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‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization
- kingbirdy 8y agoI'm curious why this needs its own definition, rather than being part of a larger "addiction disorder".
- emmaishere1000 8y agoSo games can be policed for correct content. Thought policed if you will.
- dragonwriter 8y agoBecause there is no larger “addiction disorder”, and trying to create one would have a messy and complex definition compared to distinct definitions that happen to share some features.
- brandonjm 8y agoYet the same organisation that seems to care so much about giving every little addiction it's own name also lumps every variety of autism under the same umbrella term.
- creep 8y agoThis is the same with schizophrenia as well-- which is also a spectrum.
- mmirate 8y agoEach addiction clearly and openly differs in the object of addiction. Whereas, with autisms, we don't yet know how to analyze symptoms well enough for there to be a bijection between set-of-symptoms and underlying-autism-variant; indeed, we can barely even separate autism's causes and effects, if at all.
- Semirhage 8y agoThe activity which is addictive varies, but the underlying physiological mechanism seems to be essentially identical from cocaine abuse to gambling. Defining the disorder by the pathology rather than an obtuse collection of symptoms which have a tendency to overlap and merge might be too much for psychology, but it’s the scientific thing.
- mmirate 8y agoWell, that says more about the current state of the field of psychology, than about the task at hand. :)
- dragonwriter 8y ago> The activity which is addictive varies, but the underlying physiological mechanism seems to be essentially identical from cocaine abuse to gambling. No, it doesn't. There seem to likely be some similar key mechanisms involved, but the shared mechanisms aren't the whole story, otherwise someone addicted to something would be addicted to everything. We give different diagnoses for different allergies, even though allergies have a common key mechanism.
- toomanybeersies 8y agoIs video game addiction fundamentally different from gambling addiction? Especially when comparing video poker machines, it's just like a video game.
- Raidion 8y agoI don't think so, gambling is based on the risk/reward thrill, coupled with the fact that "if I just hit the big one, I can do other activity that I want to do, but can't afford". I don't feel like many people go into the casino like, "if I win it big at $5, I'm gonna go play 100 dollar a hand blackjack!" Video games don't have that risk/reward in as nearly as a tangible sense. Though you could argue that games like EVE Online, where in game resources have a direct comparison to hard cash. Ie, you can grind up a capital ship in game, or you can theoretically purchase enough ISK (in game currency, about $11,000 USD in this case) to buy one outright. Video games have less risk/reward, are focused internally, and have more greed and achievement. If I'm able to clear this raid, I'm able to get X, which will allow me to do Y in the same game, which will make it easier to attempt Z, etc. No one plans to play 5 dollar blackjack so they can play 100 dollar blackjack.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Yet the same organisation that seems to care so much about giving every little addiction it's own name Because diagbostic criteria need to be different for different subject matter, and no suitable generalization had been identified. > also lumps every variety of autism under the same umbrella term. Because there is a continuum of manifestations and not clear differentiated kinds with crisp, clinically meaningful boundaries or subject matter.
- gaius 8y agoA Skinner box is a Skinner box. Whether that’s a pokie (FOBT), a free-to-play game, a social network or anything else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber#Commercial_applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber#C...
- jt2190 8y agoI’m told that the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD) was created to help epidemiologists in different countries share data. It may be, and I’m speculating here, that it’s rather easy to get something added to it, as long as there are enough researchers somewhere in the world who want it added. Someone here must know a little more about the process by which new things are added to the ICD.
- Mirioron 8y agoBecause people who don't play games think it's weird that others are interested in things they don't like. So there must be something wrong with them. There's a good reason why many psychologists and psychiatrists were against the inclusion of this in ICD-11 and why the DSM5 does not list it as an officially recognized disorder either.
- hkmurakami 8y agoIsn't it basically analogous to say sex addiction or porn addiction wrt the underlying psychology?
- noobermin 8y agoFWIR sex/porn addiction is a suspect concept for many psychologists just like "masturbation addiction" is. One wonders whether such ideas are based in psychology vs. social attitudes of certain people similar to the attitudes those who think "masturbation addiction" is a thing.
- contravariant 8y agoFor what it's worth "Gaming" is broad enough to capture pretty much any 'non-chemical' activity that can be addicting. There's a somewhat grey area between "Gaming" and "Gambling", but I think it's fair to consider "Gambling" a subset of "Gaming" where the games actually pay out money (or something of monetary value). This probably doesn't match the WHO definition though.
- gehwartzen 8y agoThere are people that spend most of their available hours staring at screens of graphs while trading various tokens in order to achieve the highest score... but of course we call them professionals not addicts.
- berthe 8y ago> There are people that spend most of their available hours staring at screens of graphs while trading various tokens in order to achieve the highest score... but of course we call them professionals not addicts. Not really, we call them workaholics (e.g. work-addicts) if they're so compelled to work that they can establish boundaries between it and the rest of their lives. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/workaholic http://www.dictionary.com/browse/workaholic
- nostrademons 8y agoDo we? In some professions (eg. investment banking, medicine, corporate law, fashion, entertainment) long hours are so ingrained in the culture that the rest of the world doesn't even bother to call them workaholics, because it's exceptionally unlikely that anyone from the rest of the world knows them on a personal level.
- imtringued 8y agoTrading on an exchange is zero sum for the active participants and has secondary benefits like increased liquidity and less volatility for the passive participants. Gambling is negative sum for all participants. The house is always going to win. The jackpots are just a user acquisition expense to trick even more participants into playing.
- oligopoly 8y agoNext up Social Media Disorder (SMD), Internet Disorder.. I'd be surprised if the latter isn't a thing already
- petercooper 8y agoNetflix disorder, if people I hear having conversations are anything to go by.
- ekianjo 8y agoi expect Wikipedia Disorder as well for people who are too curious and read too much. So basically any deviation from the normal boring person is a disorder,says the thought police.
- creep 8y agoYes, and anyone looking for help in managing their lives will get slapped with any such term and made to feel like deviants. I've been "diagnosed" with all sorts of things. ADHD, ODD (obsessive defiance disorder), asperger's (ASD 1), GAD (generalized anxiety disorder), and I'm sure I qualify for others. The thing is, there was always this search like that to look for what was the ultimate cause for my distress. And then, after all that searching, nothing came of it because I grew as a person. And I think there's a small thing there, which is that if you have a diagnosis, you have an excuse, and oh, you'll have loads of friends with similar diagnoses who will encourage you to whine and wallow in it and make excuses, and there will even be competition as to who is the worse for it. I think the system is very wrong.
- perilunar 8y agoI absolutely have wikipedia disorder. And google maps disorder. We used to call jokingly call it being an 'information junkie', but it's real, not a joke.
- brandonjm 8y agoWhat about television disorder, Netflix disorder? BBC News seem to be implying that 20 hours per week is too much [1]. I feel like most people that watch TV/Netflix/Youtube etc. would easily watch more than 3 hours a day. They also claim that if you're putting too much meaning on your online friendships that this is a bad thing. For many, their online friendships are the only ones they have, or they will be better and will be longer lasting than their school friendships. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44504683/embed https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44504683/embed
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- keerthiko 8y ago> 2. Increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities This needs to be further qualified, such as by "over extended periods of time". If you spend a weekend prioritizing gaming over other life interests/activities, it's no different than having a crunch week at work and prioritizing work over life interests/activities, neither of which should be considered a disorder. Edit: This is shoddy reporting on TechCrunch's part, the official WHO ICD listing [0] qualifies it thus: > The behaviour pattern is of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning [...] The gaming behaviour and other features are normally evident over a period of at least 12 months in order for a diagnosis to be assigned, although the required duration may be shortened if all diagnostic requirements are met and symptoms are severe. [0]: https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http://id.who.int/icd/entity/1448597234 https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http://id.who.int/icd/e...
- widowlark 8y ago"For a diagnosis to be made, the negative pattern of behavior must last at least 12 months: "It cannot be just an episode of few hours or few days," Poznyak said. However, exceptions can be made when the other criteria are met and symptoms are severe enough." https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/18/health/video-game-disorder-who/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Top+Stories%29 https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/18/health/video-game-disorder-wh...
- keerthiko 8y agoYep, see edit on my post.
- ezoe 8y agoIf you are rich and no need to work, you hire the servants for your daily meals, hygiene, excretion, and/or remainder for take some sleep, playing game all day long for everyday isn't a disorder.
- em3rgent0rdr 8y agoCalling everything a disorder should be officially recognized as a disorder.
- tomnipotent 8y agoThis is the perfect word to call them. dis·or·der noun - a disruption of normal physical or mental functions; a disease or abnormal condition. verb - disrupt the systematic functioning or neat arrangement of. - disrupt the healthy or normal functioning of.
- rhacker 8y agoSo we're basically just replacing the word addiction now?
- falcolas 8y agoMore accurately, addiction to the point it has a severe negative impact on the rest of the patient's life.
- rhacker 8y agoI was severely addicted to video games when I was a kid. My parents kept saying I was going to be a garbage man (ignoring the insult to garbage men) I don't think it would be the norm, but because of my interest in games I was interested in computers and here I am. I'm not like a top earner 1M / year AI developer or anything, but it definitely didn't impact my life. Now if my parents had taken me to some kind of "gaming disorder" center to get fixed, I would.. probably be a garbage man right now.
- icebraining 8y agoTaking you to an addition center would be an overreaction as a first measure. More sensible first steps would be to simply limit the gaming time, possibly by getting you to do something else for part of the day.
- Mirioron 8y agoA bad parent could easily make a child fit all the criteria given by just being a bad parent. Something like this should not exist in the ICD. There should be a general addiction disorder that puts forth general criteria for showing that a person has an addiction for something. This just looks like a scapegoat to me.
- tomnipotent 8y ago> There should be a general addiction disorder Absolutely ridiculous. The entire point of identifying a disorder and defining the mechanisms for diagnosis is so that we can create treatment plans to help people overcome these issues. You don't treat gaming addiction the same way you would heroine, alcohol, or gambling.
- Mirioron 8y agoHeroin and alcohol addiction are physical addictions. They are a completely different matter. Gambling addiction is them same as this, and there is basically no effective treatment available. Just like there won't be one for social media addiction or gaming addiction or reading addiction or sex addiction or masturbation addiction or... I suggest reading up on how addiction treatment for gambling goes. The person still is a problem gambler at the end of treatment and it's considered successful. The entire model for addiction for non-substance abuse addiction seems sketchy.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> A bad parent could easily make a child fit all the criteria given by just being a bad parent. That's just as true of lots of diagnoses of physical and mental conditions and injuries. (bone fractures and PTSD are obvious examples.) The fact that bad parenting can cause a condition doesn't invalidate the diagnosis of the condition. > Something like this should not exist in the ICD. There should be a general addiction disorder that puts forth general criteria for showing that a person has an addiction for something. The inherent differences between different subjects of addiction require some source specific variation, but various addictive disorders in either the ICD or the DSM do have generally similar criteria. > This just looks like a scapegoat to me. A scapegoat for what?
- creep 8y agoOh! They've come up with a new disorder again. How nice.
- nickjj 8y agoAll 3 of the article's points could be applied to any hobby / passion driven profession. Next up... Guitar disorder Karate disorder Baseball disorder Fast forward 10 years... Someone coins the term "hobby disorder" after detecting numerous patterns of people wasting their life away on doing things they enjoy. Fast forward 20 years... Being passionate about anything is a thing of the past. Everyone works a corporate job at 1 of 5 companies in the world (people stopped innovating and a few large tech companies took over everything). <tinfoilhat> Sounds like a good way to begin the journey towards even more income disparity between the 1% and the rest of us. </tinfoilhat>
- mmirate 8y ago> Being passionate about anything is a thing of the past. Everyone works a corporate job at 1 of 5 companies in the world (people stopped innovating and a few large tech companies took over everything). Dumb question here: why is not having to feign passion for every single corner of technology (just to even get a chance at a foot in the door at each particular company) a bad idea?
- beaconstudios 8y agoBut there aren't many people (as far as I'm aware?) who forgo self-maintenance to play guitar more and more. Games are uniquely positioned to get someone hooked in the same way that gambling is, because modern games are so well optimised for triggering dopamine release. It's certainly fuzzy, but there's a line between "I do this thing in most of my spare time because it's my passion" and "I neglect important aspects of my life because I'm spending so much time doing this thing".
- nickjj 8y agoI think so. I was really addicted to playing the guitar when I was younger. You get that same dopamine release from learning a riff or finally getting through a solo without messing up (which you may end up trying 100 times in a row). Then once you pull it off, you do it again, and again and again because it feels good. The same thing happens with any skill based activity. Like learning a 120 move form in Karate, or pitching a no hitter (where every single time you prevent a hit, you get that hit of dopamine), etc.. Or programming where you might spend 15 hours a day consumed with it, forgetting to eat, etc., where you might get hundreds of dopamine hits during that time frame. Each one being triggered by your app doing what you wanted it to do. Some people have a ridiculous amount of determination and will not give up until they do what they set out to do. It doesn't matter if it's a video game or not, the activity will consume them. Video games just make it easier for more people to get addicted, but that deeply rooted dopamine cycle will affect you no matter what you do. If video games didn't exist, you would find something else.
- ourmandave 8y agoIsn't there some overlap with gambling addiction, given the tactics used by games like Candy Crush, etc.?
- kdll8 8y agoFinancial investing...
- Micrococonut 8y agoGamers are so sensitive about their addiction. Like an alcoholic being called out.
- asfasgasg 8y agoI don't think most people would advise "calling out" as an effective modality for approaching addicts in general.
- Micrococonut 8y agoGood point. But I think the reactions are pretty telling that there is a real problem.
- Karunamon 8y agoA bit of well poisoning, don’t you think? That one can’t call shenanigans without supposedly being affected?
- rosser 8y agoIt's not the fact of calling shenanigans; it's the vehemence with which it's being done. There's an inflection point beyond which "[he] doth protest too much, methinks" becomes at least as parsimonious an explanation, if not moreso. EDIT: Not to say that's happening here, specifically, but ... gestures around there's definitely some emotionally-driven reaction to this idea, amongst (and probably also behind) some of the criticism.
- noobermin 8y agoThe vehemence might be due to the silliness of the idea as well as how it is an outgrowth of cultural attitudes people have towards gamers, not just denial.
- icebraining 8y agoNowadays that society is more liberal in its acceptance of nonconforming behavior, referring to addition is one of the most effective ways of getting general acceptance to curtail people's freedom, so it's no wonder that people react with alarm.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y agoThis whole thing with trying to place a medical diagnosis on behaviors is too much. This is really no better than the old Greek humors theory where if you were sad, you had an imbalance of melancholy. There are a bunch of human behaviors, many of which are destructive, for which we don't really have insight into the underlying bio-physical explanation. Without that understanding, we should not be turning them into medical diagnoses.
- contravariant 8y agoSo basically you're against clinical psychology?
- hugja 8y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, doesn't South Korean have Gaming/Internet Addiction Centers for those with "Gaming Disorders"? I remember seeing something about this from a eSports documentary some time ago. Unfortunately I don't remember name of it. Edit: found it https://youtu.be/of1k5AwiNxI?t=1150 https://youtu.be/of1k5AwiNxI?t=1150
- georgios 8y agoAn important aspect of identifying new disorders or creating new diagnoses is that it facilitates access to treatment and services for those that need it. That means that those few people that have serious consequences because of excessive gaming will have the right to get treatment covered by insurance.
- Tycho 8y agoVideo games are fine for some people, but for nerd-like personalities they present far too great a temptation to supplant real life goal obtainment with virtual status/achievement. I think its helpful to make people aware of this tendency, and unhelpful to wave it away with a comparison to some more widespread non-nerd past-time like watching TV or sports.
- loupeabody 8y agoHow precisely do you define "nerd-like" personalities and what is it about them that is susceptible to having a "gaming disorder"? I feel like there's not much that would separate a gaming disorder from addictive behavior in general. So much so, actually, that to grant a special term for a video game related illness comes off as a little ridiculous.
- always_good 8y agoI'm not sure. When I look at video game addicts including myself in my late teens, I see someone who is addicted to credentializing in a virtual world. Maybe because everything is measurable unlike real life. Doesn't seem like "addiction" alone communicates what's happening there.
- noobermin 8y agoThat may be your experience but that isn't what others experience. It also doesn't match the ICD's definition either. Credentials in most systems are useless outside of those systems (and even within them in certain cases). Some can be used to gain employment or other things but even those can be abstract and "virtual" in a sense.
- Tycho 8y agoThe essence of nerdiness is the elevation of the abstract at the expense of what's real, including the elevation of accomplishment in abstract domains (eg. video games) at the expense of developing social skills and progressing towards real life milestones, and the misunderstanding of social relations and social status owing to incorrect, reality-starved mental models. Often manifests itself in things like unwelcome pedantry. As another poster (always_good) observes, there is a huge observable difference between video game addicts and substance abusers. I would not expect nerds to be substance abusers, and I would not expect substance abusers to be video game addicts, but everything about video games, in their construction of alternative realities and virtual goals and online communities, is like a glove tailored to the hand of nerd-dom.
- Proven 8y agoThat’s just a way to get the State to sponsor unnecessary treatment in order to steal more money from taxpayers.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
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- Synaesthesia 8y agoI started playing Starcraft and watching it about 2 years ago. I’ve always had an obsessive mind and had stopped playing games since high school. It’s reached a point where I almost dedicate every free moment to playing. Games are incredibly addictive and it can be hard to stop. Back when I didn’t play I never understood why people play games so much. Games used to be only for geeks and boys but now everybody plays them. They are addictive and I think it’s a growing problem.
- ComodoHacker 8y ago>I started playing Starcraft and watching it about 2 years ago You mean Starcraft II?
- Synaesthesia 8y agoYeah SC2 although I played through the original and Brood war remastered as well, and checked some games.
- rohitb91 8y agoYep I've had the same problem with counter-strike, SC2 and LoL. All my mind would be devoted to the games and I'd live in a state of ignorance bliss about my career, building up networks, building up any skills whatsoever. Bad times.
- ericdykstra 8y agoStarcraft and RTS is general is a great game that rewards higher-level strategy thinking, attention management, and a number of other skills. Becoming proficient is no joke, and pros need to spend more of their time practicing than traditional sports because there is less of a physical tax from practice. But it's just like any hobby. If it's not your profession, you need to make sure you're not putting your long-term health or the health of your relationships or other responsibilities aside just for quick shot of pleasure or adrenaline.
- WhompingWindows 8y ago
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- mmjaa 8y agoI stopped playing mainstream video games last century when, after a 'quick network game of Starcraft and maybe a bit of Quake on a Friday afternoon at the end of the work week', I emerged from the dungeon we'd made at work for the purpose, only to discover it was Sunday morning, and more than 24 hours had gone by since any of us had even thought about what we were doing. That was my personal wake-up call. Now I only play MAME games that require, max, 10 or 15 minutes of investment .. and then I simply stop. I sort of miss the arcades of the 80's, which didn't seem to really propagate this addiction as readily as the current madness does.
- synthmeat 8y agoFor me, deciding moment was announcement of World of Warcraft at the turn of the century. I knew that game was going to be everything I hoped for, and that it'd ruin me. Even though I haven't actually tried it out to see if it's any good, life of my many friends was, from a personal judgmental perspective, ruined by it.
- effingwewt 8y agoI had the exact same experience. I'd played a bunch of games online and some weak mmorpgs like Knight Online, so I knew without a doubt if I played Wow I was done for, as it would press every button I had. And after hearing from my friends how great it was and how much time they spent playing, my resolve not to ever touch it strengthened. To this day I've played many mmos and mmorpgs, but never Wow. How weird is the world we live in where games are actually mentally physically and psychologically DANGEROUS? Where rather than eagerly awaiting some new game we fear it? At least I'm not the only one, as selfish as that sentiment is. And sure the case can be made for personal willpower, and it's my own fault for being too weak to play it without becoming invested. But as others have pointed out these games are made to addict us. They are custom talored crack for the brain. I've seen so many friends lose jobs, friendships, all kinds of relationships... and I've seen the same with literal drugs such as alcohol, crack and heroin. I hate to advocate for regulation but we need at least some protections here because when a gaming company's bottom line depends on how much time we spend in a game you can be sure they are going to milk us for every second they can,for the most part.
- inter632 8y agoHmm, this feels odd.. Do they mean: eSports professionals are having a 'gaming disorder', unlike old fashioned sport professionals?
- amelius 8y agoWhy is every researcher treating addiction like it's bad behavior that needs to be avoided in order to be cured, instead of researching ways for humans to keep on getting the satisfaction, while curing the side effects? (I know "curing the side effects" sounds bad, but it's basically what we want).
- Jare 8y agoSounds like a "happy pill" compared to which any other reward mechanisms pale in comparison. Or, in the opposite direction, a "sad pill" compared to which no reward mechanisms can work.
- skohan 8y agoIt may not be possible. Addiction is a disease of our systems governing attention and motivation: Normally those systems should adapt so that we pay attention to those things which are most relevant to our long-term well-being, and so we are motivated to act in ways which sustain our well-being and success. Addiction occurs when a pattern of exposure to an acute stimulus activates our reward system in such a way that our attentional and motivational systems are subverted to cause us to seek out more of that short term reward, at the expense of our long-term happiness. The "satisfaction", as you put it, is the subjective experience of that overwhelming, system-breaking reward signal. To get that experience without the resulting behavioral consequences would require us to fundamentally augment how reward affects the brain. It's doubtful it's possible to do that with addictive stimuli without causing wide-reaching effects on general learning and adaptation.
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- XalvinX 8y agoYet more bullshit "diseases" invented by the psychiatric community to push drugs for their big pharma overlords. Doesn't the WHO have better things to do, like fighting real diseases such as malaria? Everybody goes on little sprees of one kind or another during their lives. Up next, "sudden love syndrome" ...the symptoms are about the same, aren't they? No, in fact they are exactly the same if you replace "your new serious romantic interest" with "video game". And also, I remember being pretty addicted to D&D for awhile in my teen years, so we clearly need "RPG disorder" and better throw in "Board Game Disorder" for people hooked on Scrabble or Risk. WHO, GTFO!
- YuukiRey 8y ago> like fighting real diseases such as malaria? And who made you the authority on what constitutes a real disease? When I vanished from real life to exist almost exclusively within the confines of a virtual world, I surely would have appreciated professional help and the recognition that I'm not just weak but that I have a clinically diagnosable problem with clear steps on how to improve. I am sure that there are many things one can criticize about this, from the diagnostic criteria to how our society generally handles what the majority considers abnormal behavior. But calling this a bullshit disease is probably the most offensive way of making people who are dealing with it (however you define it) even more discouraged. > goes on little sprees of one kind or another Educate yourself before you post. From http://www.who.int/features/qa/gaming-disorder/en/ http://www.who.int/features/qa/gaming-disorder/en/ > For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months.
- bitL 8y agoCan't wait to see the name of "medication" for gamers - "game over" pills?
- XalvinX 8y agoWow, at least one person on the same page as me here. I just don't care what people think..."addiction" to a game and the associated anti-social and possibly self-destructive behavior is just not a disease. Or, if it is, then the sky is the limit on what will be called (and yes, medicated) as a disease. And I don't like the trend...look at the stats, they are medicating tens of millions of children in the US alone for crap just like this.........
- announcerman 8y agoIs obsessing over things related to real life like social ties, money, career, or anything else that will surely pass after you die a disorder? If it isn't then why not?
- icebraining 8y ago"experts in psychology and financial planning say the number of professionals offering to treat money disorders has multiplied in the last few years." https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/health/25iht-25money.16472259.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/health/25iht-25money.1647... As for career, workaholism is certainly considered a dysfunction.
- bitL 8y ago> for career, workaholism is certainly considered a dysfunction You meant a pre-requisite for a promotion, right?
- nvarsj 8y ago> As for career, workaholism is certainly considered a dysfunction. Workaholism is praised by our culture. In fact, it's probably necessary for capitalism to function at all. Without that societal impetus I imagine everything would crumble.
- cirgue 8y agoBecause activities related to those things create sustained material security and personal fulfillment. Your efforts at building a strong network of friends pay dividends for decades, the equivalent amount of time playing video games has no bearing on your life a year from now.
- mattlondon 8y agoThis is made worse in my mind for games that are essentially single-player yet have some sort of online element that means you cant just hit pause or save & exit whenever you want. You have to keep on going for longer than you want until it is "safe" for you to stop. In the old days you could just exit out to the pause menu or save so you could go to the toilet or answer the phone or talk to your family and your in-game activities were safe. You could pick and chose when and how you wanted to play. Now you cant stop when you want, because if you do you'll just be left "idle" in-game. This means that you're prey for other players or NPCs in game, and you risk losing your character's progress and you're back to the start (sometimes there is a significant time-investment to this progress so understandably you dont want to risk it). You can only stop when you get to some sort of safe-place in-game, which means you have to play longer than you want to. So you get situations like where if I am playing a game and my wife asks me to come and see something or make a cup of tea or something, I have to ask her to wait until it is "safe" for me to stop. I feel like I am prioritising the game over my wife (and I guess I am to an extent). I dont like this. I really wish games would allow you to just quit whenever you want without risking your in-game progress.
- icebraining 8y agoIs this a widespread thing?
- OberstKrueger 8y agoDo you have any examples of games like this? I know there are singleplayer games that require you to be online even when playing solo(i.e. Diablo 3), but when you're solo, you can still pause the game. Curious to know what developers don't allow such actions.
- Drakim 8y agoOnly ones I can think of is Dark Souls and Resident Evil 6, as other players can invade your single-player game to try to kill you.
- 8y ago
- bitL 8y agoHow about addiction to social networks, status updates, fake snapshots pretending one's having a dream life and for virtue signalling? Being glued to a smartphone for that is more profound than basement-dwelling gamers.
- keshav_ 8y agothey didn't say these things can't be addiction.
- bitL 8y agoWhy is suddenly some fringe gamer "epidemics" treated as more important (WHO level? seriously?) than vastly more prevalent smartphone-based social addiction?
- willio58 8y agoIf the WHO hasn’t started looking at social networks and the like, it’s just a matter of time. Why should there be a hault in studying the effects of games just because there hasn’t been enough studies on social networks and phones?
- bitL 8y agoOnly by "shouting" about it and comparing it to a more benign addiction I can individually bring focus to that issue.
- rayvd 8y agoAs with anything run by a huge, unaccountable bureaucracy, some special interest group has no doubt done a more effective job of lobbying for this status. I'm sure monies will be allocated, etc, etc.
- amarant 8y agodoes this mean I can call in sick to play more splatoon? I think this means I can call in sick to play more splatoon.
- vectorEQ 8y agoIncreasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities So, we all have a code and/or computer disorder. gg guys, lets get on dem zombie pillz ... 'gaming addiction' would be better term. and then even ,the problem is being addicted, not gaming.. people get addicted to all kinds of shit. having a interest in something more than other things is normal. and call that a disorder is criminal.
- piva00 8y agoIt's vague because it's an individual case-by-case assessment, it's not something easy to simplify to a checklist, it's a spectrum. Yes, if the increasing priority begins to affect other aspects of your life negatively it's a disorder, like any other addiction, don't get defensive because you can relate to the description of the symptom.
- inter632 8y ago> Yes, if the increasing priority begins to affect other aspects of your life negatively it's a disorder, like any other addiction Loads of people that have a passion for something, whether it be music, painting, coding, cooking, etc.. are experiencing a negative impact on their lives in some way. This seems very obvious to me. I play guitar and for many years I've practiced more than 10 hours a day. This had a very negative impact on my income to the point I had to stop to avoid becoming homeless. Is my passion a disorder because I don't make enough money with it? Are all successful musicians suffering a passion disorder? Should they quit making great music for the world and work for McDonalds living a depressed, and above all pointless life? Some years later I started coding and a new passion arose. For years, and still today I code often more than 10 hours a day. Only now it positively impacts my income. Do I have a disorder? Do I need to stop and get treatment for being a passionate coder? I honestly think I'm quite lucky to have a passion for something that renders income. I've played World of Warcraft for years, sometimes a real lot too. I have great memories of great times with my online friends. It is not something I will regret when my life comes to an end. I cannot play as much as I want because it will negatively impact my income. Should I regret now because I possibly have a 'gaming disorder', should I feel bad about the good times I had? Should I prevent others from having the time of their life? Should we not better ban eSports completely because too much gaming is bad? All pro players back to poverty, doing a stupid depressing job, but totally enjoying their 'disorder free' life? Oh, and btw, I love coffee :)
- srrge 8y agoAs a 43 year old with two jobs and two kids, I found myself playing 500 hours of PlayerUnknown's Battleground in a few months. I had to uninstall the game. The addiction was very real.
- matt_s 8y agoDid you lose your job, destroy relationships with your family and friends? Or did this merely replace 500 hours that would have been spent watching TV, Netflix or other types of entertainment? The word addiction has a real meaning with some clinical ways for a trained person to diagnose somebody as having it. I think of addiction more like alcoholism. Sure video games are engineered these days to be huge time sinks but that doesn't make it an addiction. If you can drop it (like you did) and it doesn't impact your life, its not an addiction.
- Jach 8y agoA useful statistic from 2016: US adults on average watch 5 hours of TV per day. Over 90 days (a few months) that's 450 hours.
- srrge 8y agoI am self-employed (I actually run two small companies) and I sent some of my work days playing PUBG. Also I had less interaction with my kids and wife, and no other hobby really. I looked at PUBG videos very often, sometimes live streams, at the office during the day. I was thinking about PUBG all day long. It was bad.
- matt_s 8y agoAwesome that you're running two companies! I was just pointing out there is a difference between an actual clinical addiction vs. a really bad habit. I know the feeling about gaming and have been in similar shoes. I actually stop myself and check if I am doing something out of habit or because I want to... and have found I want to do other hobbies more, its just the inertia to get over the habitual actions that is the problem sometimes.
- zeofig 8y agoNow they just need to recognise the disorder making my dota 2 teammates so noob.
- s0adex 8y agoI once had this problem. Especially when I used to work from home. The game was one click away from being opened. I used to play around 6 hours per day on weekdays and the whole day on weekends. I had to do treatment to get rid of the addiction, I really don't know how I didn't lose my job at that time. Although I ended up replacing it with other kinds of addictions, these new additions are way more subtle than the gaming and easy to manage.
- matt_s 8y agoPSA: Playstation has a 'Family Management' feature where you can limit game time played on sub-accounts. You can set time limits per day and the action to take like auto-logout. It reminds the player as they get closer to being out of time. I don't think we know the effects of modern video games on younger (aka developing) minds yet. Many of these games hire psychologists [0] to help engineer game play to keep people wanting to play because if they get bored and move onto another game it could be a loss. I don't think old school games like Zelda or Mario were engineered this way. Think about a game like Tic-Tac-Toe and how after a certain age it becomes boring. Now add leaderboards, points for certain types of wins, customizable X's and O's, customizable game boards, avatars, seasons, etc. The game is the same but now you have multiple games encompassing the game of popular 'skins', points, 1-upping competitors, etc. [0]http://theconversation.com/the-business-of-addiction-how-the-video-gaming-industry-is-evolving-to-be-like-the-casino-industry-83361 http://theconversation.com/the-business-of-addiction-how-the...
- Rotdhizon 8y agoPosted it the other day on another thread, will post it here again so people can see it. Here is my own experience with this. As crazy as these articles have been about gaming addiction being a medical condition are, I believe it. I'm in my early 20s, ever since I was in my mid teens I was addicted to video games. All through grade school and in college now, I struggle to put the controller down. I routinely don't get enough sleep because I can't stop playing. As soon as I come home I am on, and I won't get off until the early hours of the morning. It's a mixture of reasons why I guess; it keeps my mind off of reality, I enjoy the satisfaction of winning frequently, and it fulfills my desire of being in a progression based system. Achievements, knowing that my actions will eventually unlock achievements and level-ups, it keeps me going. I can't play games that don't have progression systems of some sort because I feel like without progression, it's a waste of time. Sure you can kind of get that in the real world, but it's harder and takes so much longer. Why do that when I have an easy alternative sitting on my desk? I really want to break my addiction to gaming as it really does affect some parts of my life, especially academic.
- bootstf 8y agoIt's not that far fetched, really. For a lack of a better word, modern video games are increasingly "manipulative" when it comes to incentivizing players to play more, and without sounding conspiratorial, gaming companies probably benefit a whole lot from gaming addictions fueled by progression systems like you mentioned. Compare that to classic games like Earthbound where an in-game character will bug you repeatedly to take a break if you play for too long. An extreme and nostalgic example, but mostly my point is that developers are much better at developing "hooks" in a gameplay loop that keeps a player going now in addition to games being way more stimulating.
- kibwen 8y ago> As crazy as these articles have been about gaming addiction being a medical condition are I appreciate that you're sort of equivocating here to preemptively deter the critics, but I'll take a stronger stance. Gaming is indisputably "addictive" in the layman's sense, even if people seem to get grumpy over using the term "addiction" for anything other than substance abuse. Regardless of what we call it, the detriment to daily life is similar. I myself experience some minor form of game addiction: I played World of Warcraft about a decade ago, and even though I only played for two years and even though I was the furthest thing from a hardcore player (I never even got a character to max level, I just loved making alts), to this day I still get occasional and inexplicable cravings to play it. These episodes aren't prompted by anything I can perceive. It feels like a tugging in my heart, the same sort of ache you might feel when you watch a loved one suffering yet are powerless to help them. I've played a whole damn lot of games in my life, but that's the only one that I've ever jonesed for.
- shiburizu 8y agoI'd say the following points need to be made about "gaming" because the perception does not reflect reality when you play a videogame: - the classical "neurotic player who doesn't like distractions and spends hours on VoIP getting angry at the game" is the reflection of a lot of the people who get into real-time multiplayer in MMORPGs or now games like Fortnite. This isn't quite how it stands for a lot of games, genuine one-and-done experiences like God of War or going back a bit to the Wii didn't have this continuous "one more" feedback or ridiculous length of content (3 hours a night raiding is tiresome and stressing for some people) - The fighting game community has the oddity of gathering in large tournaments, building community on them and treating their games with immense discipline in learning to the point where others complain the barrier of entry to being "good" is too high. More than any other genre, fighters offer real-life experiences. E-sports is picking up on this*. - Something to consider when determining the "why" of prolonged play is also the community or social aspect of the game. I play a lot of videogames, I admit, and one of the things that makes me commit a lot of hours into a game is when I can talk about it, talk to people in it, build a common interest and execute it. I live in a country where I speak my second language more than my first and hopping online to play in English is definitely some strong escapism. This is my experience, but so many people get online these days for the strong community tools (Discord, subreddits). It's primarily this aspect that makes me question any attempt to compare it to gambling/watching sports/binge watching movies or what have you. Gaming is built on a huge internet infrastructure because social features build long-time users. I totally appreciate the definition of gaming disorder being sacrificing other healthy parts of life to continue feeding your need to play videogames but maybe this made sense if everyone was still playing the Super Nintendo (and even then we mocked it) but the world, and maybe it's just because enough huge corporations threw enough money at marketing to make it happen, has managed to genuinely change real-life because of videogames. This is far too dismissive. Other posters mention this and I'd probably say that they refused to consult people in the game development industry/competitive gaming organizations/prominent players because they'd like to poison the well by assuming they'd never admit they have a problem (Although I suppose that might have to do with EA and the like refusing to have ethical debate instead of filtering us through an endless marketing machine, taking notes from Hollywood) Side note: First post on HN after long time browsing. Feel free to rip this apart.
- jokoon 8y agoAs crazy as it sounds, I think I managed my gaming time by actually designing my own because the games i have been playing never satisfy me. I usually get bored pretty easily, and there are no games that can really make me play for a long enough time because there is something that frustrates me about the game mechanics. It's actually very satisfying to think about game design as a programmer, and to spot what can be improved in games i like so i might better enjoy playing and sharing them in the future.