My Teenage Video Game Obsession Wasn't 'Gaming Disorder'
reason.com
reason.com
>For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and would normally have been evident for at least 12 months.
The important parts are significant impairment, and continuing even though you know it's doing harm.
But this is how he describes his life at the time:
> I spent hours nearly every single afternoon hovering around the game machines at a local strip mall arcade within walking distance of my home down in Sanford, Florida. If I had nothing else to do, that's where I spent my time. If I had things to do, well, sometimes I played video games instead of doing those things. Virtually all my free time was absorbed in video games (oh, and Dungeons & Dragons as well).
> I was also a deeply depressed, closeted gay teen at the darkest, cruelest point of the AIDS crisis, terrified that if anybody found out I'd get the crap beaten out of me, and if I ever acted on my urges I'd get sick and die.
This isn't gaming disorder. This is the equivalent of someone reading a medical dictionary and thinking they have Dengue Fever (even though they've had no contact with mosquitos).
Psychologists wouldn't diagnose gaming disorder. They'd create a formulation that includes all the other things that the author thinks are important.
Seems pretty likely that the concern over gaming is primarily due to it being a new medium. I fail to see how staring at a screen passively for 4-5 hours can be considered normal, while staring at a screen while actively facing challenges and solving problems for half that time is a disorder.
Edit: Forgot to add the link to the citation:
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/business/media/nielsen-su...
1) Inability to consistently Abstain;
check
2) Impairment in Behavioral control;
check
3) Craving; or increased “hunger” for drugs or rewarding experiences;
check
4) Diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships;
check
5) A dysfunctional Emotional response.
check!
Maybe I'm misinterpreting the magnitude that it refers to?
> the behaviour pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning
If anything behavior is messing with your life and you find yourself unable to control it then it could rise to needing help.
You can be an alcoholic when you only ever drink one beer per day, as long as it's either a compulsion to do it and/or it affects your life negatively.
While this may be a theoretically sound definition of "alcoholism", to me this sounds weak/ not anchored in real human perception. I argue that if it has no significant negative effect on your life, it's not addiction/ disorder.
One might feel a desire to have a few after work on Friday, and it might even be a weekly habit. But if you can just as soon not to, then you don't have a compulsion.
There was also rule about it being long-term.
So, are you about to loose job because of that chess? Are you failing the school despite being previously good student because of that chess? Are you increasingly isolated from everyone, increasingly angry and frustrated and yelling on people that you could communicate just fine before playing that much (e.g. if you hated each other before that too, then it does not count)? Are you increasingly fearful of social contact and increasingly clueless in conversation? Or rather does it stays the same?
Did you ceased to care about yourself due showering taking too much time off chess in your point of view? It is less about absolute time spent with activity and more about impact on you or your direct environment.
I absolutely think it's a double standard, where only activities perceived as morally bad (video games, but not reading books, for example) get labeled like this.
Just about only difference is that such addiction on books happens less often to neurotypical people. And since you was negatively affected by pretty much everything that went around, it seems to be of personality prone to addiction thing.
That being said, playing games is not labeled anything. As the material itself says, only minority of players are diagnozable as majority of players dont have those symptoms.
Because I don't think it's a meaningful diagnosis or disorder, and that it is inherently a puritanical value judgement. How many people have their lives negatively affected by working excessive hours, by focusing on sports instead of academics, or any number of other things that will never get their own label?
The things you mention have derogative terms in culture. And focusing on sport instead of academic is not nearly at level of symptoms described here.
Frabkly, the discussion whether x is meaningful diagnoses makes sense only if you bother to read actual diagnosis - and surrounding text to see whether there are similar diagnoses nearby.
> and continuation or escalation of [...] despite the occurrence of negative consequences.
These seem fairly clear to me.
If you spend 5 hours a day playing chess even though you know it's ruining your life then, yes, it's a disorder. If that becomes common enough that chess is often associated with people ruining their lives, then it's reasonable for the WHO to recognise it.
This isn't complicated.
What? I don't know what you're watching, but I'm here living in the golden age of television, with a big backlog of shows that I would love to watch if I had the time.
When you watch so much TV into night that you are too sleep deprived next day in school, skip lectures because of it or is failing the school, then it is problem too.
Unrelated to that anecdote, I think there is a fear of silence in many people. You can get yourself into a sort of buzzing state, where life is a noisy continuum that is happening to you and you need to keep the buzz going else you notice the stark contrast of silence and nothing, which for many can be really uncomfortable.
> Studies suggest that gaming disorder affects only a small proportion of people who engage in digital- or video-gaming activities.
That's not a moral panic. That's saying that a small number of people have a problem, and if they're having a problem they deserve help for it.
With all the “Fortnite Ruined my/my sons life” articles I’ve seen popping up in mainstream media recently, looks just the same as DOOM panic, all over again.
None of which prevents a sample of people having some serious Game-related addiction issue.
Nothing against or for either ones (TV/Gaming), but 20 hours a week are almost 3 hours a day, not 2 - 1.5 times more is quite a difference IMO. (and exaggerating or downplaying something seldom helps arguments...)
Nowadays with e-sports and Twitch streaming it is possible to be a professional video game player. Are they all by definition suffering from "gaming disorder"?
Neither the new ICD-11 “gaming disorder” nor the DSM-5 “internet gaming disorder” (the latter identified as a condition for further study, not an official diagnosis, but with diagnostics criteria) have any number of hours criteria.
> Seems pretty likely that the concern over gaming is primarily due to it being a new medium.
Gambling isn't a new medium, but both DSM and ICD recognize problem gambling (“gambling disorder” and “pathological gambling”, respectively.)
> I fail to see how staring at a screen passively for 4-5 hours can be considered normal, while staring at a screen while actively facing challenges and solving problems for half that time is a disorder.
The latter wouldn't, in and of itself, be a disorder under either the DSM or ICD criteria related to internet gaming disorder (DSM) or gaming disorder (ICD). So, sure, you're right, but only because the hypothetical you pose is completely irrelevant.
Smartphones are also active consumption, but there's clearly addictive stuff involved. And lots of mobile games play off of addictive tricks to get you into it!
I used to have a lot more time for gaming, and I would end up playing the same multiplayer game for a long time. But by the time I realized I didn't actually enjoy it, I would have already spent 6 months to a year religiously going to the game and grinding out sessions just to try and get some fun out of it. But most of the time it was just an addiction to the initial feeling, + loot box-y bullshit.
Just because something is a status quo doesn't make it normal/healthy/whatever.
I don't get why people still think video games are a new medium. Home consoles have been common since the 80's, which is also nearly 40 years now.
Just like news, social media, TV, etc.
It was probably a lot easier to walk away from a Galaga arcade machine when you run out of quarters, or from an Atari 2600 when you get bored, than it is to step away from a game when you know your real or online friends/teammates/rivals will be playing.
It's harder to do this kind of multi-tasking while playing games because games demand more of your attention and require interaction.
Further, the authors argument that the behavior pattern is not gaming disorder is based entirely on a description of the perceived source of the problem which does not conflict with anything that is defined for gaming disorder, merely with an implication that the author reads into the act of making the definition.
The attempt to use the narrative to attack the fact that the disorder is being identified is ludicrous, most generously it would support raising the idea that the proposed definition should recognize a distinction between any standalone problem with gaming and gaming as a peripheral manifestation of other problems by including, in the diagnostic criteria, a criteria specifying the absence of certain other simultaneous diagnoses (a not-uncommon feature of DSM/ICD psychiatric diagnostic criteria.)
I think the truth is probably in the middle. Video games, screen, sugar, etc. are all inherently addictive and the addictive nature is probably exacerbated by emotional distress.
I spent much of my teenage years playing hours of video games like the author. I think it was a combination of the dopamine rush of winning and seeing my rating go up and a way to suppress feelings of loneliness.
For me I think its because I am a very competitive person. To the point where I am the annoying friend who takes things too far. Online gaming was a way where I could exercise that competitive nature. I was never the best at physical sports but found I was pretty good at online gaming.
Sure the situation is still faceted as today as back then, but now gaming, gamification and connected gaming loops (when short and long loop overlaps so a game is never in a “completed” state, see game dev from kayrosoft) are far more pervasive.
I’m a gamer, I can play long hours and I’m not addicted. But. Those new breed of mobile games scares the hell out of me. I designed some game I played some of those. They are actively addictive not because they are interesting but because they tie into your psicology with boxes keys rewards daily bonuses etc.
In fact gaming for a good period of time intentionally swayed off the patterns Arcade Games used to employ to hook you in and keep you playing both due to technical limitation and different design philosophy.
Arcade games were the original microtransactions.
When you want to be competitive and the top people are all playing all the time, you have no choice but to also play all the time. Doubly so when you have some sort of XP/loot system and some notion of resource consumption
Internet makes you compete against whole world, so there is unlimited supply of people who dedicate their whole life to this particular competition. Necessary, you have to settle for not being best or dedicate whole life too. And if this is your motivation, then anything competitive online will consume you - whether game or fiction writing.
So I stick to social media where my slot machine is sufficiently unpredictable.
That changed later in life, but by then gaming wasn't just an escape - it was part of me, and my lifestyle - I play less, but still enjoy the odd marathon.
That said, I think there is an element of truth to gaming obsession.
MMO's had a heavy social element, and your perceived 'status' sometimes was linked in people's minds as your rank or your gear. This gear or rank often required heavy grinding for that perceived social benefit which made it a race to the bottom in the sense that fun had nothing to do with it anymore, it was competitiveness and/or obsession as well as maintenance of your status.
Nowadays the discussion (rightfully) is more around loot boxes, but that's a separate condition in my mind to the reward mechanism you get from ranks or loot.
I do also think it is important to distinguish addictiveness that comes from grinding and competitive gaming, to the escapism that drives others to play games for hours at a time. You can get so focused on competitiveness that it can eat into your life, making it imbalanced. The reason for that is totally different to someone who is trying to escape a bad social life/family/whatever.
There are plenty of completely healthy kids/adults who play way too much games because of the addictive nature of the games and not for any underlying reason, and that can be an issue in its own way, but that needs to be limited by parenting, and/or being raised in a way that allows someone to make good decisions.
Playing games is also a basic human activity and goes back for millennia.
Just imagine the amount of "social impairment" the top NBA players or Olympic athletes had in order to get to the top of their games? I knew a girl that had dreams of becoming an Olympic skater...her whole childhood and teenage years were utterly destroyed...and she failed. Was she sick? Did she need treatment?
I also knew a guy that tried to make pro baseball...his life was consumed into his late 20s or so. Didn't make it either. Did he need treatment?
Throwing away 20 years of your life in hopes of becoming the next Derek Jeter is ok but playing some video games for a few months is a disease? Oh, that makes sense.
Come to think of it, should I have been taken away from my mom because she encouraged my stamp collecting hobby, which took time away from other parts of my life? Just how far will they go with this.....??????
> I knew a girl that had dreams of becoming an Olympic skater...her whole childhood and teenage years were utterly destroyed...and she failed. Was she sick? Did she need treatment?
> Throwing away 20 years of your life in hopes of becoming the next Derek Jeter is ok but playing some video games for a few months is a disease? Oh, that makes sense.
I really don't think you understand what the WHO is talking about. Here's their definition for gaming disorder, emphasis mine:
A pattern of gaming behavior (“digital-gaming” or “video-gaming”) characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.
Doing something with all of your free time, dedicating your life to it, that's not an addiction. It's an addiction when you can't stop even if you want to, even though it's causing negative consequences in your life.
Someone who games for eight hours a day but still has a fulfilling life outside of gaming and could stop if they wanted to has no problem. Someone who games for 18 hours a day, regularly misses work or skips classes to play games, and can't stop playing has a problem.
If you're interested in hearing more about this, there's a subreddit dedicated to people who believe they are addicted to gaming and want to stop. It's got some decent reads on it.
There's unhealthy habits and there's addictions, and often the line seems blurry between the two. You can be an addict and a fully functional member of society. My uncle is an alcoholic of the symptoms of addiction in the DSM: "significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning", he shows none. I've never seen him sober for more than half a day though, he usually cracks his first beer about an hour after waking up.
If your uncle can't give up the sauce he's an alcoholic, and if you couldn't stop reading then you were absolutely addicted to books.
You can be an addict (compulsive behaviour) without any negative effects at all.
It's not the amount of beers you drink, it's that you can't stop.
From what I’ve read of the definitions, I don’t think that he would be classified this way. So possibly a bit of a straw man.
Being forced to work 40h a week must be a disorder too according to their definition!
It significantly impairs my personal, family and social affairs (not to mention my back!)
And yet I keep doing it, even though I know it's doing me harm.
People with stressful and unfulfilling lives will naturely search for an escape in either gaming, drugs or other substance abuse.
Taking that escape away from them won't help them, it will only cause them to relapse over and over again.
> For gaming disorder to be diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning
But what if you just really prefer gaming (or whatever your disorder is) to personal, family, social, educational and occupational areas of life :)
Based on this Einstein had a "disorder", always studying rather than outside playing.
More importantly, it is not about what you prefer, but how it impacts you. If you prefer gaming to job, but still sont miss important meetings, then it is not impacting you negatively. If your gaming is helping you to cope with bullying, then it is affecting you positively. If you ignore kids for weeks because you can't unglue yourself, despite feeling guilty about it, then it is affecting you negatively. (If you never cared about them in the first place, then it is non factor).
Any system which has a reward as part of the system can lead to a disorder.
Speaking from personal experience, it's vastly cheaper and moderately healthier than drowning your sorrows out with booze or drugs. Depending on the game and the skill involved, it may leave you mentally sharper than you'd otherwise be. You might even make some friends along the way.
Of course, it can still spiral out of control and ruin your life just the same.
If you play a lot of puzzle games, you will be mentally sharper.
If you play a lot of shoot 'em ups, your reaction times will improve.
If you hang around in the internet and have an interest for computers, you'll eventually get into computer science and programming and you'll learn quite a lot whilst trying to escape reality.
I had a friend whom I would describe as a gaming addict. He was the brightest pupil I knew from the high school. He didn't eat properly, he always wore the same hoodie (his favorite) even in the coldest winter days. He refused to drink water and only drank ice tea. He went on to a college in a distant town and disappeared.
After 3 years I saw him, he was still the same. He told me he earned some money from the youtube channel he opened in high school. He had purchased a big box of chocolate marshmallows from the supermarket, which would be his meals for a couple of days while he was visiting his friends in a different town. He struggled at college. He played obscure anime games.
After another year, he told me that he changed his major (econ) after 4 years of studying. He started CS and his life turned around.
It could be the case that you resort to gaming to escape reality. But resorting to gaming could also make you unable to change that reality and break out from that spiral.
I don't know if he would've made the decision to jump ship and start anew sooner if he wasn't playing. But in the end he was able to break out of his habit with time.
I think with time the addictions wear off, whether it is TV (in my case) or gaming. I used to watch hours and hours of TV every day. If I didn't I would feel stressed out and couldn't function properly. But now that I've grown I don't feel the urge to bing. It resolved by itself.