News WHO adds 'gaming disorder' to latest ICD

I'm not an expert by any measure, but surely addiction is a disorder by itself, what it's directed at is fairly irrelevant, the symptoms are broadly the same - lack of concentration/sleep/energy, irresponsible use of time and/or money, negative impact on health, relationships and work?

There was a phase where I was playing 5-6 hours a night of BF2, I would purposely wake up an hour earlier than I needed to some days to squeeze in a game or 2, be distracted by the thought of playing while I was at work (dangerous on a building site), skip dinner to continue playing half the week and just about get 3-4 sleep some days. I literally had to go cold turkey - disconnected the internet, broke down and sold the rig, bought a bike. If that isn't the signs of addiction, what is?

The industry harking on that it's impossible to be addicted to video games is just desperate self-preservation. I've experienced it, I have seen it in others, we've all read the horror stories of kids literally having heart attacks in LAN centres. I would say, given the emergence of things like Twitch, that it's part of more broad "social media/internet addiction" though.

 

The most important thing about your gaming addiction and greatly to your credit, is that you recognised it and had the strength of will to deal with it and move on, unfortunately many can't do that.

 

September 1997, Ultima Online basically invents gaming addiction (and curses the entire MMORPG genre to eternal existence as an outlier for addicted basement dwellers).
June 2018, The gaming industry moans about the WHO having taken so long.
Oh wait no, they are moaning that their scummy new business model of trying to turn every genre into an always online multiplayer casino service engineered to maximize addiction might finally backfire.

 

I think it's an issue if you don't leave your chair to go to the loo and find sleep an option rather than a necessity.

I got taught early on a balance, my dad would kick me off the computer and make me go and get fresh air.

Every summer I have 3 weeks in the summerhouse in Finland and don't touch a computer and barely look at my phone. It's always a good detox.

As has been mentioned, I think there's a wider issue beyond gaming that involves tech and social media.

Families go out and all sit their checking their phones, parents walk along with their kids/dog who are trying to get their attention and so on.

It's all connected, we're addicted to screens and our pavlovian desires.

 

Hah so many (lost) hours spent playing Ultima Online... and now Guild Wars 2. Damn MMOs. I'm no where near as bad as I used to be. I don't skip social gatherings for gaming.

 

Yeah, it's pretty depressing when someone has to make an explicit rule of "phones all go in a drawer" on Christmas day (and even more so when nobody abides by it because every other second needs to be Instagram'd, Facebook'd and/or Snapchat'd...).

I watch my wife scrolling through various social media accounts for hours most nights, knowing full well barely 1% of what she looks at is actually important, relevant or worth the time reading. Removing myself from all traces of it (5-6 years now without any social media accounts, barring forums, which I feel is different as it's much more anonymous) was the best decision I made in my adult years.

 

You're anonymity is safe Alice.

 

I kind of agree here. Surely behavioural addictions are a group on to themselves, we hardly need to classify each possible addictive behaviour. I would think they all affect the brain in a similar manner, where we engage in some activity and a reward may or may not happen and when a reward does happen the brain throws out some good time chemical and we eventually become addicted. Could be anything gaming, shopping, gambling, social media, extreme couponing, hoarding...internet forums.

 

September 1997, Ultima Online basically invents gaming addiction

this is sooo right, god that game, and on rubbish dial up internet too! oh the nerd rage was founded right there

 

80's? I could be wrong of course, but wasn't the internet crappy, expensive and uncommon enough to act as a throttle to prevent any real addiction issues?
You are right about Meridian 59 though, I forgot about that one.

Evercrack (yes, I counted it as a 99 game) wasn't addictive at all and I certainly never scheduled my holidays around expac releases and most of the guild didn't have my phone number so I could login whenever a contested mob spawned and I certainly never preferred pulling an all nighter grinding over having a social life... or maybe I did all that and worse (thanks to social media not having existed back then I can luckily deny my past addiction to that at the drop of a hat).
But yes, that game took the addiction factor of UO and overclocked it from 11 all the way to the moon.

 

From the wiki page about Quantum Link:

Sounds very much like the internet, albeit a horribly slow prehistoric version of it.

 

It's for the insurance companies as they won't pay your medical bills if you've not been treated for a recognised condition, disease, or illness. Thank goodness we don't have to worry about that with the NHS....yet!