W.H.O to add "excessive gaming disorder" as a mental health condition.

TallPaul1878

TallPaul1878

TallPaul1878

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That's right. Excessive video gaming IS now a mental health issue. If you play too many videos games then you are sick and need to be treated with pills of course.

If you want to chop your genitals off and transition to a member of the opposite sex then that's not a mental health condition and is perfectly fine.

On the positive side. Will I be able to claim disability benefits for my crippling gaming addiction now???
 
Although largely beneficial they do have some clangers, like the salt intake which there advice is more harmful than what most people consume anyway.
 
Strange one as there are elements to it that can be massively detrimental to your health, but then they should just be applied separately. Like sitting too long without moving etc etc.
 
A guy at work is currently going through a divorce because his soon to be ex-wife cannot stop playing WoW. She's on it pretty much all of her waking hours and does nothing else. She's been doing it for a long time now and he's tried everything he could to help her but she refuses to change anything. She's certainly addicted and it dominates her life.
 
reef said:
A guy at work is currently going through a divorce because his soon to be ex-wife cannot stop playing WoW. She's on it pretty much all of her waking hours and does nothing else. She's been doing it for a long time now and he's tried everything he could to help her but she refuses to change anything. She's certainly addicted and it dominates her life.
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That's sad, I mean I could understand if it was vanilla WoW, but to be addicted to WoW in it's current state is shocking.
 
I think it is good they label it a disorder. Addiction which affects your life to that extent should go ignored. I see it no less damaging than other disorders and possibly far easier to be captivated by than other ones such as addictions to coffee or weed. People use gaming as an escape and it is not too hard to imagine where this may lead in some more extreme cases.

There was a post on here recently about a nephew/son who suffered from a gaming addiction was now into his early 20s, refusing to get on with his life, get a job or anything. You got to treat it like a mental disorder because it is one. They probably never found their place, never experienced working life properly or had the feeling of achievement from it that gaming gives them. Even a poorly paid job that you don't particularly enjoy gives you a sense of purpose that you need, someone who has replaced that purpose with gaming is on a slippery slope to nowhere and a good chance of depression. It may not even be work life but social life they have replaced with gaming and that has its own consequences.

TallPaul1878 said:
That's right. Excessive video gaming IS now a mental health issue. If you play too many videos games then you are sick and need to be treated with pills of course.

If you want to chop your genitals off and transition to a member of the opposite sex then that's not a mental health condition and is perfectly fine.
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There is no mention of pills. The treatment would just be the same way as treatment to other addictions, things like counseling and such.

As for wanting to become a member of the opposite sex, not sure what relevance that has to gaming but it is often treated as a mental health issue and is sometimes called gender identity disorder.
 
there probably are people with a genuine addiction to it, though I think as a problem it gets somewhat exaggerated... a bit of a correlation does not imply causation thing with regards to plenty of unemployed youth, lots of them might well be gaming a lot but that could well be a result of having no job/lots of free time rather than a cause of it - sure for some it could then turn into a bit of a cycle if they go on to develop an addiction for plenty of others you could easily find they'll reduce the gaming as soon as they find something else to do
 
I'd say that I've had a video game addiction in the past, to the point that I was avoiding social gatherings, taking time out of work, and spending 70% of my waking life thinking about a video game... and that was as a 34 year old man.

Luckily I've managed to kick the habit, but its something that I'm conscious of now and will keep an eye on in future.
 
neoboy said:
I mean you could be addicted to just about anything really.
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You can really. If you have an addictive personality then whatever influence grabs hold of you can manifest itself with addictive behaviour.

I do enjoy video games, I'd say they are my primary source of entertainment, but not to the point that it interferes in my life in any way. I don't smoke at all and don't drink much, I have no interest in gambling at all either. So I guess I have very few vices and most things I can take them or leave them.

My posting style is always deliberately sensationalist. There's nothing to worry about here. ;)
 
reef said:
A guy at work is currently going through a divorce because his soon to be ex-wife cannot stop playing WoW. She's on it pretty much all of her waking hours and does nothing else. She's been doing it for a long time now and he's tried everything he could to help her but she refuses to change anything. She's certainly addicted and it dominates her life.
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She any good at healing? We need a disc priest.



//what a load of toss again. After their appointment of Mugabe as a representative I can't take anything they say seriously any more.
 
I've seen a few people wreck their lives over MMO's, I've been close myself. There have also been plenty of news reports about it.
I don't get some of the the attitudes in here. I thought it was common knowledge that this is as problematic as any other addiction be it gambling, alcohol, etc.
There's a reason why some games, and even countries (e.g. S.Korea) put limitations on the number of hours you can spend playing.
 
It's no different than a gambling addiction really, some people get extremely addicted to gaming to the point where it takes over their lives and ruins their career and social lives. Yes it's rare, they're not talking about people who get a game and binge it for 3 days, 12 hours a day, they mean people who wake up, game, have an unhealthy amount of sleep because they want to get back on the game, so wake up after 2 hours of sleep and start playing again, and do this consistently for months or years at a time, the problem with it is it is likely to grip a hold of younger people, who destroy their future because all they want to do is play games.

This isn't even counting the people who pour thousands of pounds into free to play games, the problem is they're designed to be addictive, no different than gambling.
 
To be fair with the latest addition of "loot boxes" into games (hot topic in itself right now) which are frankly gambling, I can see this becoming a larger problem. That and freemium models which are literally designed to be addictive on mobile platforms and regular PC games now too.
 
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