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Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

> significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning

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.

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By this criteria I've been addicted to chess, reading books, programming, and possibly video games! Not various drugs, though, despite consuming excessive quantities for extended periods.

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.

You was addicted if those things negatively affected your life by those standards. I dunno why that would be controversial or argument against this diagnosis. If you seen negative impact on your life and could not stop despite trying, there is zero controversy.

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.

> I dunno why that would be controversial or argument against this diagnosis

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?

Almost any fairly common obsession has a related derogatory term in standard lexicon, i.e. "workaholic", "meathead"/"jock" etc.

"Disorder" is not value judgement. It is more about whether you can describe common symptoms and eventually steps to help (if possible).

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.

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