Web And Game Addictions Might Become Official Disorders

[rosac]

Urm... good.

I used to be addicted to games, and it fucked my life over big time for that period, and when i came off, it was only because my dad had to physically remove the computer from my room. And i went mental at him, which i had never done before.

Maybe it's just me... but i dont want to go to that place again.

 

[xitel]

Sorry, going to only be able to respond to this line, because yes, they can. Gaming addiction is the same as gambling addiction or an addiction to certain kinds of food. It is termed a "psychological addiction" as opposed to a chemical addiction. Given a certain personality type, and enough time spent on an activity, the brain can physically be altered into requiring that activity in order to function at normal levels, thus becoming classified as an addiction. Now, yes, most of the cases in which people say "my son is addicted to games" is just a compulsion at worst, or more likely a parent refusing to blame themselves for awful parenting. But there are valid cases of internet and gaming addiction, and refusing to acknowledge them is not only offensive to them, but is directly hurtful due to impeding any attempts at treatment.

OK.

Games cannot addict. Fact.

They CAN peform Behavioural Addiction [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_addiction](a sub-category of compulsion that's been added to the defitinion of addiction - but does not, in itself, cause brain chemical alteration. It can cause the effects of addiction because of the Dopamine receptor in the brain misfiring over a particularly pleasurable substance - but that can include shopping, evangelicial worship, selh-cutting and work)

This category has not been accepted into the DSM-IV yet. It's only been proposed. Which is why adding a subcategory at this time would be paramount to defining a biochemical problem as a mental health issue - which would create a lot of those false positives I talked about earlier.

There are addicts that focus on games. That does NOT make games addictive or such things as game addicts exist. You take away the games from the addicts and they'll just re-focus on cutting, shopping or food - Because they have to.

Compulsion, NOT addiction. That's a mis-use of words that treats one set of symptoms as the other - which is not just offensive, but crippling to the understanding of the Dopamine receptor or other forms of compulsion.

I will admit that under that definition it may seem as though they're not specific addictions, but they're labelled as such because as I said earlier, the brain eventually physically changes to be unable to release certain neurochemicals without performing the addicted activity. As I said, they are not chemical addictions, in that the activity or substance is not actually directly causing the addiction, and it is instead more along the lines of a psychosomatic response, but it still exists. While it's not the same kind of addiction as cocaine or heroin addiction, it is not strictly speaking a compulsion because the brain becomes dependent upon them to act at the proper capacity. Yes, games cannot addict, but they can become an addiction. Labelling it as a chemical addiction would be foolish to the utmost, and would be harmful to treatment, I will admit to that much. But the refusal to admit that it is possible to become addicted to it is just as harmful. Take gambling addiciton, for example. Gambling addicts not only become unable to function properly without gambling regularly, they actually suffer psychosomatic withdrawal symptoms if they suddenly stop. I will agree that classifying ALL cases where someone plays too many videogames as "addictions" is just foolish and asinine, and indicative of people trying to find a scapegoat for their own problems. I'm just pointing out that a stalwart refusal of the potential of an addiction to video gaming can in fact be harmful to the small number of people that suffer from it legitimately.

 

[Iron Mal]

The problem with labelling gaming or internet use as an addiction (and mental disorder) is that it's somewhat hard to define what exactly consitutes 'addiction' when you're talking about something like video games.

Most addictions are typified by a dependancy on the substance that it is centered around and withdrawal symptoms when the urge to indulge in your addiction isn't met.

As we can see these are two things that can't really be applied to games or the internet, for starters, neither of them is a substance, they're behaviours (which leans them more towards being compulsions, something different entirely) and secondly, to my knowledge there aren't really any physical withdrawal symptoms when a supposed 'addict' is kept away from their 'fix' (sure, they may become emotional, irritated or upset but you'd probably see this in anyone who you asked not to do something they enjoy doing, I wouldn't exactly call irritation and boredom a sign of addiction).

When I literally have to grind up my copy of MW3 and snort it like cocaine then I'll agree with the idea that video game addiction exists and is a very real problem but until then I think that using the label of 'addiction' is just drawing away from the real problems that people who find themselves escaping reality through video games and the internet face.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

But the refusal to admit that it is possible to become addicted to it is just as harmful.

Which is why they haven't.

Take gambling addiciton, for example.

Doesn't exist.
Pathological Gambling does.

Addiction is a chemical addition to the brain, Compulsion/Impulse Control Disorder is the brain reacting wrongly to an external stimulus.

Different. Very different.

What people call gaming/internet addiction is ALREADY in the DSM under ICD. Where it belongs.

Games cannot addict without an underlying disorder, but they can be addicting to those who have an underlying disorder. That's a very serious point to stress. And a point that could potentially doom many people to lifetimes of misery if it's not taken seriously.

FFS, we still have "Amnesia" being "treated" by bonks on the head, Schizophrenia being mixed with Multiple Personality Disorder and Autism being treated as Savantic Charismats.

That's why this definition is exceptionally dangerous, because it fails to take account of an underlying problem in order to "blame games". That's why they're a bunch of twats.