ESA Attacks World Health Organisation's Decision To Classify Gaming Addiction As A Mental Disorder

I agree. The main argument against it being a real addiction is that all brain studies result in the same, people assumed of being addicted to gaming do not produce any hormones that would normally be produced with an addiction, nor is the addiction part of the brain active with so called “addicted” gamers.

I assume ESA has provided citations of all this 'objective research'?

Frankly, telling someone they can't be addicted to gaming "recklessly trivializes real mental health issues"

Gaming addition... So apparently if I count the number of games that I own, I have a mental disorder?
EDIT: It's been fixed now.

ESA
WHO
OCD
WTF

I suppose you could argue anything is addictive and it would depend on the individual.

I know people who doesn't want to play games because they are afraid of getting an addiction, like it is a real hard drug...

Nonetheless, gaming addiction is a real thing and the WHO doesn't say that all gamers have a disorder. A lot of gamers are overreacting, here.

I personally have joked about being addicted to video games and I've spent countless hours playing them. The number of hours spent playing them equates to actual years of my life. However in saying that, no I don't believe they are actually an addiction. They're just a hobby for me. I enjoy playing them and immersing myself in something outside of reality for a while. I don't believe I NEED them and I could easily stop and never play a game again if I wanted. I think this is a bit of an overreaction by the WHO and honestly it reminds me a little of moms on fox news complaining about video games being evil and making their kids violent; ridiculous but funny.

The ‘Tetris Effect’ is a real thing guys... O.O

The thing is there are cases of what could be considered crippling addiction. They are incredibly uncommon , but they do happen. I'd have to side with the WHO on this one in the sense that it does exist.

I've met people who were actually addicted to video games, and they would admit it and describe it as addiction. Video games as such might not be addictive, but a sense of accomplishment that the video games provide surely is.

Beware or be-Wario Ware, that is the question.

I'm sure the WHO have done their research. Gaming is not addictive for most people, but there are almost certainly people who are suffering from 'gaming addiction'. People can become addicted to all kinds of things. I think ESA are over reacting here

I do not know whether gaming addiction should be classified as a mental disorder.

But I do know that citing "common sense" is not good enough in any way. Provide peer-reviewed, independent research published in a reputable scientific journal.

By the way, it said on the original BBC article about gaming addiction that a very small number of people, about 50 a year I recall, suffer from this 'disorder'.

I think you will find that acronyms are the most addictive of all

Damn ESA putting Dr. Mario out of a job.

@NinjaAceTrainer: I cite:

"Dr Richard Graham, lead technology addiction specialist at the Nightingale Hospital in London, welcomed the decision to recognise the condition. [...]

He said he sees about 50 new cases of digital addiction each year and his criteria is based on whether the activity is affecting basic things such as sleep, eating, socialising and education."

@GreatApeEscape Still, it shouldn't be made as an addiction of its own. Numerous people could be considered addicted to social media, sports and other forms of entertainment. I would also argue that social media can be the most addicting out of all tech related hobbies. Instead of making gaming out to be an addiction on its own, there should be a more generalised type of addiction to relatively harmless activities, whose only downside is spending too much time doing it (which are the only symptoms the WHO provided). There is nothing special to someone addicted to playing games, and I don't think you can really be addicted to playing games in general, but to one game maybe (especially online games where you rank up, because that process can take a long time and is probably the only way someone would end up playing a game instead of doing what they actually need to do.

addiction to games can definitely occur

"Common sense... prove video games are not addictive."

I feel like this is head-scratchingly contrary to my own experiences.

Im addicted to oxygen

@Chandlero Thanks.

Even as 'gamers', I don't see why there should be much resistance to the statement "games addiction exists". I mean, gambling addiction certainly exists, and games allow the developer to include as many or as few elements of gambling (or anything else) as they wish.

In admitting that gaming can be considered an addiction and rationally looking over how and why, we might end up with fewer games designing their business models around that worst elements of addiction or compultion. i.e. Fewer loot boxes.

The ESA is so full of it.

I myself suffered a gaming addiction a few years back. It was to League of Legends, and lasted about two years. I would play at any given moment, even when I didn't have time, and I would miss social and work commitments to play.

Sometimes I wouldn't even want to play, but there was a twitch in my brain that pretty much forced me to login and I couldn't resist it. I hated the game so much, and didn't even enjoy it, but I couldn't stop myself from playing.

Thankfully I eventually managed to pull myself out and am now enjoying life much more. In hindsight I would definitely class that addiction as a mental health disorder.

The ESA are so full of it. There is literally no downside to classifying some gaming addictions as mental health disorders. If I could have visited my GP for help I'm certain I could have saved the two years of my life I wasted playing that stupid game.

Gaming can be addictive in the same way gambling can be addictive. Certain types of games have been shown to release dopamine in the exact same way that a gambling win does (especially those games that are little more than dressed up Skinner boxes). It seems irresponsible of the ESA to claim, just because some might make false negative assumptions about gaming as a whole as a result from this, that the World Health Organization somehow trivializes the entire issue of addiction by widening the definition to include rare cases of video game addiction.

@ThomasBW84 I completely agree. The ESA only cares about the Economy and the potential damage the WHO statement can give.
ESA doesn't care about people, the WHO does. That's the difference.

Gaming Addiction is real and has been for years. People already forgotten about plenty of cases where people literally died playing World of Warcraft? Due to them being so addicted to the game, they forgot to eat and drink and literally played themselves to death.
Or cases in South Korea and China where some where playing for over 72 hours straight in Internet cafes and died of a heart attack or stroke!

Those are just few examples.

Just like how people can get addicted to gambling or shopping (yes shopping), people can get addicted to gaming!

Addiction isn't limited to taking substances such as drugs and alcohol or cigarettes for that matter.
Addiction is a mental disorder and such people with such disorder can get addicted to anything. One more dangerous than the other.

When it comes to gaming for example, sitting in a same position for many hours every single day will increase the risk of producing a blood cloth and getting a (fatal) stroke! Especially when you also have an office job where you sit all day as well and then continue this with gaming at home for many hours.
Next to that, sitting day and night will also mess up your digestive system, especially the large intestines and increases the chance of Colon cancer among one.

So yes... gaming addiction is a health risk!

@ThomasBW84 So when will you be showing up to the meetings for those of us addicted to NL? (I'm assuming you're already off the payroll but I could be wrong, got your self one of those "consultant" jobs)

Common sense would say not all video games are addictive and not all people would be addictive to them. Very small amount of people, maybe even a smaller set of videogames, the quick, pay to win slot machine types I'd guess. Not even sure why we need this, gambling addiction exists, and it's a fine line between slot machines and Peggle.

Don't see the downside really. I think it's normal to take a step back and look at how I'm gaming and if it's healthy for me. And if someone feels they are gaming too much and need help it's good to have additional support avenues for them to get help. I just don't see the downside. Normal healthy people aren't going to freak out about the potential of some video gamers have the "addiction" label applied.

Just remember TOXIC from Britney Spears.
"With the taste of Poison Paradise, i'm addicted to you, don't you know that you're Toxic ?"

Addiction it could be a Toxin for someone.

I feel like people need a reminder of the ESA's past behaviours- this is a body that has defended the use of lootboxes and similar methods of exploiting addictive personalities for YEARS now. Indeed, they are a pressure group that exists entirely to justify the awful business models of companies like EA and Activision/Blizzard. There should be absolutely no doubt that they are going to downplay addiction as being a problem in the same fiscal year where people are openly talking about how addictive freemium business models can make spending money, and major backlashes are happening over such models in paid for products.

The WHO isn't here to take video games away, or to label all consumers of games as addicts, but the ESA certainly are here to justify the practices that turn consumers into addicts.

Mr. Goodell are there concussion issues in Football ? none whatsoever, here's another contract...Any questions...Carry on, nothing to see here...

I mean, who would you trust? The World Health Organisation or the Medellin Cartel of videogames?!

I think they have a valid point. We don't go around calling sports fans addicted and we don't label sports as addicting... yet we see people spend countless hours of their day being preoccupied with sports so much so that we have multiple 24hr sports news networks, fantasy leagues and shows about fantasy sports, season ticket holders, grudges and violence based on teams you like, and the list goes on and on.

Personally, I think an individual can be addicted to anything, but to go as far as to list it as a mental disorder I think does to some extent trivialize other mental disorders listed.

I don't understand how video games are listed but I have never heard of sports, movies, tv, etc. being considered as a mental disorder due to addiction. I do think this adds new consideration to loot box problem, specifically if video game addiction truly is a mental disorder then how much responsibility should companies hold when adding gambling like elements to their products?

Hopefully they also added sports addiction, social media addiction, and (for lack of a better term) Netflix addiction to the list as well. All can ruin lives, and brains.

@5t3v3n also if you wear a hat all day then take it off, later on you will feel like you are still wearing a hat!

@ThomasBW84 I think the real question is, beer of choice? I like a newcastle brown ale myself.

Games are addictive in the same way any activity can be addictive. It hasn't been proven to have any unique factor that would justify it getting its own classification apart from any other non-chemical dependency addiction.

Games can be addictive in the same way gambling or body building or plastic surgery can be addictive. Bear in mind that it is still a serious problem when someone is addicted, mind you.

I dunno much about this debate but i know i am heavily into gaming when i want to be, and wont touch it for over a year if i dont feel i need to.

I'm not casual because i spend a lot of money on games when i do play them, i complete them and i engage in many gaming series that i tend to enjoy, but sometimes life takes my attention away from games, not just for a few days or weeks but months or most recently due to purchasing a house boat, nearly a year since i last touched a video game (i did manage to start playing my 3DS in the last week or 2 though).

I dont see this as an addiction, because an addiction is an unhealthy obsession, if someone tries to say my level of gaming is unhealthy then i'll knock their teeth out and tell them chewing food without teeth is unhealthy.

I agree. While ANYTHING, good or bad, can become addictive if not moderated with common sense, there is a difference between that and a disorder.

I think there’s plenty of us who played WoW that can attest that games can become addictive.

Honestly, literally anything that you can derive pleasure from can be addictive. I don't see similar classifications for the like of sports fans or movie buffs and the like despite often carrying similar characteristics and traits

Rabbit trail, the title is false. The ESA does not attack the classification, refute or responds would have been a much better choice of words and more accurate to the tone in which it was said. Not sure who to tag, so @AlexOlney .

Jesus Christ, is that statement cringeworthy.

Gamers are passionate and dedicated with their time. Having captivated gamers for more than four decades, more than 2 billion people around the world enjoy video games.

I'd be less reluctant to use the word gamer if the people (and organizations) that use it didn't sound like a freaking cult.

@tudsworth The WHO isn't here to take video games away, or to label all consumers of games as addicts, but the ESA certainly are here to justify the practices that turn consumers into addicts.

Yup yup yup. The ESA is pulling the 'us, gamers' card just to make you think they're 'on your side'. They are not.

This can only inflame the debate over addictive v. addicting.

Addictive is the most traditionally "correct" term, but addicting is being used more and more to apply to "nonaddictive things that engender repeated indulgence". Addictive can also apply to to those nonaddictive things. Use whichever term you want.

Anyway, an addictive personality can be addicted to anything. There is a tendency to medicalise all behaviours that lie outside the cultural norms of a particular society. It's society's way of coping. In the past, drapetomania was a disorder applied to runaway slaves. Today, we would completely understand the escape of a slave as a normal reaction to slavery and certainly not a mental disorder. Homosexuality was a personality disorder until the 70s. These disorders are partly a product of the time. Humans have a need to analyse patterns, to bring order.

However, that doesn't mean that all such disorders should be dismissed as rubbish. If there are symptoms to treat, then no matter what the label, there is a duty/need to treat.

We also should not forget the influence of drugs companies. It is, after all, their business to get us all buying their wares. Dementia drugs are, on the whole, useless at either slowing or halting the disease. Yet, they are still prescribed as a matter of course. Medicalising us all is big business.

I think the ESA is just afraid of "addicted" gamers blaming them for putting out products that they "know" are horribly addictive and in fact "designed" to make people want to play them.
Remember all the people that sued tobacco companies for esentially selling poison? As much as I wish it weren't a thing, there's a warning label on the box that they're bad for you.
The ESA is worried there'll be a warning label of the addictive nature of games like Warning: the WHO have determined that this game may be addictive. If you have a family, job, or social obligations, you may want to game Very carefully. Use no more than 30 minutes a day.
Or at the very least: Please game responsibly.
I'd rather not have any warning labels on my games, besides the ESA ratings label and watch out for siezures.

@ThomasBW84 I know, I was talking about ESA's response to WHO, not WHO's addiction label. Maybe you've had 1 too many beers this morning.

How's Eleanor treating you? Grayson visits us tomorrow, can't wait.

MMO's can definitely be classified as addictive gaming. I strung together 20+ tweets talking about my addiction to WoW when I was younger and my former friend's terrible, ongoing addiction with TF2 and LoL.

MMO's never end, thus a person keeps playing them. Since everything keeps going while you're logged off, you always get that feeling that you need to constantly be playing to keep progressing.

That's why I refuse to touch an MMO.
I love RPGs and JRPGs, but MMOs are off the table for me.

@ThomasBW84
what if we drink beer while playing games arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh dooooooooooomeed.
But I can see it being a problem for some. LEts face it most of us here have stayed up to some god awfull time in the morning to beat a level or just one more go. When we should have been tucked up in bed. Thank god for coffee and red bull

Fanship has driven sports fans etc detrimentally addicted and morally deficient, too. I'm not sure how acknowledging addictions "trivializes" more serious mental issues. Common sense comes in where you nees to account for individual case-by-case basis, but this rebuttal sounds as if ESA were or acted oblivious to gaming addiction cases being a thing at all.

@Yorumi Your comparison is flawed. No addiction professional would say spending all your free time playing video games is a sign of addiction. It's spending more than your free time that is the sign. Not going to bed; not seeing to hygiene; ignoring work or school responsibilities--these are the signs of addiction. They would be signs of addiction in your professional student. (And your question wasn't very interesting.)

@Yorumi if there is a tick in your head compelling you to do something then it's a mental disorder. If you just spend a lot of time doing something, and are in control of your time then it's not.

Not a difficult distinction to make. People get addicted to gaming just like they get addicted to alchol and other things. Difference being if you're addicted to alcohol you can actually get help for that. If you're addicted to gaming you cannot.

Take from this what you wish, but I say it with a slightly guilty conscience. I coach athletics...football, basketball, track & field, and baseball. Watch the way fans in a crowd react to a play or a call from an official that they disagree with. Watch the way coaches on the sideline act when they feel a referee has missed or made a bad call. Watch how soccer/football/basketball/baseball/etc. players act out when calls don’t go their way or even when they are flopping to get a call. What about riots when someone’s team loses?

People call sports fans, coaches, and players/athletes “passionate” when we should all really look at it for what it is a large majority of the time = disturbing. Try to act that way in any other setting. Act that way ALL of the time in another setting...professional, social, in a military setting, as a babysitter, etc., etc., etc. What would be considered acceptable behavior or acceptable reactions when things don’t go your way at work, in school, at your grandparents’ house, in church, and so on?

I see frightening things on an almost daily basis as a coach and I make a very concerted effort to disallow my athletes from having ANY disrespectful or violently emotional reactions by modeling controlled behavior myself. Sometimes I feel like the culture of sports is too much and out of control, but I still want to make a difference. I try. I try my hardest, but the fight is getting more and more difficult in recent years. There is more finger point, more social media vitriol, more disrespectful comments from parents, kids, even people I don’t know. The strangest thing is, even when we are successful, people are still overreacting irrationally. Again, I find it...disturbing.

Saying video game addiction is a mental illness is sad. Although I agree that we should all turn off the games, go outside, and get some fresh air from time to time, I’m no authority on the subject. I will say one last thing, however.

Does the type of behavior in athletics seem a little too close to home? Was that type of general behavior something that was as prevalent before online gaming became the norm (perhaps forced upon us??)? It’s all a reflection of the world we live in, but man...typical behavior seems like it’s getting more and more out of control.

This does not make sense and I am very surprised they have made such a statement. But the problem in gaming comes from the social interaction that surrounds gaming like a bad smell. Unhealthy chat, bullying all from a mainly young audience.

All games with any social activity / chat should be classed as over 18 only.

@Hordak
add that type of behaviour to something people can hide behind too and you get my comment above!

Addictive behaviors, personalities, these people have addiction to other things, many gamers smoke and drink soda by the gallon, both addictive consumables, just add gaming, maybe gambling, and binge watching favorite Netflix shows. Gaming is just another item to add to the list. I expect TV movies to be added to the list next. Let’s not stop with video games if that’s how they want to play it. Don’t be selective.

I don’t see a problem with it if there are people who become addicted to the reward signal that comes from games and this helps them get treatment. Sounds similar to sex addiction.... Unfortunately, the news media is terrible at reporting.

@Yorumi I don't think you understand. At all.

It's not 'singling out video games'. It's added it to a list of things that cause addictive behaviours. No one here is talking about 'obessesive' behaviours with fandoms and the other random crap you listed. Being obsessed with or enjoying something IS NOT THE SAME as being addicted to something.

You also don't understand what a mental disorder is or what this whole discussion is about. Go do some research and then come back.

I'm confused as to what qualifies as addictive behavior. I personally watch TV everyday, because that's just become a part of my normal routine. Does that mean am I exhibiting addictive behavior towards it?

The ESA is a corporate shill. They will damage control gaming addiction through terribly flimsy reasoning ("common sense"), and they will damage control loot boxes to keep their overlord EA happy.

I can actually see a point where gaming can become addictive but not in the traditional sense. I obviously don't think it has the same effect as drugs or alcohol. Except in extreme cases that is. That is, I can see it being very unhealthy if done too much but I guess I can't call the kettle black. I gamed addictively for almost my whole childhood until I got older, but I turned out okay.

Wow, that was a quick turnaround
Like I said, there's behavioral addictions that are bad habits that can be broken, and then there's addictions people can't control and attention is needed. Sounds like more research is in order

In my opinion, gaming addiction certainly exists. I had a minor addiction to WoW for over a year when I was in high school. My grades didn't suffer, but my sleep and general temperament did; the only thing I wanted to do every waking moment was to play that game. There were many reasons why I quit playing at that time, and though I've fired up my account since (I found that you can play for free up to level 20), I intentionally have never fully resubscribed. It's a time sink that I don't ever fully want to get back into when there are so many other games to play.

To me, gaming as a hobby and gaming as an addiction are two different things. As long as you balance it with the other things in your life, then I don't believe it's a problem. But when someone is constantly forsaking integral things like sleep, social obligations, work, normal eating, hygiene, etc., then they definitely have a problem.

I'm quite certain there are true gaming addicts in the world. But what bothers me is that they'll be very quick and eager to misdiagnose and label people who are not and start over-exaggerating and demonizing to the public.

They've done it too often and always end up doing more harm. Boh to the ones who truly need help and to the ones who don't.

The Mental Health Care community is a big, fat joke. I'm never sure if its due to incompetence or greed. Or both.

@Nintendoforlife
In the case of non chemical related addictions. It means prioritizing that addiction to the detriment of everything else in your life. Social, financial, neglect of health/appearance. Of course there are varying levels of addiction. You can be addicted to something, but still be able to do it without worrying about paying bills or putting food on the table and still be physically healthy to varying degrees.

@Yorumi Agreed Yorumi! Some people just don't like interacting with other people for whatever reason. Maybe they were hurt too often by others. Maybe they're just resevered or shy. Maybe they fully believe that humanity by and large have their heads jammed up their rears and mostly aren't worth bothering with.

Someone said that the mental health community treats the symptoms and not the cause. I think this is apt.

I'm also addicted to my car, I use it every day.

@Yorumi No, @Mogster is right. You don't understand psychology and that you think you do is just Dunning-Kruger in action.

@ThomasBW84

Welcome back!

@Tempestryke Hmm the symptoms they listed as sign of ailment all seem a little general. Not to say they're wrong about it being an addiction, but the symptoms are something that could be applied to pretty much any situation.

@Mogster

What counts as a "mental disorder" is entirely culturally constructed though, that's the problem. It's not a standardised scientific concept.
It requires the arbitrary governing body to just pronounce that a particular thing is damaging. The DSM used to consider being gay a disorder and STILL consider sexual fetishes to be a disorder. (Although they narrowed the definition from the previous version.)
It's pretty clear they make a lot of this up based on their personal judgement rather than any kind of objective scientific measure.

@Yorumi No, I'm not an expert. But my friend of twenty five years, who is both ten years sober and has published in peer reviewed scholarly journals, is. Which gives me enough insight to know when I see a basic lack of understanding.

@Nintendoforlife
Agreed. Its easier to see and diagnose extreme addictions then milder ones. Like the gambler who is on the verge of losing their home because of a genuine addiction for example. Unfortunately, people see those extremes and think anyone who is an addict will automatically become that way.

@Dezzy Sadly this is true.

@Yorumi I never declared myself an authority--but it would be disingenuous to suggest that in the absence of verifiable expertise it is to be assumed that I know nothing, a tactic designed to undermine an opponent in lieu of being able to confront his argument. I do not have a degree in physics, but I know that when you let go of something gravity will cause it to fall. I'm not a doctor, but I can diagnose a broken leg. And I'm not a psychiatrist, but I can tell when someone knows nothing about addiction.

I'm also curious: do you not see either the irony or arrogance of implying that I should accept your view because I haven't proven myself an expert, when you've done nothing of the kind yourself? If you need not believe me you must grant that I need not believe you.

Wait, if addictions to those other mediums have not been labelled similarly (as mental health disorders), which is what the quote would seem to suggest, then I absolutely believe the tag should be removed from videogames. What are we living in here, the dark ages, where people still vilify videogames over other forms of entertainment simply because they are largely ignorant? VR will probably have its day of judgement soon too, I have little doubt--as they accuse it of brainwashing our youth and turning us all into mindless digitrons or whatever.

I was going to write my own retort, but someone else wrote something far better suited to responding to you, which I quote here in full:

See you can't follow logical arguments. I never implied you should just accept my view. Logic doesn't follow that because I criticize you for declaring yourself right without presenting any argument, that I'm implying you should just blindly believe me. That's a leap of logic that creates a straw man, a logical fallacy, invalid argument, and irrational arguing.

Funny enough, appeal to authority is also a logical fallacy. The reason is just because someone is an authority it doesn't make them infallible.

All you've done since replying is just state that you're right and I'm wrong, and we should just believe you cause your friend wrote a paper. Well it's a load of logical fallacies. People respond to arguments by attacking the person all the time, rather than the argument(for the record your argument has been the person, "I'm right you're wrong just because of who I am) because they themselves are unable to attack the argument.

@Maxz Of course keep in mind who the bulwarks of the ESA are. It's often the strongarm of the lootbox vendors/virtual casino operators. This response is largely EA and Activision stamping their feet yelling "nuh uh! We're perfectly legitimate business men!"

@ThomasBW84 Awesome to see you hanging around!

@Mogster To play the other side I'm not sure I'd agree your case really signifies "video game addiction." Nothing about the game itself addicted you, it can't, it's an activity, not a substance, and there's no material reward like gambling. However I would say the addiction to video games, especially competitive and/or pay to win games with real money on the line can form a related addiction to gambling addiction would would be better served classed as an addictive behavior disorder (whereby one can become addicted to ANYTHING) rather than isolating video games as its own form of addiction (similarly, I imagine it's a lot more rare if not impossible to get addicted to, say, Fallout 4, than a competitive game.) Similar to what @Yorumi said the ESA does have a point, there's nothing about video games in particular that is habit forming versus any other medium or hobby. A hardcore book nerd has never been classified as a "literature addiction", nor has a model train enthusiast, sports fanatic, or photography nut. Despite spending quite a bit MORE real money on most of those hobbies. I would say one that can be addicted to video games isn't addicted to video games, but simply is capable of forming obsessions over particular activities in general. (We're of course talking conventional video games, not the pay-to-win models and loot boxes which are much more over the border to actual gambling and should rightly be classified as gambling addictions.) Thus it may be beneficial to broadly classify addictive behavior rather than isolating every construct in the world to which one could become addicted. Of course the "metal health" world is 80% politics, 20% science to begin with, so I wouldn't seek sense with them. Real imbalances would be treated by an actual physician or neurologist, not behavioral "doctors" who seek to categorize behaviors more than offer actual medical reasoning for them. One could say they seem to have quite the obsession....perhaps even...addiction to classifying things without the ability to give repeatable cause-effect-treatment as one would expect from actual medical science. At worst, they largely consist of drug dealers in white coats.

@Yorumi haha! For someone whos willing to point out authorities, you sure seem like to take the charge and be an authority!

Really, its up to the power of us to prove them wrong. ESA, WHO, for all I care, theyre both wrong and theyll suffer for what cracks they left out for others to exploit and weaken their arguments. It is as Panurge said, attack the arguments which they live their life of, not the arguer.

@Yorumi Because its not your opinion or at least you didnt form it as such, to begin with. If it was, you just say it and let it go. Dont reply or take offense to anyone who would try to bash you. That is how you do not make authorities out of others and yourself.

Anything can be addictive depending on the personality traits of the individual. Food, gaming, television, binge watching movies/tv, porn, etc.

@Yorumi Feel free to have all the opinions you want. Don't feel entitled to defend ignorance on how addiction works by misapplying the term "opinion".

People and media have been attacking the gaming industry for years on end. If anyone remembers the sniper who was killing people the media said he learned how to use a gun by playing video games. There are lots of other stupid crap like that over the years as well. The thing is anything can become an addiction. Ita called mental addiction, chemical addiction has to do with substances that cause the body to think it has to have a particular substance, like nicotine in ciggaretts. If you are classifying gamers as addicts then you would have to classify people who have any form of hobby they spend lots of time on. Like avid book readers or sports fanatics.

@Sakura Thank you for pointing out the pharmaceutical side of this. My main disagreement in this is the fact that top psychologists in the field admit to the manufacturing of certain "disorders" in the International Classification of Diseases in order to promote the sale of more drugs. Those drugs are marketed and prescribed in the name of "healing" that disorder. Often, these drugs can actually exacerbate an ailment or create new ones.

In moving forward with mental health treatment, I think we can all agree that this practice should be routed out so we can better trust the solutions and explanations offered by organizations like WHO.

@Sakura And also, well put.

“More than 2 billion people around the world enjoy video games.”
Aren’t there about 7 billion people on earth? That seems unreasonable.

"Just like avid sports fans", ok...but when I play a video game, my interaction is similar, but distinctly differently than watching sports The good chemical release of experiencing a series of reward, loss, reward, loss, is both there in video games and sports but with games I'm directly effecting the outcome and am also directly determining the length of time the gaming session lasts for. Playing video games is closer to playing slot machines or poker or something. Watching sports is an obviously weak comparison to make...EVEN IF you were betting on a game.

While it's true that they're not chemically addictive in the same manner as tobacco, alcohol, and illegal drugs; what else do you call it when there are plenty of junkies out there who excessively play games at the expense of their own physical, mental, and/or emotional health? Face it, ESA, gaming addiction is real.

@Kaizen I hope that awareness within the field is now widespread enough to start a real debate. I very much dislike the idea of an economic stake in classifying disease and I've dealt with enough reps to know that business comes before welfare of patients for drug companies. The prescription of major psychotropic drugs to minors is my personal bugbear.

That's not to say that I think people showing symptoms should be dismissed, just that symptom clusters may fit under an umbrella term, rather than be classified as separate disorders. An addiction to video games might fit under the socially-avoidant umbrella for some, for example.

Things do change over time. We are beginning to see cancer diagnosed by type rather than body part affected, leading to more targetted and more successful treatments (type "X" cancer in the breast rather than breast cancer, for example). We also have brain scanning available to prove that the somewhat controversial diagnoses like DID do in fact register as particular changes in the brain. These are innovations moving understanding forward. But, we must be aware of hidden agendas. Drugs should be developed in order to fight disease, not disease created in order to sell drugs.