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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

#171

Post by fastbeef »

feocco wrote: post #165
tw1010 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game companies optimize for sustained gameplay, often without ever thinking about the people that lie behind the bits. What you described is one of the best strategies there are. I see no counter force, other than regulation, that would prevent this process from just keep getting worse and worse.

You jump to regulation as the only thing to solve this? You could just not play those games. There's literally thousands upon thousands of alternatives that don't do this.

It’s an addiction. Unless the business self-regulates it’s a prime target for regulation. See also - tobacco, alcohol, drugs.

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

#172

Post by Rotdhizon »

Posted it the other day on another thread, will post it here again so people can see it. Here is my own experience with this.

As crazy as these articles have been about gaming addiction being a medical condition are, I believe it. I'm in my early 20s, ever since I was in my mid teens I was addicted to video games. All through grade school and in college now, I struggle to put the controller down. I routinely don't get enough sleep because I can't stop playing. As soon as I come home I am on, and I won't get off until the early hours of the morning. It's a mixture of reasons why I guess; it keeps my mind off of reality, I enjoy the satisfaction of winning frequently, and it fulfills my desire of being in a progression based system. Achievements, knowing that my actions will eventually unlock achievements and level-ups, it keeps me going. I can't play games that don't have progression systems of some sort because I feel like without progression, it's a waste of time. Sure you can kind of get that in the real world, but it's harder and takes so much longer. Why do that when I have an easy alternative sitting on my desk? I really want to break my addiction to gaming as it really does affect some parts of my life, especially academic.

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

#173

Post by radisb »

ikeyany wrote: post #79
Tycho wrote: post #53

Video games are fine for some people, but for nerd-like personalities they present far too great a temptation to supplant real life goal obtainment with virtual status/achievement. I think its helpful to make people aware of this tendency, and unhelpful to wave it away with a comparison to some more widespread non-nerd past-time like watching TV or sports.

We wouldn't want to devalue real achievements like obsessively cultivating a large social media following, which isn't a mental disorder at all.

Apparently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive

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

#174

Post by dwringer »

hans0l074 wrote: post #166
mattlondon wrote: post #109

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…

I get what you mean, but I have "strengthened my will" against this, I suppose. There are games like the Dark Souls/Bloodborne series, where you can "quit" anytime, and if you restart, you are in the exact same spot as before. In the worse case, you get killed by roaming enemies/other invading players (it's mainly a single player game with multiplayer elements) - but I die in these bloody games anyway, so I don't car…

In WoW it was often a nightmare of dooming between 3 and 39 other people to twenty minutes of trying to find a replacement instead of actually playing the game. Not a big deal for the person who quits, admittedly.

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

#175

Post by DEADBEEFC0FFEE »

mattlondon wrote: post #109

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…

I can relate. I have taught myself to judge the impact of the StayAndPlay behavioral, and if necessary Alt-F4, walk away.

Getting the shopping out of the car when my wife gets back is not more important, but not helping my wife is perceived as rude, and that is important.

I'm trying to teach my boy this. Fortnite is absolutely gaming crack designed by psychologists. Powerful shit.

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

#176

Post by Kihashi »

jackewiehose wrote: post #162
mattlondon wrote: post #109

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…

> I really wish games would allow you to just quit whenever you want without risking your in-game progress. I love how the Nintendo Switch allows you to pause any game, any time immediately. Even during load screens! And you can suspend the console. Although I don't know what happens when the battery runs out. I which they would enforce something like this for PC/steam games. But of course it won't help much with onl…

> Although I don't know what happens when the battery runs out

What you'd expect- you lose any unsaved progress. Some games have autosave, though, so it's not like you usually lose a huge amount. Also, the battery life in suspend mode is pretty long, IME. Generally several days at least.

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

#177

Post by cirgue »

announcerman wrote: post #140
cirgue wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because activities related to those things create sustained material security and personal fulfillment. Your efforts at building a strong network of friends pay dividends for decades, the equivalent amount of time playing video games has no bearing on your life a year from now.

So in your opinion all efforts that result in the optimization or improvement of something decided as relevant by yourself are worthwhile?

All any of us have here are opinions, and yeah it’s my opinion that any time spent doing things that don’t lead to some better future state is the pastime equivalent of junk food: I eat junk food and enjoy it from time to time, but I also don’t ever make the mistake of confusing it with nourishment or trying to justify why it’s good for me.

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

#178

Post by bootstf »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #172

Posted it the other day on another thread, will post it here again so people can see it. Here is my own experience with this. As crazy as these articles have been about gaming addiction being a medical condition are, I believe it. I'm in my early 20s, ever since I was in my mid teens I was addicted to video games. All through grade school and in college now, I struggle to put the controller down. I routinely don't ge…

It's not that far fetched, really.

For a lack of a better word, modern video games are increasingly "manipulative" when it comes to incentivizing players to play more, and without sounding conspiratorial, gaming companies probably benefit a whole lot from gaming addictions fueled by progression systems like you mentioned.

Compare that to classic games like Earthbound where an in-game character will bug you repeatedly to take a break if you play for too long. An extreme and nostalgic example, but mostly my point is that developers are much better at developing "hooks" in a gameplay loop that keeps a player going now in addition to games being way more stimulating.

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

#179

Post by willio58 »

bitL wrote: post #164
keshav_ wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they didn't say these things can't be addiction.

Why is suddenly some fringe gamer "epidemics" treated as more important (WHO level? seriously?) than vastly more prevalent smartphone-based social addiction?

If the WHO hasn’t started looking at social networks and the like, it’s just a matter of time. Why should there be a hault in studying the effects of games just because there hasn’t been enough studies on social networks and phones?

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

#180

Post by Mirioron »

dragonwriter wrote: post #42
Mirioron wrote: post #13

A bad parent could easily make a child fit all the criteria given by just being a bad parent. Something like this should not exist in the ICD. There should be a general addiction disorder that puts forth general criteria for showing that a person has an addiction for something. This just looks like a scapegoat to me.

> A bad parent could easily make a child fit all the criteria given by just being a bad parent. That's just as true of lots of diagnoses of physical and mental conditions and injuries. (bone fractures and PTSD are obvious examples.) The fact that bad parenting can cause a condition doesn't invalidate the diagnosis of the condition. > Something like this should not exist in the ICD. There should be a general addiction…

>The fact that bad parenting can cause a condition doesn't invalidate the diagnosis of the condition.

You misunderstood me. The bad parent causes it by being there. If you removed the bad parent then there would be no problem.

One of the criteria (although not mentioned in this article) is that the person is having negative consequences happen in a family situation because of their gaming. A bad parent could cause these negative consequences by simply being a bad parent and as a result the kid could withdraw into gaming. With this disorder around the parent can simply blame the kid playing games without looking at their own behavior.

>A scapegoat for what?

For people who alienate those close to them, so that they can blame something else other than their behavior. If a kid wants to interact with their family then they will.

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