USA TODAY International Edition
WHO classifies video game addiction as ‘gaming disorder’
Can someone truly be addicted to video games? The World Health Organization thinks so – but a major professional organization for psychiatrists strongly disagrees.
The World Health Organization on Monday classified “gaming disorder” as a diagnosable condition, giving mental health professionals a basis for treatment and identifying risks for the addictive behavior. But it was almost immediately contested by the American Psychiatric Association, which said Monday it has not found “sufficient evidence” to consider gaming addiction as a “unique mental disorder.”
The disagreement casts confusion over how to approach a behavior associated with some deaths over the last decades and as parents grapple with rising popularity of online gaming.
The Geneva-based WHO said it will include “gaming disorder” in the 11th edition of its International Classification of Diseases, which is due out this month and is used by professionals across the globe to diagnose and classify conditions. It will describe the disorder as “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.”
But some worry that this classification is grounded in moral rather than scientific concerns.
The Society for Media Psychology and Technology released a policy statement this year stating concern about the WHO’s proposal.
“There was a fairly widespread concern that this is a diagnosis that doesn’t really have a very solid research foundation,” said Christopher
Ferguson, a psychologist and media researcher at Stetson University.
The WHO’s “gaming disorder” diagnosis would apply to gamers with fractured connections to friends and family and who exhibit impaired academics and indifference toward areas of life outside gaming for at least 12 months.
Only a small percentage of people across the world deal with this disorder, according to the WHO. But the number suffering from this mental health condition is enough to study the behavioral pattern and create a treatment program, the organization says.
From 0.3 percent to 1 percent of the general population might qualify for a potential acute diagnosis of “internet gaming disorder,” according to a study published in the November 2016 American Journal of Psychiatry.
Not all experts were critical of WHO’s stance. “I can’t imagine they came to this decision lightly,” said Iowa State University psychology professor Douglas Gentile.
Medical professionals are more focused on the reason causing the behavior than the behavior of playing video games itself, said Heather Senior Monroe, director of program development at Newport Academy. “The main characteristics are very similar to substance abuse disorder and gambling,” she said.