The World Health Organisation Has Classified Gaming Addiction As A Disease, But Is That Right?
The two new entries are titled “hazardous gaming,” and “gaming disorder”, which effectively put video game addiction on the same level as that of cocaine heroin, and meth.
The hazardous gaming entry refers to itself as “a pattern of gaming, either online or offline that appreciably increases the risk of harmful physical or mental health consequences to the individual or to others around this individual.”
The entry for gaming disorder meanwhile reads as “a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour (‘digital gaming’ or ‘video-gaming’), which may be online (i.e., over the internet) or offline, manifested by: 1) impaired control over gaming (e.g., onset, frequency, intensity, duration, termination, context); 2) increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities; and 3) continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.
Both of these entries fall under the compendium’s addiction disorder sections. Sure, unrestricted gaming can be harmful, the same as too much of most kinds of activities. Take games like Candy Crush for instance, which are specifically designed to hit your pleasure centres a hundred times a minute. You play, you receive validation feedback as well as a desire to play some more, and the cycle goes on. However, equating it to chemically addictive substances, as well as other serious mental health issues included in the document, is the wrong precedent to set.
In the meantime, at least one representative of the gaming community is pushing back. The Entertainment Software Association in the US, in a statement to Gamasutra, claims that the move “recklessly trivializes real mental health issues like depression and social anxiety disorder, which deserve treatment and the full attention of the medical community.” It’s also asked WHO to reconsider the inclusion of gaming in the compendium.