stuff. It has not been implemented widely but it is there for the taking. I don't know of any "teachings of Jesus."

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  10. Re:Yet... by guruevi · · Score: 2, Informative
    --
    Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  11. Re:Great! One more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I ran into a telephone pole yesterday in my car.

    This morning I went to State Farm insurance to see about getting auto insurance, retroactive to yesterday.

    They said no.

  12. It's never too early to quit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    https://gamequitters.com

    1. Re:It's never too early to quit. by war4peace · · Score: 2

      You met 3 out of 9 criteria for video game addiction. A score under five shows less problematic use, but if you are still concerned it is worth investigating.

      I need to game more.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    2. Re:It's never too early to quit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You met 0 out of 9 criteria for video game addiction. A score under five shows less problematic use, but if you are still concerned it is worth investigating

      What the fuck?

  13. New label? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will there be a warning label on games from the Surgeon General about how games can lead to mental health disorder?

    1. Re:New label? by war4peace · · Score: 1

      I've read "Sturgeon General" :)

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    2. Re:New label? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      your claim sounds a bit fishy to me.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  14. I don't know who ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

    ... classifies gaming disorder as mental health condition.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    1. Re:I don't know who ... by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

      Who did.

      --
      Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    2. Re:I don't know who ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 1

      Well played.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  15. I do not trust the W.H.O. by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The so-called 'World Health Organization' seems to be more of a political organization with an agenda than it is anything that exists solely for reasons of medical science, therefore I do not consider it to be trustworthy or credible.

    1. Re:I do not trust the W.H.O. by DogDude · · Score: 1

      Do you have any reason for feeling that it's a political organization, instead of a health organization? I don't see any evidence at all of what you're describing.

      --
      I don't respond to AC's.
    2. Re:I do not trust the W.H.O. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm waiting for them to declare a war on fats so the rest of the world can also have endemic diabetes.

    3. Re:I do not trust the W.H.O. by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      What makes you say that? Are you an antivaxxer? Or is there a different controversy I missed?

    4. Re:I do not trust the W.H.O. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      because it's affiliated with the UN which is a political organization?

    5. Re:I do not trust the W.H.O. by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      They don't stick to purely medical or science-based subjects, they keep straying into social and political subjects, and the way they do that smells an awful lot like they've got an agenda.

    6. Re:I do not trust the W.H.O. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have twice made the argument that the WHO has an agenda, and you've twice failed to specify what that alleged agenda is, yet you've been upmodded "Insightful?"

      I weep for what /. has become.

    7. Re: I do not trust the W.H.O. by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      I, too weep for what slashdot has become. Mere non logged on cowards take on signed-in people and challange them like an A.C. has an opinion of substance. I don't necessarily agree with the GP commenter, but anonymous snipers like the above just turn this site into a crapflood.

    8. Re:I do not trust the W.H.O. by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      Gun control?

    9. Re:I do not trust the W.H.O. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My generation doesn't trust the WHO. But then again, we hope we die before we get old.

    10. Re:I do not trust the W.H.O. by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Every organization is political.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  16. Anything that gets me out of me by karlandtanya · · Score: 1

    tl/dr: A moral hazard exists when corporations profit from deliberately fostering addictive behaviour in the public but are not liable for the damage they cause. Regulation is possible, but the nature of the industry to be regulated makes them resistant to regulation.

    Anything that makes me feel different can be an addiction.

    Social media and gaming companies have figured this out and done their very best to take advantage of people's ability to become addicted to something.
    Take cocaine or nicotine for example. As long as nobody is trying to make the thing addictive, there's not much of a problem to the societies where it's used, e.g. First Nations in the Americas. The people with the greatest tendency to become addicts will still become addicts, but most folks will use these medicines for the purpose they were given to people.

    But...refine the coca or manipulate the chemistry and packaging of the tobacco and damn near *everybody* now has the chance to become addicted. And if they don't become addicted, change the formula until they do.

    The larger problem is not cocaine, tobacco, social media, or gaming. The larger problem is that we, as a society, reward corporations that enslave their users. Dope dealer or casino operator are probably NOT be the career you encourage your children to pursue. You probably tell them those are not honorable lines of work, and encourage them to shun those who make their living that way.

    But there is NO social or financial cost to corporations who do the same thing with games, gambling, "likes" and "friends", or even--in the case of Purdue Pharma are literal dope dealers. The economic term for this is "moral hazard".

    Recognizing a specific kind of addiction is addressing one instance of the whole class of behaviors that corporations use to manipulate the public.
    It is a short-term solution that may help an individual today to help his or her self.
    It does NOTHING to solve the societal problem.

    For that, we need feedback to the people or corporations making the decisions. The FDA in its early incarnation was effective at this, but regulatory capture has occurred and now they're just a barrier to entry for competitors to the entrenched players. Similarly for gambling regulators--they started out as good, but have been subverted by the folks they're supposed to regulate.
    Nevertheless, the fact that regulatory agencies do exist shows that they can contribute to our society without destroying our freedom; in fact they exist to protect us from predatory organizations that would otherwise be far more dangerous to the life, liberty, and property we claim to hold so dear.

    We're seeing some inroads with financial addictions (payday lending); we need to apply the same legal and social efforts to those that profit from behavioral addictions. It's much more of a challenge because the organizations we need to regulate are very good at manipulating public behavior. This makes them resistant to legal and social pressure.

    --
    "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
    1. Re:Anything that gets me out of me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Game companies do look at how they can avoid letting players feel the "grind" of playing a game. Doing boring repetitive tasks over and over again. They also want players to come back so have to add all sorts of rewards schemes like levels , add-ons and in-game purchases. But to keep the fairness to players sometimes they set limits on how many hours a player can play each day.

    2. Re:Anything that gets me out of me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Damn those corporations for giving people what they want!
      I can't believe the nerve of them - why, when I say I want a fun and interesting game to play, obviously I actually mean I want one that will make me want to quit and never come back. How dare they give me something good for my money? /sarc

      In other words, buddy, you can take your snotty complaints of "moral hazard" and shove them up your ass

    3. Re:Anything that gets me out of me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Damn those corporations for giving people what they want!
      I can't believe the nerve of them - why, when I say I want a fun and interesting game to play, obviously I actually mean I want one that will make me want to quit and never come back. How dare they give me something good for my money? /sarc

      In other words, buddy, you can take your snotty complaints of "moral hazard" and shove them up your ass

      The fact that you don't care about being addicted doesn't mean the rest of us should have to pay for it.

      Demonstrate that society won't have to pay health care costs from your spending too much time in front of the computer (and thus developing carpal tunnel, becoming obese, losing your hearing from excessive game volume, prematurely losing your vision, becoming overly aggressive and letting that carry over into other aspects of your life such as driving, losing too much sleep and thus driving dangerously or operating machinery in a dangerous way, etc) and we won't worry about this issue. You can play all the games you want.

      Alternately, get somebody to offer you an insurance policy that will cover all the potential costs to society of you playing too many games, for the rest of your life, and demonstrate that the issuing organization has sufficient funding to actually pay all those costs, and - again - we won't worry about this issue. Game on!

      Your freedom to do stuff ends when it takes money from other people's pockets - because then it takes away from their freedom.

      There's nothing snotty about not wanting to be robbed by greedy, self-centered sociopaths - prove you are not such a person.

      If you want publicly funded health care, then you have a responsibility to live your life in such a way as to not put an excessive burden on the system, within reasonable limits (nobody is perfect).

  17. Yeah. Pin Ball by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Folks used to play pin ball a lot. As a matter of fact, why didn't the WHO mention those Pin Ball Wizards?!

  18. Re: Great! One more by Evtim · · Score: 1

    Are you stating that addictions that does not include 'substance' or 'physical' as you called it are any less troublesome (or addictive).
    How naive...or ignorant...or both

  19. Re:Great! One more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nobody "allows" an addiction to happen. That's the nature of addictions, they are involuntary.

  20. Basically by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They re-invented Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and act like they broke new ground to get funds.
    Worthless pieces of shit.

  21. Re:Great! One more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    B.S.

    Take smoking. Nobody gets addicted to smoking involuntarily. It takes dedication to the cause to become addicted to nicotine. Don't want to get addicted, don't smoke.

  22. Re:Mental health issues... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2

    Don't confuse this shit with science.

    Gender is real, but it is provably not binary. Whether you want to classify those non-binary case as a mutation/disorder or nature running its course is more of a social statement, not a scientific statement.

  23. Re:Mental health issues... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gender is your biological sex. Sex and Gender are synonymous.

      - Science.

  24. Re:Mental health issues... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So there is something new besides XX and XY?

  25. Re:Great! One more by atrex · · Score: 1

    Gambling is a recognized addiction. Several video games use techniques similar to those employed by gambling to increase player engagement and retention.
    In reality, gaming addiction is just another form of gambling addiction; it's the same psychological triggers that are used to cause both.

  26. Yes it is by aepervius · · Score: 1

    Replace gaming with heroin and you see why. It is the "doing it" which is the health condition. The health condition is "doing it, being unable to stop, AND this has a negative impact on job/life/etc...". The second part is the one people forget the addition in the DMS is about..

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  27. addiction schmiction. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I still don't believe addiction of any kind is some sort of a disorder.

    The original addiction studies showed that it was largely sociological. The rats when isolated from their social group began choosing the cocaine-laced water. Once returned to their society they went back to the plain water. Substances are clearly not a part of the equation. Gambling "addiction" is a clear indicator of that. The exact same behavior patterns exist there without any substance abuse in the equation at all.

    Then you can compare other cultures. Cultures (eg asian) where public intoxication is greatly shunned, yet have opium dens where it's deemed appropriate to go get high and sleep it off out of sight, do not have high numbers of addiction problems.
    Cultures that embrace substance use, or where families and friends accept people that abuse substances have a much lower rate of abuse than those cultures that shun people that abuse substances. The social aspect is tantamount to their need. The substance or behavior is helping them replace a lack of dopamine normally obtained by healthy social interactions.

    It seems to me that the evidence strongly suggests that since our brains are simply programmable neural networks where feedback mechanisms can be instigated via substances, food, drugs, or behavior patterns (whatever the manner of input is all the same to that hunk of flesh we call a brain that processes them), addiction is simply the state where such a feedback mechanism has been introduced, whose behavioral side effects are judged as negative by the community.

    Neural networks can be altered and retrained. Calling the condition a disorder as if it's somehow inherent seems a stretch. I think it's inherent to *all* humans since we all have a neural net and the capacity to train it into a similar condition given the requisite combination of inputs. Eschewing responsibility by calling it a disorder is counterproductive to helping people break the conditioning. They need to change their inputs and decisions until the feedback loop is broken or replaced with a better, healthier model.

    1. Re:addiction schmiction. by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      "The substance or behavior is helping them replace a lack of dopamine normally obtained by healthy social interactions."

      Hit the nail on the head. Damn.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  28. yes it is (corrected text) by aepervius · · Score: 1

    Replace gaming with heroin and you see why. It isn't the "doing it" which is the health condition. The health condition is "doing it, being unable to stop, AND this has a negative impact on job/life/etc...". The second part is the one people forget the addition in the DMS is about... Sorry I missed adding the negation in the previous post.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  29. Why's this so hard to believe? by foxalopex · · Score: 1

    There's Alcohol addition, gambling addiction so gaming addiction isn't exactly a huge surprise. For some folks it can be a real problem.

    1. Re:Why's this so hard to believe? by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      A modern casino is a big arcade with video games dumbed down for non-gamers. Having played freemium mobile games before I ever went into a casino, I was a bit shocked on my first trip to a casino that the video slots operated with the same sort of inane game play and flashy graphics.

      And I'm not going to blame all gambling addiction on gaming. For example there are plenty of people who lose everything on sports betting. Which is at least old school and not electronic stimulus engineered to trigger your pleasure centers.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  30. Re:Mental health issues... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes. YY.

  31. Does this disability by Ryanrule · · Score: 1

    Qualify for medical MJ?

  32. Re:Yeah. Pin Ball by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you mean like that blind deaf mute?

  33. I believe it by old_skul · · Score: 1

    Trust me, as the parent of a young boy who's obsessed with Minecraft and Portal 2, I can testify to the hold games have on him.

  34. Re: Great! One more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you stating that addictions that does not include 'substance' or 'physical' as you called it are any less troublesome (or addictive). How naive...or ignorant...or both

    Speaking of ignorant, perhaps you should step into a locked room with a tweaker and a pothead. Let's see how many minutes it takes you to spot the difference between mental and physical addictions. The rehabilitation cycle certainly requires a different level of effort between the two, and addiction success rates do vary between addictions. Yeah, I'd say certain addictions are in fact less addictive. Hell of a lot easier to kick a coffee addiction than it would be to kick an opiates or heroin addiction.

    As far as less troublesome? Thousands of people die every year from abusing and overdosing on our most common drugs, including alcohol. Compare and contrast those fatalities against coffee or cannabis addictions. Yeah, I'd say that the lack of physical harm and risk of death with the latter, even at addict levels of abuse, is less troublesome.

    Don't be so naive next time when assuming all things are equal in the addiction world. They are no more equal, fair, or balanced than the rest of the chaos our universe dolls out on a daily basis.

  35. Re:Mental health issues... by Train0987 · · Score: 1

    There's no such thing as YY. What you meant to say was XYY, which is a birth defect effecting less than 1 in 1,000 males.

  36. Defined by harm, not amount by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From time.com article “If (video games) are interfering with the expected functions of the person — whether it is studies, whether it’s socialization, whether it’s work — then you need to be cautious and perhaps seek help".

    Thus, if the studies are very demanding a person is a gaming addict if the gaming (30 minutes a day) interferes with the studies.

  37. WHO gets to define normal human behavior by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

    If you resist being a good little cog, you can take these pills.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  38. Re:Mental health issues... by parkinglot777 · · Score: 1

    There's no such thing as YY. What you meant to say was XYY, which is a birth defect effecting less than 1 in 1,000 males.

    There are more than just XYY. There are XXY or XXXY as well.

  39. I Agree with WHO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just like any other addiction, this affects people in varying degrees. For my youngest son, there was a long period of time when we had to take video games away from him completely for his own well-being. Playing video games had physiological affects on him-- shortness of breath, dizziness, sweating, elevated heart rate. He was so addicted he would soil himself just so he didn't have to stop playing. As he's gotten older and developed better impulse control, we've slowly allowed him access to video games again. Even so, we still keep a close eye on how those activities are affecting him since he has an addictive personality. Our goal is to help him find a healthy balance in the activity, rather than denying him access completely. That way, when he's grown up and living on his own, he'll have the coping skills and impulse control to manage his own addictive personality.

  40. Game Companies Already Know This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...and they are tailoring their games to take full advantage of it.

    It is currently worst in mobile gaming, but the psychological mind-fucks are slowly creeping into gaming at large. The games are engineered to exploit the chemical behaviors of the human brain, elicit the release of and subsequent withdrawal of dopamine. Expose people to highly competitive / negative stimuli that can be alleviated through in-game purchases. Coupled with the "Loot Box" phenomenon... its pretty evil.

    1. Re: Game Companies Already Know This by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 1

      I played Elder Scrolls Online last night for the first time in awhile. A somewhat sinister seeming NPC was hanging out in town who I approached. I discovered that there was a Loot Box I could open. Fine, I did.

      Then he wanted me to buy more of them. And vanished when turned him down.

      I'm sure I'll encounter him again.

      But it's back to non-premium Albion Online for me, because It's relaxing to just grind sometimes.

  41. So can we get sports watching disorder then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    spend all time watching sports on tv - easily over 20 hours a week
    spend all time listening to men talking about sports on tv
    spend all time talking to other men about sports
    spend lots of money to watch lots of sports on tv
    spend lots of money to buy replica shirts which include adverts for some other brand to sit there watching sports on tv
    spend even more money going to sports events
    violence, both domestic and public.
    violence increases if team looses

    all for something completely passive. at least if somebody is playing a game they are participating.

  42. Re:Mental health issues... by Train0987 · · Score: 1

    All incredibly rare birth defects. A person is more likely to be born with an extra finger.

  43. Re:Mental health issues... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You cannot speak for science, especially when you are provably wrong :)

    Why are you so afraid of being proven wrong? You types always balk at providing any evidence whatsoever :)

  44. Conservatards are the dead weight. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    YOU fucks are the ones always holding us back. We've been trying to cut you conservatives loose for years. You come back like the herpes you are. If you were more worried about getting your shit done instead of wondering about other people's stuff then the world could move forward. How about you get with the fucking times instead of trying to maintain 1776?

  45. False dichotomy by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    We can have services to help addicts _and_ fully legal substances.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:False dichotomy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It it tyranny to make me pay for service I do not need... fascist.

  46. How does this interact with the ADA? by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

    In the US, "reasonable accommodations" are expected for people with disabilities.

    If gaming disorder is a diagnosable mental illness, what accommodations can disabled persons request?

    I don't really want to know the answer. I just want to watch the debate.

    --

    ---
    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
  47. WHAT THE FUCK IS IT?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would be nice of the summary to say!

  48. That's a rather big about-turn from The WHO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seeing as they used to glorify this mental illness in a well known Pinball Wizard.

  49. Re:Mental health issues... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    The last maybe duplicates a bit on the former. Probably others. Gender is definitely not binary, and I cannot imagine what such people go through in life but without things of this nature, there wouldn't be a human race to have the debate.

  50. addiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This reminds me of an addiction I had where I would just post useless comments on forums all the time. Nobody would listen or care what I had to say but still I kept on doing it anyway. Thankfully I'm cured of that now.

    Oh wait... F@#K!

  51. And the American Psychiatric Association says: by sabbede · · Score: 1

    Uhm, no. We need "more research" before we get behind your stupid, stupid idea.

  52. Re:Who is cremier? by datavirtue · · Score: 1

    Forget it. I have asked many times for clarification only to be accused of being creimer.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  53. I disagree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My nephew has been diagnosed with this ‘disease’. However, at least in his case, his obsession with gaming is merely a defense mechanism, a symptom of one or more disorders already defined in the DSM.

    His father is distant and dismissive – except when he’s not and then he is right up in his face. His mother is controlling and demeaning to the point of being infantilizing. They totally broke the poor guy. (They are rich and respected so there was nothing any of us could do to stop it.)

    In a game, no one tells him he is worthless. In a game, he has a level of control that he does not have in real life. He can escape into a game and feel good about himself.

    So, at least in this one case, it’s really not so much about the gaming, itself – he could have picked reading, or poetry, or anything else to self-medicate on (thank God it wasn’t drugs or alcohol). Unfortunately for him, though, the therapist he is seeing now is focusing on the gaming rather than the underlying reasons for that self-medication.

  54. Re:Great! One more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Typical all or none thinking. Because some people might have disorders or issues that are controllable, we will allow pre-existing condition clauses in that lead to the exclusion of the much, much larger swathe of the population that did not choose nor have control over their conditions.

    Also, never mind that the problem is not "I am a gamer addict" but much more likely to be "I suffer PTSD from childhood rape and have found escape in this mechanism," which is what should really be treated. And also not excluded as a pre-existing condition.

  55. SHAFT! by adam.ainsworth · · Score: 1

    You're damn right