Experts say gaming is no addiction

davetaylor-gamer.jpg

A proposal this past Sunday that would have made gaming addiction an actual disorder was shut down at the American Medical Associations annual meeting. “There is nothing here to suggest that this is a complex physiological disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders, and it doesn’t get to have the word addiction attached to it,” said Dr. Stuart Gitlow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

If gaming addiction was added as a real disorder, it would give insurance companies the opportunity to cover treatment for the addiction. Doctors say that if evidence proves more viable in the future, they might consider it for the next disorder booklet, to be published in 2012. Only in extreme cases does it interfere with day-to-day life. Yeah, tell that to some of the WoW players I’ve talked too. — Andrew Dobrow

Link

About Andrew

Hey Folks! Myself Andrew Emerson I'm from Houston. I'm a blogger and writer who writes about Technology, Arts & Design, Gadgets, Movies, and Gaming etc. Hope you join me in this journey and make it a lot of fun.

4 comments

  1. okay listen up. if you spend all of your time playing a video game you are not addicted. addiction affects you physically, as in you could die if you dont play the game. It’s a HABIT. like biting your nails but a lot more entertaining and expensive.

    Anyway, if you play video games enough that you would consider it your life…congradulations….you’re not an addict, you’re even worse. you are a LOSER. Even people who make careers out of it. If you like the fucking games so much make them thats a much better idea. and i dont mean free online flash games.

    Oh Yea

    and

    FUCK HALO
    FUCK WOW
    FUCK COD4

    Mario
    Sonic
    Donkey Kong
    Megaman
    …..kickass

    TEKKEN 6!!!!! ^ – ^

  2. @sean Well, it you play games so much that it gets to the point where you have some sort of physical withdrawal (which can happen with anything if you do it enough), at that point I think it’s safe to say it’s an addiction.

  3. “Withdrawal, also known as withdrawal/abstinence syndrome, refers to the characteristic signs and symptoms that appear when a drug that causes physical dependence is regularly used for a long time and then suddenly discontinued or decreased in dosage. The term can also, less formally, refer to symptoms that appear after discontinuing a drug or other substance (unable to cause true physical dependence) that one has become psychologically dependent upon.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal

    I don’t mean to be a dick about it, but it’s more a psychological withdrawal. Though, I agree that some people do become obsessed with certain games or gaming in general, I side with their decision not to include it as an addiction, but to leave to up for review next time.

    I suppose the issue is that the word addiction is thrown around all too often, when people in that area believe that addiction only refers to substances. So, Internet addiction, shopping, gaming and sex are all behavioral. Though, I’ll admit, all those can be very serious and share a lot of traits with addictions (such as alienating friends and relationships, a serious impact on choices).

  4. What I hate is how modern society tries to medicalize everything.
    Sex addiction – that’s assenine, the person is just behaving like a dick.
    Gaming addiction – the person is just stupid enough to let gaming take over their life.

    It’s like saying “I’m addicted to being a dick a parties. I can’t help it if I piss you off, it’s a disease.” I
    t’s just peoples’ natural instinct to blame something. If you can shift the blame from being a slut/loser/twat to a medical condition you can get away with things that would normally be seen as socially unacceptable.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *