(Newswire.net— June 23, 2018) — The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes a mental condition dubbed the Gaming Disorder.
Gaming Disorder is officially classified into the 11th edition of International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) that describes disorders and syndromes that make life more difficult. According to the WHO classification, a Gaming Disorder diagnosis can be established after three major symptoms:
– Inability to control the duration, frequency and intensity of the game play
– Gaming becomes a priority in relation to all other interests and daily activities
– Not responding to negative consequences caused by gaming and continuing with harmful practice.
Unlike disorders caused by the use of psychoactive substances, a gaming disorder develops as a result of repetitive rewarding behavior, which puts a game addict in line with gambling addiction patients.
If your eye lids flutter while reading these symptoms, you are not alone. Criticisms on this decision come from many parties, including health workers who have estimated it as overly general and subjective.
The problem is that the symptoms can vary significantly from one patient to another and it is impossible to determine whether a gamer has crossed the red line and become ill, or if he just came too close. The red line itself is too lose and couldn’t be quantified to fit all criteria.
According to a member of the World Health Organization, Dr. Vladimir Poznyak, even when it comes to intense gaming, millions of gamers around the world do not qualify for this disorder.
“It cannot be just an episode of few hours or few days,” CNN quotes Poznyak.
“Millions of gamers around the world, even when it comes to the intense gaming, would never qualify as people suffering from gaming disorder,” Poznyak said, adding that the overall prevalence of this condition is “very low.”
Psychologist and executive director at The Telos Project, a nonprofit mental health clinic in Fort Worth, Texas, Anthony Bean, also strongly opposes inclusion of gaming disorder in the ICD.
“It’s a little bit premature to label this as a diagnosis,” Bean said. “I’m a clinician and a researcher, so I see people who play video games and believe themselves to be on the lines of addicted.” According to Bean, gaming can be powerful “coping mechanism for either anxiety or depression.”