Subscribe by EmailIs video game addiction a plausible psychiatric disorder?
June 25, 2007 by Kiltak |
Will video game addiction soon become a part of the official psychiatric diseases list? That certainly seems to be the wish of a team of medical experts presenting their video games addiction study two days ago at the American Medical Association congress.
This report responds to Resolution 421, adopted at the 2006 Annual Meeting, which (1) asks our AMA’s Council on Science and Public Health to work in conjunction with all appropriate specialty societies to prepare a report, reviewing and summarizing the research data on the emotional and behavioral effects, including addiction potential, of video games; and (2) directs our AMA to develop recommendations for physicians, parents, and legislators based on the findings of this report.
According to the study, 90% of young Americans play video games, and among those, nearly 15% - around 5 million kids - could be addicted. The report also mentions that young people will be more prone to other addictions as adults when they’ve been hooked on video games in the past.
Here’s the direct link to the report (doc) for those of you interested in reading more.
Do you think video game addiction should be classified as a psychiatric disease? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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What I mean sitting down to anything for hours on end with no thought of sleep or food is addictive in nature but the games themselves are not the addiction the actions of the players, tv watchers, sports players, drivers, insert repetative action here are the problems.
The people that game for hours without games would watch tv or something else. Dont blame the games dont blame anything. Its really just human need for massive amounts of information.
IMO
However, if we’re talking about addiction as in psychological dependency, then games can cause addiction. The most notorious examples are massive multiplayer online games, especially if we’re talking about sloppily designed zero-sum games. When a zero-sum game is not well-balanced, the “addiction factor” can skyrocket due to the fact that whether you win (get rewarded) or lose (get punished) is ultimately not dependent on your skill, but on some other factor such as luck. The strongest addiction is produced when the rewards come at random, without pattern, because the mind keeps motivating itself to go on “just a little bit more” and see whether the reward can be achieved.
Of course, all this doesn’t mean that games should be singled out. There are many other activities that can cause psychological dependency, such as watching TV, sex or work. And let’s not forget that substances that induce physical dependency are a lot more addictive and a bigger problem in general than any of the aforementioned activities. Bottom line: anyone who blames all our kids’ problems on games is probably a loon.