By Heather Hamilton, contributing writer
The World Health Organization is proposing listing “hazardous gaming” and “gaming disorder” on a draft update to the International Compendium of Diseases. Thanks to what they identify as “substance use or addictive behavior”, the gaming listings should be finalized in 2018.
According to the document, someone who allows video games to interfere with other interests and activities resulting in consequences associated with personal, family, social, educational, occupational, and “other” areas for 12 months (though the language allows for earlier diagnosis, too) may suffer from the disorder. The draft also identifies hazardous gaming as playing that increases physical and mental health risks to the player or others around them.
Though the draft document reintroduces the debate, it is certainly not new. Ars Technica points out that the American Psychiatric Associate left “Internet Gaming Disorder” off its fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, though they listed it as a potential disorder and referred to it as “a preoccupation” with online games that needs more clinical research for inclusion in future editions. Since 2013, there have been no definitive answers.
Stetson University psychology professor Christopher Ferguson is skeptical of the WHO’s inclusion, calling it a junk diagnosis that trivializes mental illness. He and 28 others wrote an open letter to the WHO in 2016 encouraging them against allowing what they called a moral panic to lead to the “treatment of abundant false-positive cases.” They argued that such a listing would cause stigma on the millions of people who play video games without issue.
In 2013, Forbes published an article outlining the benefits of video games that appeared in the Journal of Adolescent Research. The research found that playing video games increased cognitive effort, motivation, and effort over extended periods of time, particularly when players worked toward a long-term goal — similar to other kinds of extracurricular activities, like sports. Other studies have even linked video games to increased memory formation.
So while the majority of articles seem to be against the listing, many acknowledge that, yes, video games could foster an unhealthy obsession — but most don’t. Mark Griffiths and a team of researchers at Nottingham Trent University point out that if critics can recognize that some gamers experience problems, how then should “such activity be seriously problematic yet not disordered?” Their research also explores studies that point to similarities between problem gaming and addictions related to substance addictions. They aren’t definitive in their conclusions but believe that the WHO listing will pave the way for other research.
Of course, the Entertainment Software Association is against the listing: “Just like avid sports fans and consumers of all forms of engaging entertainment, gamers are passionate and dedicated with their time. The World Health Organization knows that common sense and objective research prove [that] video games are not addictive. And putting that official label on them recklessly trivializes real mental health issues like depression and social anxiety disorder, which deserve treatment and the full attention of the medical community. We strongly encourage the WHO to reverse direction on its proposed action.”
Sources: World Health Organization, Ars Technica, Huffington Post, Forbes, UCI News, Journal of Behavioral Addictions
Image Source: Pixabay
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