Gaming addiction being added to the ICD11.

[TheMysteriousGX]

People have literally video gamed themselves to death.

Gaming isn't being demonized, mental health folks are making it easier for people with addiction problems to get help.

Same way as with gambling addictions, another benign hobby pursued innocently that nonetheless is designed to be addictive and, thus, occasionally addicts people.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

People have literally video gamed themselves to death.

Gaming isn't being demonized, mental health folks are making it easier for people with addiction problems to get help.

Same way as with gambling addictions, another benign hobby pursued innocently that nonetheless is designed to be addictive and, thus, occasionally addicts people.

You see that's a fact. We also know exactly what games or should I say what kind of mechanics in ie. ACTIVISION (and other major shady publishers) games made this people literally kill themselves.
Why are they so contrived about it? Why flag people's preferance when there is direct cause, which is not prevalent in entriety of the hobby? People literally killed themselves staying up on FB not eating or sleeping till they died. Mothers neglected their kids and let them starve to death because they were busy with their 'online social life' or 'FB's click the pixels game'.
4x games format is highly attention grabbing and time consuming but I have yet to hear someone die or liquidate their assests to keep on playing, same with rpg games like Witcher 3. Yet somehow these seem to be harmless, while click to water your crop video game or grind till you get that loot drop worth exorbitant ammount of $$$ is addictive and murderous. What could be a differentiating factor here, hmmmm?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic here. I support flushing the poison out of gaming. However I am jaded against WHO. If 'mental health folks' at WHO are as incompetent, grant gobbling and riddled with nepotism as WHO 'experts' responsible for their labour health and protection regulations, which I had to work with for over a year, than I hold their 'findings' in no regard and solutions in 'high suspicion' and would advise any sane person to do the same.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I would appreciate it if the usual suspects could manage to refrain from victim-blaming gamers and stay on the topic of what makes "gaming addiction" so special that it needs to be singled out from other forms of gambling addictions?

Not sure if I'm the usual suspect, but I'll bite as this is pertinent to my profession:

One of the main symptoms of gambling addiction is that the person suffering consistently gets into economic trouble due to spending too much on gambling, often characterized by the need to borrow money to continue gambling or putting more money into gambling to chase losses. Another defining characteristic is the gradual increase of the stakes, where the addict seeks out ever higher stakes to get the same kick out of the gambling. Gaming addiction won't have an economical aspect of its' symptom listing.

Gaming addiction will also have the added criteria of negative criteria that includes inability to maintain a normal daily routine and taking care of day to day routines like cooking meals, cleaning, laundry etc.. Essentially, gambling addiction is when you gamble so much that you lose all your money and end up in precarious economical situations and try to hide your gambling from others, gaming addiction is when gaming takes precedence over everything else in your life.

My one contention, as a mental health professional, is not whether this condition exists or not, because I think most of us "core gamers" know at least one (probably several) person that got too into a game to the point where it negatively impacted their friendships, studies, work or similar. My contention is that it needs to be studied further whether gaming addiction is an actual diagnosis in and off itself or whether gaming addiction is a symptom of other, underlying, psychiatric problems. It is entirely possible that gaming addiction is a symptom of minor to moderate depressions, anxiety problems, social problems, neuropsychiatric disorders and other problems where the possibility of not having to face your troubles and escape into an escapist fantasy could be very appealing, if not entirely healthy.

Just like gambling addiction is not a condemnation of everyone who likes gambling, gaming addiction is not a condemnation of everyone who plays video or computer games. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that a small minority of people who gamble or game are not able to do so in moderation and end up hurting themselves with their excess. By making it a diagnosis the WHO ensures that national health services worldwide will look into how to help these people in an effective manner.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

I would appreciate it if the usual suspects could manage to refrain from victim-blaming gamers and stay on the topic of what makes "gaming addiction" so special that it needs to be singled out from other forms of gambling addictions?

Not sure if I'm the usual suspect, but I'll bite as this is pertinent to my profession:

One of the main symptoms of gambling addiction is that the person suffering consistently gets into economic trouble due to spending too much on gambling, often characterized by the need to borrow money to continue gambling or putting more money into gambling to chase losses. Another defining characteristic is the gradual increase of the stakes, where the addict seeks out ever higher stakes to get the same kick out of the gambling. Gaming addiction won't have an economical aspect of its' symptom listing.

Gaming addiction will also have the added criteria of negative criteria that includes inability to maintain a normal daily routine and taking care of day to day routines like cooking meals, cleaning, laundry etc.. Essentially, gambling addiction is when you gamble so much that you lose all your money and end up in precarious economical situations and try to hide your gambling from others, gaming addiction is when gaming takes precedence over everything else in your life.

My one contention, as a mental health professional, is not whether this condition exists or not, because I think most of us "core gamers" know at least one (probably several) person that got too into a game to the point where it negatively impacted their friendships, studies, work or similar. My contention is that it needs to be studied further whether gaming addiction is an actual diagnosis in and off itself or whether gaming addiction is a symptom of other, underlying, psychiatric problems. It is entirely possible that gaming addiction is a symptom of minor to moderate depressions, anxiety problems, social problems, neuropsychiatric disorders and other problems where the possibility of not having to face your troubles and escape into an escapist fantasy could be very appealing, if not entirely healthy.

Just like gambling addiction is not a condemnation of everyone who likes gambling, gaming addiction is not a condemnation of everyone who plays video or computer games. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that a small minority of people who gamble or game are not able to do so in moderation and end up hurting themselves with their excess. By making it a diagnosis the WHO ensures that national health services worldwide will look into how to help these people in an effective manner.

And you, as a professional, don't you see the priority in verifing if abusing the core mechanics of:
demanding engagement and time from players, in combination with training them with stimuli-reward loop, then bumping up demanded time/effort cost to irrational level, while giving players and option to buy their way out of it with money, is something that generates that 'small minority of people who game and are not able to do so in moderation'. Wouldn't you agree that such stealthy, gradual erosion of effor/time value of an individual, is the main culprit here of observed problems?
It's same with social media, where people are being locked up within their echo chambers and granted readily ego boosting likes, attention and non-contrarian 'opinions' with possibility to mute/ignore/delete any counter arguments, any opposition, any criticism at leasure. Unlike in real life. Thus medium inflates value of spending time interacting with people online vs. normal interactions or daily routine tasks.
My proposition (granted no other factor is in place that already eroded someone's mental health):
The problem isn't the reason or way people chose to drown themsleves in endorphins, all people love that. Problem is something and in case of gaming someone (publishers via unregulated, predatory schemes of monetization of TIME spent on gaming ever since games became 'service') that shifts individual's resting point on how much of it is enough.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I would appreciate it if the usual suspects could manage to refrain from victim-blaming gamers and stay on the topic of what makes "gaming addiction" so special that it needs to be singled out from other forms of gambling addictions?

Not sure if I'm the usual suspect, but I'll bite as this is pertinent to my profession:

One of the main symptoms of gambling addiction is that the person suffering consistently gets into economic trouble due to spending too much on gambling, often characterized by the need to borrow money to continue gambling or putting more money into gambling to chase losses. Another defining characteristic is the gradual increase of the stakes, where the addict seeks out ever higher stakes to get the same kick out of the gambling. Gaming addiction won't have an economical aspect of its' symptom listing.

Gaming addiction will also have the added criteria of negative criteria that includes inability to maintain a normal daily routine and taking care of day to day routines like cooking meals, cleaning, laundry etc.. Essentially, gambling addiction is when you gamble so much that you lose all your money and end up in precarious economical situations and try to hide your gambling from others, gaming addiction is when gaming takes precedence over everything else in your life.

My one contention, as a mental health professional, is not whether this condition exists or not, because I think most of us "core gamers" know at least one (probably several) person that got too into a game to the point where it negatively impacted their friendships, studies, work or similar. My contention is that it needs to be studied further whether gaming addiction is an actual diagnosis in and off itself or whether gaming addiction is a symptom of other, underlying, psychiatric problems. It is entirely possible that gaming addiction is a symptom of minor to moderate depressions, anxiety problems, social problems, neuropsychiatric disorders and other problems where the possibility of not having to face your troubles and escape into an escapist fantasy could be very appealing, if not entirely healthy.

Just like gambling addiction is not a condemnation of everyone who likes gambling, gaming addiction is not a condemnation of everyone who plays video or computer games. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that a small minority of people who gamble or game are not able to do so in moderation and end up hurting themselves with their excess. By making it a diagnosis the WHO ensures that national health services worldwide will look into how to help these people in an effective manner.

Thank you for the elucidation. Quite informative to hear it from a professional psychologist.
I still think Psychology is very much a soft science that relies way too much on interpretation though. ,)

I can agree with your overall points and contentions.
The only real difference in the schism witnessed in this thread is not on what we think different on, but where we chose to put the emphasis.
I think we can all agree that a rare few gamers have died from neglecting Life, and a tad more play so much that they forsake their health and relationships. That is not really up for debate.
That gaming itself causes an addiction or that gamers are addicted to gaming as a group, is the problem that many see this coming from, because of it's official inclusion in the ICD.
Sad quips about gamers or gamers getting defensive doesn't help in that regard. Especially when gaming addiction really isn't that different from other addictions, but remarkably like gambling addiction.
The only real purpose of singling out gaming addiction is to use it as a broad brush and paint most gamers as something negative.
Which is where the "usual suspects" come into play. Where it reads like coming straight out of an internal propaganda pamphlet which everyone "in the know" has read.
Gaming addiction could very well have been put under the general gambling addiction for example, instead of receiving special attention.
We all know that gaming has taken much abuse in the past, from religious people or conservatives for example, without any shred of evidence backing up their claims that gaming is detrimental.
This only feels like a new take on the same path, only coming from the "other side".

Gaming/gamers aren't bad, in general. Anything will have "rotten apples" in it, and too much of anything is just that, too much.
What really should be looked at is the practices that the "dealers" have come up with for enabling and increasing the amount of addicts, and regulating those.
That is where I chose to put the emphasis, and not on gaming itself.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Thank you for the elucidation. Quite informative to hear it from a professional psychologist.
I still think Psychology is very much a soft science that relies way too much on interpretation though. ,)

Psychiatric Nurse, not psychologist. Not that nursing (and psychiatric nursing in particular) isn't a soft science, but when discussing mental health, that softness is absolutely essential, because without it we can't adjust for the lived experience that's at the center of mental health care.

The only real purpose of singling out gaming addiction is to use it as a broad brush and paint most gamers as something negative.
Which is where the "usual suspects" come into play. Where it reads like coming straight out of an internal propaganda pamphlet which everyone "in the know" has read.
Gaming addiction could very well have been put under the general gambling addiction for example, instead of receiving special attention.
We all know that gaming has taken much abuse in the past, from religious people or conservatives for example, without any shred of evidence backing up their claims that gaming is detrimental.
This only feels like a new take on the same path, only coming from the "other side".

I quite strongly disagree with this. Gaming has taken abuse in the past, absolutely, but that must never stand in the way of rational debates about the benefits, drawbacks and other consequences of gaming as a hobby. When we can identify that an increasing number of, primarily young, people worldwide are engaging in gaming habits that are unhealthy and forsaking important aspects of their lives (sometimes losing their own lives or that of their infant children in some particularly atrocious cases), then we absolutely must talk about why that is and if there's a way to help these people. That various bigots in the past have tried to make gaming a battleground for their moral beliefs must not stand in the way of letting mental health professionals discuss the etiology of this addiction-like behavior and what can be done to help those that end up suffering from it.

I can see why there's a defensive response to the idea of an ICD-11 diagnosis called gaming addiction, but the professional in me feels that it is the single best way to help these people, because it puts pressure on individual nations to provide care for those that get diagnosed. As gamers we must be able to distinguish between people that talk about the negative sides of the gaming hobby, just as we must admit that there is a negative side to gaming as a hobby.

Gaming/gamers aren't bad, in general. Anything will have "rotten apples" in it, and too much of anything is just that, too much.
What really should be looked at is the practices that the "dealers" have come up with for enabling and increasing the amount of addicts, and regulating those.
That is where I chose to put the emphasis, and not on gaming itself.

I agree. However, I also believe that psychiatrists making the move of creating a diagnosis for gaming addiction is one of the first step towards a good, comprehensive legislation. Just like alcohol and gambling addiction have served as important arguments for alcohol and gambling regulation, so too can gaming addiction function as an important means of making legislators understand the severity of the shadier practices in the games industry and make them act to stop the worst predatory practices.

That being said, I do think there's more to this issue then just evil corporations creating nasty Skinner boxes. There has to be a reason why countries like Japan and South Korea have much higher degrees of people that suffer from the really severe cases of what's to be called gaming addiction compared to Europe or the Americas. As with all mental illness, gaming addiction can not be understood if we don't look at the society in which it manifests. There are many other things that contribute to someone doing a 48 hour WoW session then just the evils of Blizzard. Things like family relations, friendships, social pressure to be successful, poor expected life outcomes etc.. I'm personally interested in seeing how gaming addiction maps out compared to other addictions, because we already know that most other addictions are over represented in people with low socioeconomic status. I've got no proof for it, but I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a similar pattern in gaming addiction.

All that is a long winded way of saying that mental illness is complicated, gaming addiction is complicated and as gamers we need to keep an open mind about this. Thanks to this inclusion in the ICD-11 there will be a lot of people around the world working to figure out what treatments best allow people to overcome their disabling addiction to gaming and that's a really good thing. The social and business change will have to come later.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Simple as that,
change every time corporate nomenclature says engagement to addiction
in regards of monetizing games and you have readily available explained and patented cause.


And should incompetent researchers from WHO keep on pretending they need this to hospitalize or drug people and keep them under monitoring to study source of addiction, they will eventually fail. There will be no single agent, no common rule, no reaccuring circumstance.
This is not an ordinary addiction source, this is type of 'drug' that is being constantly adjusted to data on individuals via data mining of data, gathered by so called 'game launchers' (that require you to stay online and monitor your activity...). Machine learning algorithms like variants of xgboost, nn or rf have little to no option to recreate used rules based on outcome, hell people using these algorithms are unable to give you such ruleset... The whole point is to have subtle dependences be found by machine via sudo-random search since it would be impossible for an analyst to find and analyse how and why these work atm fast enough to remain relevant.