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‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

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Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#111

Is obsessing over things related to real life like social ties, money, career, or anything else that will surely pass after you die a disorder? If it isn't then why not?

"experts in psychology and financial planning say the number of professionals offering to treat money disorders has multiplied in the last few years."

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/health/25iht-25money.1647...

As for career, workaholism is certainly considered a dysfunction.

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#112
post #18

All 3 of the article's points could be applied to any hobby / passion driven profession. Next up... Guitar disorder Karate disorder Baseball disorder Fast forward 10 years... Someone coins the term "hobby disorder" after detecting numerous patterns of people wasting their life away on doing things they enjoy. Fast forward 20 years... Being passionate about anything is a thing of the past. Everyone works a corporate j…

But there aren't many people (as far as I'm aware?) who forgo self-maintenance to play guitar more and more. Games are uniquely positioned to get someone hooked in the same way that gambling is, because modern games are so well optimised for triggering dopamine release. It's certainly fuzzy, but there's a line between "I do this thing in most of my spare time because it's my passion" and "I neglect important aspects…

I think so. I was really addicted to playing the guitar when I was younger. You get that same dopamine release from learning a riff or finally getting through a solo without messing up (which you may end up trying 100 times in a row). Then once you pull it off, you do it again, and again and again because it feels good.

The same thing happens with any skill based activity. Like learning a 120 move form in Karate, or pitching a no hitter (where every single time you prevent a hit, you get that hit of dopamine), etc..

Or programming where you might spend 15 hours a day consumed with it, forgetting to eat, etc., where you might get hundreds of dopamine hits during that time frame. Each one being triggered by your app doing what you wanted it to do.

Some people have a ridiculous amount of determination and will not give up until they do what they set out to do. It doesn't matter if it's a video game or not, the activity will consume them. Video games just make it easier for more people to get addicted, but that deeply rooted dopamine cycle will affect you no matter what you do. If video games didn't exist, you would find something else.

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#113

This is made worse in my mind for games that are essentially single-player yet have some sort of online element that means you cant just hit pause or save & exit whenever you want. You have to keep on going for longer than you want until it is "safe" for you to stop. In the old days you could just exit out to the pause menu or save so you could go to the toilet or answer the phone or talk to your family and your in-g…

Is this a widespread thing?

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#114

Next up Social Media Disorder (SMD), Internet Disorder.. I'd be surprised if the latter isn't a thing already

Two suggestions, hopefully relevant to this forum (haha):

- Programming Disorder. For those weirdos always spending a huge chunk of their spare time before their desktops and laptops, hacking on something.

- Engineering Disorder. A superset, including the hardware-obsessed folks (e.g. electronic/radio engineering).

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#116

Is obsessing over things related to real life like social ties, money, career, or anything else that will surely pass after you die a disorder? If it isn't then why not?

"experts in psychology and financial planning say the number of professionals offering to treat money disorders has multiplied in the last few years." https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/health/25iht-25money.1647... As for career, workaholism is certainly considered a dysfunction.

> for career, workaholism is certainly considered a dysfunction

You meant a pre-requisite for a promotion, right?

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#117
post #99

Yet more bullshit "diseases" invented by the psychiatric community to push drugs for their big pharma overlords. Doesn't the WHO have better things to do, like fighting real diseases such as malaria? Everybody goes on little sprees of one kind or another during their lives. Up next, "sudden love syndrome" ...the symptoms are about the same, aren't they? No, in fact they are exactly the same if you replace "your new s…

Can't wait to see the name of "medication" for gamers - "game over" pills?

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#118
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arcades absolutely did promote addiction, they just sucked at it compared to today's games. In a classical arcade, you walk into a darkened room filled with animated CRTs and strange noises. They literally have blinders, designed to shut out your peripheral vision so the game is the only thing in your consciousness. When you die, you have 30 seconds to insert more coins and continue, otherwise you have to start all o…

The difference is, when you ran out of quarters, you were done. There was no further impulse to play for days and days. However in the modern era, once you start - there is nothing stopping you.

Some would say that using all your quarters is a symptom of the addiction.

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#119
post #88

I stopped playing mainstream video games last century when, after a 'quick network game of Starcraft and maybe a bit of Quake on a Friday afternoon at the end of the work week', I emerged from the dungeon we'd made at work for the purpose, only to discover it was Sunday morning, and more than 24 hours had gone by since any of us had even thought about what we were doing. That was my personal wake-up call. Now I only…

Arcades absolutely did promote addiction, they just sucked at it compared to today's games. In a classical arcade, you walk into a darkened room filled with animated CRTs and strange noises. They literally have blinders, designed to shut out your peripheral vision so the game is the only thing in your consciousness. When you die, you have 30 seconds to insert more coins and continue, otherwise you have to start all o…

> they just sucked at it compared to today's games

Games these days are far far more interesting than most movies, TV shows or other forms of entertainment. With photorealistic rendering coming combined with AR they might even override the need for exploratory travels outside pure relaxation stays (i.e. if you can visit Alaska/Antarctica/Japan/Petra/whatever with photorealistic graphics, would you really want to travel there? I guess you'd rather go to some beach or clubbing place to unwind instead)

Re: ‘Gaming disorder’ is officially recognized by the World Health Organization

#120

This is made worse in my mind for games that are essentially single-player yet have some sort of online element that means you cant just hit pause or save & exit whenever you want. You have to keep on going for longer than you want until it is "safe" for you to stop. In the old days you could just exit out to the pause menu or save so you could go to the toilet or answer the phone or talk to your family and your in-g…

Do you have any examples of games like this? I know there are singleplayer games that require you to be online even when playing solo(i.e. Diablo 3), but when you're solo, you can still pause the game. Curious to know what developers don't allow such actions.
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