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Nearly anywhere you go, it\u2019s easy to find children and adults alike transfixed by their phones, and while texting and social media certainly claim a big part of that attention, increasingly it\u2019s gaming that\u2019s drawing us in.<\/strong><\/p>\n At the World Health Organization\u2019s World Health Assembly on Saturday, member states officially\u00a0recognized gaming addiction as a modern disease. Last year, the\u00a0WHO voted to include gaming disorder as an official condition\u00a0in the draft version of its latest International Classification of Diseases (ICD); the vote finalizes that decision. The WHO\u2019s ICD, currently in its 11th edition, serves as the international standard for diagnosing and treating health conditions.<\/strong><\/p>\n According to Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesperson for the WHO, the move is \u201cbased on reviews of the available evidence,\u201d and reflects general agreement among experts around the world that some people show a \u201cpattern of gaming behavior characterized by impaired control,\u201d prioritizing gaming over other daily responsibilities, including attending school or work and keeping social appointments.<\/strong><\/p>\n According to the WHO experts who analyzed studies on gaming behavior, people\u2019s use of gaming is different from their use of the internet, social media, online gambling, and online shopping. There isn\u2019t sufficient data, they say, to indicate that people\u2019s reliance on those is a \u201cbehavioral addiction\u201d the way gaming can be.<\/strong><\/p>\n According to the new definition, gaming behavior shifts into a disorder when it takes precedence over other daily activities, and starts to impair a person\u2019s relationships, school or work responsibilities for at least a year.<\/strong><\/p>\n Still, not all behavior experts agree that gaming is distinct enough from other internet or smartphone-based behavior, and question why gaming is singled out. The criteria used by the WHO are similar to those used to distinguish any addictive behavior\u2014namely. that the behavior starts to take priority over a person\u2019s life to the exclusion of behaviors essential to good health.<\/strong><\/p>\n Some researchers note that not enough research has been done on gaming behavior, and particularly the gaming culture, to warrant its description as a disorder. Michelle Colder Carras, an independent contractor on public mental health issues who has published research on gaming behavior, does not rule out that some gaming behavior can be problematic but notes that some of the studies highlighting the addictive and all-consuming nature of gaming, include not just gaming but for general internet and smartphone use, and therefore may not measure gaming\u2019s specific effect.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with gaming and other\u2026new media is that they produce a different culture,\u201d says Carras, who also considers herself a gamer. \u201cBut clinicians are approaching this behavior from an understanding of a disorder based on a continuum of normative, recreational and problematic use rather than from the setting or context of a unique, new culture.\u201d Carras, for example, points out that gaming fulfills a participatory and social need for some.<\/strong><\/p>\n Rather than singling out gaming, Carras and others support the idea of researching internet use and potentially problematic dependence on technology more broadly, to better understand some of the commonalities that patterns of gaming, social media and internet use might share.<\/strong><\/p>\n At the very least, however, the inclusion of gaming disorder in the ICD may raise awareness about potentially concerning ways that people rely on gaming, and trigger new research on it as well as other technology-related behaviors that will only continue to grow as devices and internet access reach more and more people around the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nearly anywhere you go, it\u2019s easy to find children and adults alike transfixed by their phones, and while texting and social media certainly claim a … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","tag-disorder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":680,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions\/680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tipsforahealthylife.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}