WHO to recognize gaming disorder as mental health condition

117 点作者 emacsgifs超过 7 年前

15 条评论

mjburgess超过 7 年前

Before the sceptics get in:1. The purpose of DSM/ICD is often to justify financing treatment:> Chris Ferguson, a professor of psychology at Stetson University ... described the ICD as "the book of real diseases that you can get insurance payments for."2. Treatment has to be mindful of the specific form of addiction:> "These are co-morbid conditions," he said. "If you just treat the depression and not gaming, the gaming is likely to come back." This suggests it's a unique condition, he said.3. No we are not "medicializing everything":> But Ferguson argued that, if it is a disorder, it seems to be very rare.NB.Before criticizing modern psychiatry keep in mind:1. mental health patients are extreme in their dysfunction, never common.2. the operation of the brain (, nervous system, etc.) in its interaction with its environment is as liable to breaking as any other part of the body3. modern clinical psychiatry is an evidenced-based, research-driven field which treats and forms diagnoses on the basis of decades of research into any particular condition. It isnt the 1950s.

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mabbo超过 7 年前

I don't know whether what I had (have?) meets this WHO definition, but I can tell you that at points in my life, I've had an unhealthy relationship with video games.For me, and maybe others as well, it's about having control over something and feeling a sense of accomplishment, feeling like I'm achieving something. Video games give you that. For a small cost ($20-$50), you can have pure escapism from reality, think about things other than your shitty life and depression and instead feel yourself accomplish goals, achieve success, win. Unlike drugs or alcohol, it doesn't end- you can just keep coming back without paying anything. There's no chemical hangover, no blood test for it, no social stigma like drugs have. It's perfect.My underlying problems have been dealt with now, but I still have to limit how long I play games for. The high is still there and I recognize it well. I just don't need it like I once did.Looking back at my high school days, I had a good friend who was into drugs. I got him into EverQuest. I wish he'd gotten me into drugs instead- there are well understood paths out of drug addiction. And that game messed the both of us up.

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singularity2001超过 7 年前

The underlying root cause often is loneliness. Many addictions are just symptoms of loneliness.

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pwaai超过 7 年前

I don't really care if it fits the definition of mental health disorder or not. What matters is that we recognize self harming addiction arising from digital toxins, optimized to release quick dopamine hits to the user, and help them rehabilitate.Similar to how some people believe depression is not a mental disorder because it's not "physical" and that they just need to think more "positive" like the non-depressed people, I think any sort of addiction, be it drugs or games needs to be addressed from a medical stand point of view.

raziel2p超过 7 年前

I hope this doesn't get abused.Also, maybe a social media disorder is next on the list?

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alangpierce超过 7 年前

I think that better acknowledgement of mental health conditions is generally a good thing. There's too much stigma around something being labeled as "mental health", when really I think everyone should view their own mental health as a work in progress, just like how physical health always has some room for improvement.For mild cases, I think it's fine to say that playing video games obsessively is potentially problematic (and in this case, I think "mental health" is the obvious category for that sort of problem), just like how not getting enough exercise can be problematic for physical health.When it gets bad enough to the point that people feel out of control of their lives, it absolutely deserves to be called a mental health problem, and it would be incredibly frustrating to seek professional help and hear "your problem isn't real", when it clearly is causing suffering. Acknowledging that you have a mental health problem and seeking professional help is already hard enough.Whether you use terms like "mental health disorder" or "mental illness" feels like just an issue of semantics, and my understanding is it's often more an indication of severity rather than being something fundamentally different. Just because you acknowledge a thing called "gaming disorder" doesn't mean it needs to be treated with medication or any kind of extensive treatment; you can still apply reason within any individual case about what the right course of action is. But if it's not even in the vocabulary, there's no reasonable way for the medical community to talk about it and understand it.

allcentury超过 7 年前

I think I would have met the qualifications for this as a 14 year old. My parents were going through a bad divorce and I spent all my time playing StarCraft to cope.I had all the signs of addiction, I stopped hanging out with friends, I stayed awake all night, ate poorly and gave up in school. More than once I recognized my issue and smashed the CD, even one time glued it to a piece of paper and put it on our bulletin board for my mom to see. Two weeks later I'd be back playing at 3am.I needed help but I don't think my parents knew what to do.

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75dvtwin超过 7 年前

my personal reaction is 2 foldWRT>In one study, he found that when kids stopped being addicted to games, their depression and anxiety got better.( 1 )Is this study repeatable? (or does it suffer the fate of many (75%) psychology experiments that cannot be replicated [1]( 2 )Instagram, Facebook , -- would those, potentially, addiction-fueled activities, ever become subject to the WHO recommendation ?[ 1 ] <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/27/study-delivers-bleak-verdict-on-validity-of-psychology-experiment-results" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/27/study-delive...</a>

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xekc超过 7 年前

So, generally speaking, anything a large enough group of people would find themselves too passionately engaged in - can be considered at it's extremes as a disorder - from utilitarian, dominating "usefulness of the body" perspective? Ant world!Then extreme sports go next? "Base jumping addiction" (deadly!) or let's just go big and make "adrenaline junkie" a serious medical condition? Who in Sci-Fi got this right?

Waterluvian超过 7 年前

Whether gaming addiction is a disease or just a symptom, we need to treat both the cause and the symptoms.I don't really care how we go about working the medical system to enable this.

saas_co_de超过 7 年前

Video games are obviously addictive. The way you make money off of games is to make them addictive. There is a direct feedback loop between more addictive games and more profits and so the addictiveness of games can be research, refined, and optimized over time.The WHO is way behind the curve here.If society treated video games the same as alcohol and drugs they would already be banned for minors. Eventually they probably will be.

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goodroot超过 7 年前

Does anyone have any good books to recommend about gaming and mental health? Or, really, just gaming in general? Perhaps from a philosophical perspective?

qwerty456127超过 7 年前

What about HN/Reddit/whatever F5-ing disorder? :-)

tjwii超过 7 年前

yep, and we have football disorder, coding disorder, watching television disorder, 40 hours a week job disorder, dying in poverty disorder, bla bla bla.

adrya407超过 7 年前

>The disorder is characterized by "impaired control" with increasing priority given toOh please, then I assume every hobby in the world can be considered "hobby-name disorder". If it's something that help the millennium generation to relax and free their mind a few minutes /hours and if the society doesn't find something to come and reach the same level of satisfaction we found the "solution", it's a mental disorder... We really evolved... NOT