New Mental Disorder: Video-Game Addiction

June 25th, 2007 |

The New Scientist reports that doctors at a debate at the AMA “backed away from a controversial proposal to designate video-game addiction as a mental disorder akin to alcoholism on Sunday, saying psychiatrists should study the issue further.”

The problem with designating video-game addiction as a mental disorder is that the definition of video game is getting rather fuzzy. As I’ve said before, many of the most popular online applications and Web media, such as YouTube, employ many of the core attributes that make games more fun, compelling and addictive — what Ami Jo Kim, creative director at ShuffleBrain and holder of a Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscienc, calls game mechanics.

So if you’re going to designate video-game addiction a mental disorder, then you’d better be prepared to tackle the much broader area known as the Internet, which, in many ways, is manifesting into a giant, distributed video game itself.

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Tweeky 2 months ago 1 point
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Gaming addiction isn't really a mental disorder, a bit of self control and the problem resolves itself ! However for people with no self control at all, the problems get bigger. They need help from others that can convince them to limit there time to games.

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ragavendra 3 weeks ago 1 point
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this mental disorder in the sense that not that they will go mad,but they will think always about video games and hence called as addiction.
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ragavendra

Drug Rehabs

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