Has school destroyed your creativity and self-confidence? I'm working on a book called Recovering From School, to help you heal the damage caused. Join the Patreon or Newsletter to be notified about updates. Paid Patreon members will get early draft previews, as well as a free digital copy when it's done.
School Survival > News >
US: Game addiction 'mental disorder'
San Francisco - An American Medical Association committee recently took steps to classify video game addiction as a mental disorder.
After nearly a year of studying the issue, an AMA committee concluded, in a 10-page report, that excessive video game playing leads to what it describes as "social dysfunction/disruption".
As a result, the AMA panel "strongly encourages the consideration and inclusion of 'internet/video game addiction' as a formal diagnostic disorder in the upcoming revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV," according to the report.
In the same report, the AMA panel also suggests video game playing be limited to less than two hours a day, and the Centres For Disease Control and the National Science Foundation conduct additional research into the long-term effects of video game playing on people under the age of 18.
More fuel for heated debate
An AMA policy-making body will take the recommendations into account when it meets later this month.
The findings, and the recommendations, are more fuel for the heated debate about the impact of long-term video gaming, especially among teenagers.
A growing number of medical professionals believe video game addiction is indeed a mental illness.
But, as to be expected, producers of video games and consoles say the worries are overblown.
For example, a 2005 study by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), whose members account for 90% of all the video games sold, concluded there is no causal relationship between video game violence and aggression.
-Ben Charny
========
Video games wouldn't be so addictive if reality didn't suck so much in comparison.
Posted by: SoulRiser
Source Article
Where to next? Pick one!
- Check out the Alternatives to School section
- Join our Patreon
- Sign up for our newsletter
Posted in: News on June 15, 2007 @ 12:00 AM
If you like what we're doing here, you can become a Patron and sign up for our newsletter!
Maybe calling so many things "mental disorders" is a mental disorder.
what i have a gripe with is not some idiot organization coming up with some stupid opinion, it's if a higher power decides to make a law out of this
Video game addiction is just that, an addiction. Atleast they haven't called it a disease, although they might of well have, I guess.
A play different musical instruments for more then two hours a day, does that make it an addiction?
And Soul's right, we wouldn't have "videogame/tv/computer" addictions if reality didn't suck so much. *cough* school *cough* *cough* a 9-5 *cough*
a 9-5 doesn't necessarily suck. although most of the good jobs tend to be different hours, but still, some people like them
some people... like the managers? :P