Forum - View topicINTEREST: WHO to Recognize 'Gaming Disorder' as Mental Health Condition
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ChrissyC
 Posts: 552 |
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Good that he noted this. |
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DesolatePsyche
 Posts: 9 Location: Estonia |
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"Mental Health Condition"
Every hobby is "Mental Health Condition" pretty much. Hobby with priority = mental condition. Construction worker loves to play piano form day to day, thus he has mental condition. Lawyer loves to donate for self-gratification as hobby, mental disorder. Technician loves to gather model cars, mental disorder. Basically every hobby in the world with enthusiast to fanatic tier priority/importance = mental disorder. The moment you are not society clone/norm you have some sort of disorder. Yes, fanatic tier can be an issue. But if people could put all their love to their hobbies, that kind of life would be a bliss. But sadly way society/culture has progressed, we are forced to do so many thing we don't want to do. Schools, work - capitalism at it's finest. If you want any chance or actually doing stuff in your life you want, you are forced to study, get some profession and burn 6-14hours a day of your life into such things. Sadly time allocation in a nutshell. Work < Free time < sleep. If we want to do stuff we want, we are forced to sacrifice sleep time, whilst what should be done is lesser work hours. TDLR; Simple point being made and general example. Not a debate, simply an example of a thought crumble. -.- Humanity at its finest. |
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Crext
 Posts: 211 |
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They are just "hobby addicts", nothing more. Everything can have hazardous consequences if brought to the extreme. Even generally positive things like eating healthy, exercising, being social, looking after your children, and other such actions will give negative results if not limited.
On that note I'd say the most common "hobby addiction" is social media. Seeing colleges logging in and checking "what's up" every 5 minute is not good, especially if you do it while trying to sleep. Parents being parents on social media rather than in the real world is perhaps just another example of this. |
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#854626
Posts: 171 |
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Yeah this is kind of dumb. What about phone disorder, fast food disorder, cat collecting disorder. Is every hobby that gets in the way of making healthy life choices a disorder now?
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Ojamajo LimePie
 Posts: 772 |
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This reminds me of the panics over comic books in the 50s and roleplaying games in the 70s-80s. I suppose it's progress that the mainstream isn't blaming the devil this time.
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Ouran High School Dropout
 Posts: 440 Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA |
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True enough, but being a gamer in those days was often not fun. I had to put up with a lot of crap even from my own family. Media sensationalism + wholesale public ignorance = unnecessary angst all around. |
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encrypted12345
Posts: 728 |
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Yeah, that honestly bothers me a bit. Sure, there are people unhealthily addicted to gaming, but the same thing can be said of anything. It's not like you're ingesting anything to induce addiction like drugs. |
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Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
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Alright...Make no mistake, gaming addiction is a serious problem. I can say the same for smoking addiction, alcohol addiction, sugar addiction, TV addiction, etc. If someone has a gaming addiction, they have a reason for it, and that reason, be it of any sort, is the problem, not gaming itself. The WHO classifying "Gaming Disorder" as a "mental condition" will just give soccer moms and moral spoilsports fuel to irrationally stigmatize gamers.
Oh...And to make the problem even worse, the WHO just came up with another so-called "mental health condition": Hazardous Gaming. |
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Lactobacillus yogurti
 Posts: 861 Location: Latin America |
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And here I thought that they'd also talk about how people are constantly obsessed over their cellphones. Now THAT is a widespread addiction.
This one? It's just being an otaku. |
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roxybudgy
Posts: 132 Location: Western Australia |
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Based on the snippet above, it seems like a very vague diagnosis that's open to interpretation. What is considered impaired control, increased priority, negative consequences? How is severity measured? Seems very subjective to me. I have similar criticisms of how they diagnose autism and other mental conditions, but that's outside scope for this topic thread. My parents have always accused me of playing games too much. Even now, when I'm 30+ years old, they criticize my gaming habits, calling it a childish waste of time. I've been playing games for around 15 years now. I am not religious, I don't believe in any sort of afterlife, I believe that life is a meaningless journey towards death, and I choose to spend that journey doing things that make me happy. Playing games is one of many things that makes me happy. I go to work every weekday so I can afford to do the things that make me happy (games, manga, collecting anime figurines, food/toys for my dog). In the past, I was very unhappy, and as I drove home from university, the light poles I passed on the freeway beckoned. But each day, I made it home, turned on my PC and played games to distract me from how bleak I felt. I often spent hours on end playing games, stopping only to eat and sleep, and occasionally go to uni/work. I never graduated from university because I spent my time on gaming and other distractions instead of studying. I've gained a lot of weight from lack of physical exercise. I've also spent thousands of dollars on "free-to-play" games, often putting my bank account in the red. Negative consequences? Yet I kept on playing games. If I didn't, I would just keep fantasizing about putting an end to my journey. I had a problem. But the problem was not "gaming disorder". My problem was life sucks and has no meaning. Telling me to reduce my gaming or quit it altogether would never have been the solution, if anything, it'd probably make things worse. I imagine that for a lot of people who will be diagnosed with "gaming disorder" will be in the same boat. If someone is diagnosed with "gaming disorder", how would they be treated? What would be the cure? As I continued my journey, a few things changed in my life. I got a full time job that comfortably pays for my hobbies, which also had the effect of reducing how much time I could spend on games. I no longer had 6+ hour long gaming sessions during the week because I didn't want to go to bed late and wake up for work feeling dead tired. Then I met a guy, we bought a house and moved in together, which further reduced my free time since I did all the chores. Also limited my money because I now had a mortgage and other house-related costs. It was my partner's idea to get a dog, which had me spending more time outdoors. Initially I was quite frustrated that I couldn't play games as often as I used to, but day to day life kept me busy and distracted. So when my relationship didn't work out and I moved back in with my parents and took the dog with me. I still play games, but now I also exercise more, I've got more self control over my spending habits and time management. Every now and then I might skip walking the dog, or splurge more than I should on games and hobbies, or play games until I am utterly exhausted. Life still sucks, life still has no meaning, but overall I think I've struck a good balance that allows me to ride out the rest of my journey in relative comfort. |
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Niello
Posts: 302 |
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To be fair, a lot of games are made with design choices that deliberately encourage players to continue playing or come back for more. So games have a function which aims to target the reward center. It's there regardless of whether someone makes a hobby out of it or not. The addiction factor is obviously not on the degree of drugs, but it's not hard to see the that it's not like simply collecting coins or playing piano. And when it comes to foods, There are already eating disorders that deal with addictions. Speaking of which, food is also another thing that can really alter the brain reward system. People here seem to be under the impression that addiction only have to do with behaviour, when it also has to do with brain physiology. |
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luisedgarf
Posts: 671 Location: Guadalajara, Mexico |
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I bet both China and South Korea are behind this, taking into account how they have many cases of this in their countries.
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Soaringfalco1
Posts: 56 Location: IA |
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Ok people calm down, no one is banning video games they just listed as a mental health issue for excessive gamers theres nothing wrong with that everyone can enjoy their hobby with moderation
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luffypirate
 Posts: 3187 |
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This news is so last year.
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1124 Location: Puget Sound |
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This. "Hobby addiction" (or obsession) is not the same as the gaming disorder being discussed in the article. Gaming disorder is like taking drugs to some extent because so many games are deliberately designed to manipulate the player's emotions.
The also don't realize that game designers (knowingly or not) take advantage of that physiology. |
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