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WHO Gaming Disorder Listing a 'Moral Panic', Say Experts (bbc.com)
The decision to class gaming addiction as a mental health disorder was "premature" and based on a "moral panic," experts have said. From a report: The World Health Organization included "gaming disorder" in the latest version of its disease classification manual. But biological psychology lecturer Dr Peter Etchells said the move risked "pathologising" a behaviour that was harmless for most people. The WHO said it had reviewed available evidence before including it. It added that the views reflected a "consensus of experts from different disciplines and geographical regions" and defined addiction as a pattern of persistent gaming behaviour so severe it "takes precedence over other life interests." Speaking at the Science Media Centre in London, experts said that while the decision was well intentioned, there was a lack of good quality scientific evidence about how to properly diagnose video game addiction.
My God! They've stopped watching television commercials. Something must be done! Think of the childrens' revenue!!
When children play role-playing games, they aren't learning about real life.
Most children don't have fully competent parents, apparently. So there is no one to teach them.
I have a breathing addiction. I can't stop doing it for even 5 minutes.
The decision to class gaming addiction as a mental health disorder was "premature" and based on a "moral panic," experts have said.
This is a misleading sentence suggesting WHO had no experts working on it./p
Why would this be so hard to diagnose compared to for example the diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV for 312.31 (Pathological Gambling)?
A. Persistent and recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior as indicated by at least five of the following
1. is preoccupied with gambling (e.g., preoccupied with reliving past gambling experiences, handicapping or planning the next venture, or thinking of ways to
get money with which to gamble)
2. needs to gamble with increasing amounts of money in order to achieve the desired excitement
3. has repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop gambling
4. is restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop gambling
5. gambles as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving a dysphoric mood (e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression.
6. after losing money gambling, often returns another day in order to get even (“chasing” one’s losses)
7. lies to family members, therapist, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with gambling
8. has committed illegal acts, such as forgery, fraud, theft, or embezzlement, in order to finance gambling
9. has jeopardized or lost a significant relationship, job, or educational or career opportunity because of gambling
10.relies on others to provide money to relieve a desperate financial situation caused by gambling
B. The gambling behavior is not better accounted for by a Manic Episode.
Subcategories include...
Leeroy Jenkins syndrome
Ganking
Camping respawn points ...
The definition allows authorities to jail a gamer in a mental institute.
Exactly. The implications of the line "takes precedence over other life interests" are utterly stupid. What, you mean like any other hobby or activity some people have a high degree of passion for?
This nonsense was written by sad individuals who don't possess the ability to have passion for anything. In fact they can't even imagine it. So when they see it in other people, they think it must be a disease.
They are pathetic.
What they are saying is not that gaming leads to addiction but rather some addicable people make gaming their addiction.
This is unquestionably true.
You can say the same thing about cleaning your ears with a Q-tip or sucking on a lollypop.
People who use drugs are not neccessarily addicts. People who abuse drugs often are addicts.
And so we need a category to describe, Q-tip fixation, drug addiction, and gaming addiction.
Unwanted compulsive behaviour is also different than compulsive behaviour. If it's unwanted but not under control it is a problem and so they classify it as such.
okay everybody can calm down now.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
A man who believes he's really a woman and ends up mutilating his body is perfectly normal, but playing some video games a bit too much is a mental disorder.
That can be called a 'hobby', depending on how extreme we're talking.
I don't play role-playing games, but I have young acquaintances who do. I agree that they do seem to feel a lot of freedom to think for themselves.
I agree with that.
That would be politics. Using a "consensus of experts from different disciplines and geographical regions" is a fail in science, unless strictly limited to qualified experts in actually strongly relevant areas. This mainly shows that the WHO does either not understand science or that the practice has been annihilated by politics within it.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Television. Exactly. How is that shit not worse by many orders of magnitude? I'll tell you how; the status-quo and the establishment's revenue stream. This is a "new money" vs "old money" battle using morality as a proxy war.
The problem is that there is a hundred disorders to represent every possible manifestation of what seems just to be all something like an obsessive disorders, the actual symptoms aren't unreasonable, if a kid dies because he doesn't want to get up from his computer as was the case of a kid in South Korea, that clearly unhealthy, its just you can take out the reference to video games and substitute any of the things that people get an unhealthy obsession with, what would the difference between video game addition, gambling addition, sex addition, hording, and a hundred things, the only reason there seems to be for breaking them out into a hundred specific conditions is for issuance coverage.
I also personally don't like addiction being used for anything that isn't an explicit biochemical addiction like opiates, caffeine etc, they should be labelled obsessive disorders or something like that, the general public certainly see its like this and when you use terms like sex addition, it invites cynicism. Though I guess the the argument against that is its ultimately all biochemical.
But biological psychology lecturer Dr Peter Etchells said the move risked "pathologising" a behaviour that was harmless for most people.
Well if that's the criteria for not being a disorder I guess we can cross off alcohol and opioids (ie, medical painkillers) off the list of medical addictions.
I stole this Sig
compulsive behavior that is legitimately harmful should be categorized by the severity and not by the topic of compulsion. Certainly a game addict would receive different treatment to a gambling addict. That does not mean that the media's pop psychology ought to construct an exhaustive list to scare people. And the difference in disorders does matter so that each individual should get individual treatment because the causes of the compulsion varies between individuals and what is effect in treatment also varies.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
... of name calling a name calling? WHO labeled gaming whatever-it-is a "disorder" and "expert" labeled that labeling "moral panic"?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
So classify real life as a source of mental illness and start prescribing cures for it! Reduce competition and encourage learning until you get it right rather than awarding effort with failing grades, allow more flexible deadlines, no working late to get it done, teach politeness and charm, and much more. People avoid reality for a reason. Saying it is what is and you can't change it is stupid because reality is obviously infinitely malleable. Make reality fun!
defined addiction as a pattern of persistent gaming behaviour so severe it "takes precedence over other life interests.
That's the definition of a hobby. I have several hobbies in my own life that I strongly prioritize over other things I could be doing but that doesn't make them harmful. Quite the opposite actually. For it to be an addiction, with the negative implications one thinks of when using the word addiction, there needs to be some sort of measurable harm beyond mere opportunity cost.
I'm sure there are people who have a pathological interest in playing video games to the point where they start neglecting health, hygiene, relationships, work, bills, etc. Once you get to that sort of point then we can talk about addictions and mental health disorders. Not really different than any other sort of addiction in that regard. I'm not sure video game addiction is really measurably different from someone who simply watches WAY too much TV so I wonder if it is a pointless distinction.
Because if you drink 20 cups of coffee per day you're probably self-medicating for ADHD or depression, and suffering from massive side effect such as anxiety and insomnia.
Just ask the people that are around them. I would have been diagnosed as addicted at one point in time. All of my free time was spent in front of the PC playing some stupid MMO or another. I ate my meals there, I waved at the fam on my way through the house after work as I settled myself in front of the computer, I pretty much didn't do much else. I've since learned techniques to solve my MMO addiction, but unfortunately those techniques bleed over into everything else where I find it hard to be interested in much of anything for very long (that's good and bad). Anyway, family and friends know when a person is addicted (granted, like anything else, some will be diagnosed as such when really they aren't quite there yet).
This is basic conspiracy theory, but likely cultural. The world isn't run by a bunch of people initiated into a secret society to ensure more advertising is beamed into your eyeballs.
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Just a sec I will post a comment, just after I level up...
Yes, and D&D was a problem, and before that rock and roll...
Though I will say, that some parts of video games have some addiction issues. But that has nothing to do with "Video Games" but rather gambling, and gambling addiction is already a thing. A lot of smart people have built into games various things now like "loot boxes" which is really just gambling for kids. The same way that you might call a video slots a video game. They got tricky about it linking it indirectly to other insidious things like micro-transactions rather than a direct, here is my money, now roll those dice!
So it isn't a video game issue, but there are certain video games that have gambling elements that might be addictive enough to cause concern.
The role-playing games I've seen people play have involved violence and acceptance of violence.
No, it isn't. "Other life interests" are not alternate recreational activities.
Yes it is. It's not JUST recreational activities but the term is sufficiently broad as to cover nearly every human endeavor. I understand that they probably mean the more critical life tasks but that isn't what they said. If "life interests" is some sort of secret code among researchers in addiction then they need to come up with a new term.
"Life interests" are things like going to your job or taking care of your children.
Life interests means a lot of things. Even for critical tasks like a job or caring for children there is a LOT of room for variation in performance before it really can be classified as an addiction problem. Let's not pretend that parents always prioritize their children over their own entertainment or that they always take their jobs seriously. I've had plenty of employees call in sick because they were out too late at a bar the night before. Lots of people are shit parents who value their own amusement over family.
I wonder how many of the subjects were teens getting in trouble for playing games when they were supposed to be studying. Should we call everything fun that people might do instead of things that aren't fun addictions?
If we're talking about Western history from the 5th century to the 19th, every atrocity except for the Hunnic and Mongol invasions were perpetrated by followers of an Abrahamic religion because everybody from Iberia to India, and from Sweden to the Sahara, was either Christian, Muslim or Jewish. Thus they define the bulk of our history.
Oh, I left out the Vikings. They did some pretty atrocious things before they converted.
Religion should also become a mental disorder. Either way gaming is turning into religion.