The World Health Organisation
(WHO) has classified compulsive gaming as a mental health condition.
The condition tagged ‘gaming
disorder’ will be added to the 11th edition of WHO’s International
Classification of Diseases.
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”.
A WHO representative estimated
two to three percent of video game players meet the criteria for gaming
disorder.
“For gaming disorder to be
diagnosed, the behaviour pattern must be of sufficient severity to result in
significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational
or other important areas of functioning,” WHO said.
Several mental health
professionals have been fighting this classification, worried that it’s more
grounded in moral concerns than science.
“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 in DeLand.
The American Psychiatric
Association also said that there was not “sufficient evidence” to consider
gaming addiction as a “unique mental disorder”.
WHO had said in December 2017
that it will recognise the effects of obsessive video gaming as a mental health
disorder.
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