If
you’ve ever worried about friends or family shutting themselves off
in front of a computer, frantically pushing buttons for hours, you
had every right. Video game addiction has now been classified as a
mental health disorder.
‘Gaming
disorder’ is now listed in the recently updated International
Classification of Diseases (ICD), which now covers about 55,000
injuries and diseases.
The
World Health Organization (WHO) said victims of the disorder devote
so much of their time to virtual worlds that it “takes precedence
over other life interests and daily activities,” playing for
increasingly long periods of time despite the obvious negative
consequences on their real life.
The WHO
said that including gaming disorder in its official list will help
doctors and families identify the symptoms better and faster.
Linking
routine gaming to actual mental pathology will allow health workers
“to take action to prevent suffering and save lives,” WHO
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
Experts
from Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists, who have witnessed
entire families falling apart because someone was a compulsive gamer,
applauded the decision.
Obsessive
gaming has even drawn comparisons to gambling. “Gamblers use
money as a way of keeping score whereas gamers use points,” Dr.
Mark Griffiths, professor of behavioral addiction at Nottingham Trent
University, said.
Despite
the risks, the number of people believed to be suffering from gaming
disorder is relatively low – about three percent of all gamers.
This has
led some experts to disagree with the new classification, saying the
problem is being excessively dramatized, and that it could cause
unnecessary concern among parents whose children spend a lot of time
playing video games.
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