General / Off-Topic World Health Organization adds video games in its list ...

[Patrick_68000]

... of the mental disorders.

The addiction for the video games is now considered as mental disorders by the organization.

The industry of the video games is very angry and the researchers are very divided.

Will the players be hurt, offended ?

 

[Shadowdancer]

It's stupid. Replacing "game" with "book" in the ICD-11 entry I have reading disorder. Ultimately it's a way to make people and insurance waste money on therapy.

Protip: if real life sucks so hard that people escape to games to the point of being dysfunctional in society, your real life and society are broken, not the people running away from it.

 

[Zak Gordon]

Well a disorder is just a symptom of something, and sometimes it is easy dealing with a few problem cases than rebuilding your whole society?

I have no issue with adding games addiction as a health concern. Speaking as someone that could spend crazy amounts of time gaming in my youth and seeing people around me in my peer group that would also mix that with drug use, and the spiral those lives took, it might be valuable to have it on the books so it can be taken seriously and offered treatment where needed.

Some of my game addiction 'records':

Elite: Frontier (Amiga) - 16 hours straight with no break. Many other long gaming sessions.

Alternate Reality series (Atari 800) - many times over 12 hours straight, and would have been higher if it did not have so many loading times!

If i found a game that i clicked with it could just swallow me up for months at a time, and while i always stayed physically healthy (a sports buff at school etc), this pattern was probably not good for me mentally or emotionally, even if i was having a great time during these heavy gaming periods.

So as a gamer and someone that has played heavily through much of my life with little negative effect (and some actual positive stuff, i plan things very well and can 'game theory' situations to find solutions etc) but has seen that gaming addiction (especially when combined with drugs) can really stunt someone's potential and growth, i think this is a good move. Especially in the face of the growing dirty tricks the industry uses to take peoples money (from Loot Boxes to models of business to catch 'Whales' etc).

 

[Patrick_68000]

Well a disorder is just a symptom of something, and sometimes it is easy dealing with a few problem cases than rebuilding your whole society?

I have no issue with adding games addiction as a health concern. Speaking as someone that could spend crazy amounts of time gaming in my youth and seeing people around me in my peer group that would also mix that with drug use, and the spiral those lives took, it might be valuable to have it on the books so it can be taken seriously and offered treatment where needed.

Some of my game addiction 'records':

Elite: Frontier (Amiga) - 16 hours straight with no break. Many other long gaming sessions.

Alternate Reality series (Atari 800) - many times over 12 hours straight, and would have been higher if it did not have so many loading times!

If i found a game that i clicked with it could just swallow me up for months at a time, and while i always stayed physically healthy (a sports buff at school etc), this pattern was probably not good for me mentally or emotionally, even if i was having a great time during these heavy gaming periods.

So as a gamer and someone that has played heavily through much of my life with little negative effect (and some actual positive stuff, i plan things very well and can 'game theory' situations to find solutions etc) but has seen that gaming addiction (especially when combined with drugs) can really stunt someone's potential and growth, i think this is a good move. Especially in the face of the growing dirty tricks the industry uses to take peoples money (from Loot Boxes to models of business to catch 'Whales' etc).

I do not count the sleepless nights that I spent with FE2 when I was young

 

[Zak Gordon]

I had special heavy duty sunglasses to help my eyes take the strain. i would wear them at night time also!

 

[Whitehair]

The addiction for the video games is now considered as mental disorders by the organization.
...
Will the players be hurt, offended ?

I'm in two minds about this.

 

[Patrick_68000]

I had special heavy duty sunglasses to help my eyes take the strain. i would wear them at night time also!

Excellent ! Why I did not think of that in the time

 

[lokvette]

Well it would seem that i have been mentality ill for the last 40 years.

 

[Patrick_68000]

I'm in two minds about this.

Do not make White hair for that

 

[Zak Gordon]

Let's keep in mind that the Games Industry (capital letters) is aiming at our children also, for exactly the same reasons the Tobacco industry once did. Sure smoking is a whole other level of physical addiction (and terrible side effects), but addiction psychologists are employed by some sectors of the games industry for a reason. If that behaviour is creating/exasperating an addiction problem for young minds then we should have a medical line of assistance open to help.

Back when i was doing 12 hours non-stop sessions there was no medical advice that we know is good advice today; take a break every hour etc. More awareness around the issues is a good thing and if it makes the less caring sections of the industry take note it is all to the good.

Excellent ! Why I did not think of that in the time

I also looked pretty cool while gaming and it had a psychological advantage, when we had hotseat mp tournaments for Speedball II, my competition would take one look at me and know i was serious!

 

[Leper Messiah]

I think being a politician also qualifies as a mental disorder, their memory lapses and decision making processes are quite extraordinary!!

 

[Shadowdancer]

Well a disorder is just a symptom of something, and sometimes it is easy dealing with a few problem cases than rebuilding your whole society?

Maybe "easy", but hardly correct.

Check the language in the ICD-11 entry. It's very easy to attribute pathologic behaviour based on

• "impaired control over X",
• "increasing priority given to X to the extent that X takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities", and
• "continuation or escalation of X despite the occurrence of negative consequences".

Yet there is no explicit entry in that category for X like

• eating/drinking (probably covered under substance abuse or similar, but why is it not in behavioural screw-ups?)
• social media use
• reading books
• watching football
• work (look up "karōshi", or generally check the lifestlye of people generally sold to us as "successful", according to the above they're disordered as hell)
• any other activity anyone does to excess.

Singling out "gaming" in a category that otherwise only lists gambling reeks of a political decision more than anything intended to help people.

 

[Zak Gordon]

Well the lines between 'gambling' and 'gaming' have become increasingly blurred over recent times. This might be just a political reaction to the big AAA houses and their loot boxes, but if so i'm fine with it if it makes the industry think harder on what effect their games can have on people.

Simply letting people make as much money as they can with no guidelines to follow is never good.

I guess this could be an avenue to create a legal issue as in plaintiff A states "this game used various tricks to addict my child and that has had an adverse effect on their well being as evidenced by my doctors medical evidence xyz", and i imagine the Games Industry push back to this is mostly about that possibility. Much less being about our 'freedoms'.

I await the flurry of articles on sites like Kokatu (or whatever it is called) and various of the 'alt-right gaming' circles that will be saying 'WHO/UN are trying to destroy our games!' etc.

 

[znôrt]

I have no issue with adding games addiction as a health concern.

indeed. all addictions are a potential hazard. chocolate can be nourishment, a treat or poison, depending on how you handle it, and how you do depends on a host of different factors, but barely on chocolate itself. substances vary in levels of danger and consequences, but it's fundamentally the same issue for any other drug or obsessive activity and, of course, also games.

the fact that we need institutions to highlight specific substances and activities is just a symptom of our society being more focused on treating symptoms than on addressing root causes and not embracing a more holistic approach to well-being and life balance. not surprisingly, many of our collective drives like economy and social organization depend on the very existence of certain unbalance. so yes, enshrining 'gaming disorder' is a double edged sword that will have both positive and negative effects. it will raise awareness and identify a particular danger, it will probably streamline healthcare processes and regulations accordingly, but it will also be the excuse for much bullcrap being throw around and even some shady business, and will us allow to continue ignoring root causes.

wait for the stats in a few years of kids spoiled by anxiolytic abuse because their uneducated parents or some moron in the medical industry felt they were playing way too much video games. it's a funny world.

 

[Zak Gordon]

.....wait for the stats in a few years of kids spoiled by anxiolytic abuse because their uneducated parents or some moron in the medical industry felt they were playing way too much video games. it's a funny world.

True, in the usa i can see the medical profession/drugs companies looking to make a tidy profit from this. It might even lead to specific 'gaming addiction' drugs. I really wish the USA would change how it works with this kind of thing. I might change my opinion just based on this possibility alone.

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

Every addiction works via a final common neurochemical pathway, mediated by delta FOSb protein.

Once we can establish that this pathway is activated, addiction is no longer a matter of opinion, politics, or religious belief, it is a simple biological fact.

The application of a scientific basis for addiction is reshaping how we categorize our human persuits. And it will eventually lead to a common treatment for every form of addiction, possibly in the form of a vaccine. Addiction may be found to be the basis of a host of maladaptive behaviors, including fanaticism and extremism, cult indoctrination etc, which we have no idea how to fix, so a potential treatment cannot come fast enough.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Every addiction works via a final common neurochemical pathway, mediated by delta FOSb protein.

Once we can establish that this pathway is activated, addiction is no longer a matter of opinion, politics, or religious belief, it is a simple biological fact.

That's not so much the problem. The big question is: why, of all things that people show addictive behaviour for, is gaming so explicitly singled out? The ICD-11 catalogue has exactly two entries under "Disorders due to addictive behaviours" : gambling (6C50) and gaming (6C51), and those are pretty much straight completions of the same template with only those two words differing including the differentiation into "predominantly on- or offline". Is there really nothing else on this entire planet and in the entire history of the human race that would qualify as addictive behaviour?

 

[znôrt]

Every addiction works via a final common neurochemical pathway, mediated by delta FOSb protein.

Once we can establish that this pathway is activated, addiction is no longer a matter of opinion, politics, or religious belief, it is a simple biological fact.

addiction was never a matter of opinion, politics or religious belief. prohibition and social rejection are.

that fact just explains a bit better how the reward and pleasure mechanics work. this may open up specific useful therapies but this ...

The application of a scientific basis for addiction is reshaping how we categorize our human persuits. And it will eventually lead to a common treatment for every form of addiction, possibly in the form of a vaccine. Addiction may be found to be the basis of a host of maladaptive behaviors, including fanaticism and extremism, cult indoctrination etc, which we have no idea how to fix, so a potential treatment cannot come fast enough.

... is pretty delusional.

 

[verminstar]

Doesnt bother me in the slightest because Im already addicted to many things like...

My daughter...a day without seeing her and making her laugh is worse than cold turkey...ergo Im addicted to my daughter...Ill pass on a vaccine fer that one thanks anyway.

Im addicted to cars, especially fast, powerful modified cars...I have 3 though two are a work in progress and one is missing a gearbox. Ive been a fan of speed since I was 12 years old, that being the age I learned how to drive and took to it like a duck to water. I dont drive fast because I need to, I do it because I enjoy it. Does that mean Im addicted to speed?

Im not addicted to any of the meds my doctors give me...because I dont take them...not all of them anyway because none of them are anywhere near as effective as a different sorta medication. I am very much addicted to weed and have no intention of stopping anytime soon...cos 4 years ago I was in a wheelchair and now Im not...using a medication not prescribed by any doctor in the UK.

Not all addictions are bad, and in my life Ive been addicted to class A drugs twice and Im an alcoholic who hasnt touched a drop in 8 years...it makes me violent lets just say in almost all cases which is why I stopped. I didnt recieve any treatment or support when stopping...though once friends had to lock me in a room to stop me getting out, but that was a long time ago.

I love the way people bang on about how to fix addiction...ye cant fix addiction or prevent it from happening and trying to will only cause more issues than it solves. There are reasons why people become addicted which include social rejection and isolation, depression, pain, boredom etc...fix those issues instead and ye become more effective at preventing addiction from even starting in the first place.

This is like that old tripe about autism being caused by something in the water...its not btw, its a hereditary genetic condition but people will be people and try and label it as something else. Either way, Im not all that bothered cos I was never quite right in the head to begin with...but the one thing I do understand well is addiction ^

 

[Robin of Spiritwood]

... is pretty delusional.

Obviously, claims do require evidentiary support.
www.wired.co.uk/article/mormons-experience-religion-like-drug-takers-feel-highs-neuroscientists-say

It's not limited to any specific religion. Or political belief system. It is limited to extremism though.
If you look up the relevant neurochemical pathways, the conclusion is inevitable.

It is very true that we can't fix it today. Once upon a time, we couldn't fix scurvy. But we learned how. Given time, things will change.

Edit:
Of course, change is predicated on political will. There are multiple vested interests in keeping sectors of the public addicted and politically aligned. Originally, I held the view that a society based on rationality and backed by research would politically win out in the end because of its success, but recent events have changed things considerably.