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WHO Gaming Disorder Listing a 'Moral Panic', Say Experts (bbc.com) 159

Posted by msmash from the opposing-views dept.
The decision to class gaming addiction as a mental health disorder was "premature" and based on a "moral panic," experts have said. From a report: The World Health Organization included "gaming disorder" in the latest version of its disease classification manual. But biological psychology lecturer Dr Peter Etchells said the move risked "pathologising" a behaviour that was harmless for most people. The WHO said it had reviewed available evidence before including it. It added that the views reflected a "consensus of experts from different disciplines and geographical regions" and defined addiction as a pattern of persistent gaming behaviour so severe it "takes precedence over other life interests." Speaking at the Science Media Centre in London, experts said that while the decision was well intentioned, there was a lack of good quality scientific evidence about how to properly diagnose video game addiction.
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WHO Gaming Disorder Listing a 'Moral Panic', Say Experts More

WHO Gaming Disorder Listing a 'Moral Panic', Say Experts

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  • Moral panic: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Narcocide ( 102829 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @06:04PM (#56839508) Homepage

    My God! They've stopped watching television commercials. Something must be done! Think of the childrens' revenue!!

    • They've got that covered with in-game ads and product placements.
      Fear not.

    • difference between use and abuse (Score:5, Interesting)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @07:19PM (#56839768)

      What they are saying is not that gaming leads to addiction but rather some addicable people make gaming their addiction.

      This is unquestionably true.

      You can say the same thing about cleaning your ears with a Q-tip or sucking on a lollypop.

      People who use drugs are not neccessarily addicts. People who abuse drugs often are addicts.

      And so we need a category to describe, Q-tip fixation, drug addiction, and gaming addiction.

      Unwanted compulsive behaviour is also different than compulsive behaviour. If it's unwanted but not under control it is a problem and so they classify it as such.

      okay everybody can calm down now.

      • Pretty much yeah. Compulsive disorder can manifest as hoarding cats, reading books, or playing video games. Yes, people do stay up until 5am reading novels and destroy their lives because they can no longer function; compulsive reading disorders were well-recognized a few decades ago, before people decided reading was some kind of holy art.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          What is the actual problem and what are the symptoms of the problem. The problem itself can also be interpreted differently based upon what is considered socially normative. This to the point that, 'is the individual sick or is society sick', the problem and the symptoms of course people behaving in an 'unhealthy' fashion, with regards to the own physical health and well as the perceptions of mental health of the society of which they are a part.

          So gaming addiction a problem or simply the symptom of a prob

          • People seeking to escape tend to have other issues not caused by their route of escape. For example: drug addicts tend to have social and financial issues which, while exacerbated by drug abuse, are nevertheless still there without the drugs. Addiction and compulsion on their own can be internally-manifested, and can consume a person with no other troubles in life; the diagnosis is different depending on whether it's internally or externally triggered.

            Inherently we do live in an insane society bound by capitalism, where one persons capital worth is worth more than an infinite number of other people's lives (the police can kill one, or ten or one hundred, one thousand etc. people to stop them robbing a building with other people's money even when no lives are under threat).

            That's not capitalism. Capitalism is just control

      • What they are saying is not that gaming leads to addiction but rather some addicable people make gaming their addiction.

        This is unquestionably true.

        You can say the same thing about cleaning your ears with a Q-tip or sucking on a lollypop.

        True. But at least nobody would be crazy enough to make a business model that is solely profitable based on 1 in 5,000 sealed Q-tip boxes containing a gold-hued Q-tip...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yeah, probably. Or maybe some religion did suffer by people doing something they actually enjoy instead of compulsively praying to some irrational fantasy.
      Follow the money. There are enough "experts" that are up for sale to justify anything if the price is right.

  • The real issue: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @06:07PM (#56839518) Homepage
    When children play role-playing games, they aren't learning about real life.

    Most children don't have fully competent parents, apparently. So there is no one to teach them.

    • Re: The real issue: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Real life is just a role playing game.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        How do I change my character's class mid-game?

        • I've done it 2 or 3 times. And I don't think I'm especially remarkable in that regard.

        • Funny. World of Warcraft has an applicable lesson here too; Visit your class trainer. Be prepared to spend a lot of money to unlearn everything you thought you already knew.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Mashiki ( 184564 )

          Training. How else? In a RPG, skills aren't handed out to you. In life they aren't either. The difference between the two is that while you're playing the RPG for enjoyment, it usually glosses over the hard work required to get there. Though there are some games that have a near-realistic training period, Eve is a good example of this. People like to call it the spreadsheet simulator, but you get nowhere without investment into the character you've created.

          The problem? Some games let you pay your way

    • True I learned my life skills playing Postal 2.

    • Re:The real issue: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @06:20PM (#56839572)

      When children play role-playing games, they aren't learning about real life.

      Children also are not learning about real life when they listen to pop music, watch sitcoms on TV, or play with Legos. Nothing in real life is as simple and logical as Legos.

      Most children don't have fully competent parents, apparently.

      Competent parents don't join in moral panics. There is no evidence that video games are particularly harmful. I use "positive parenting", so my kids have a list of required things (homework, chores, enrichment activities) and not a list of prohibited things. Their free time is their own.

      • You'd best step the fuck off of LEGO. They don't deserve to be lumped in with your shitty mind-control programming

      • > Nothing in real life is as simple and logical as Legos.

        Challenge accepted. Now, what do I do: simplify life in a Fascist autocracy or make Legos illogical?

      • ". Nothing in real life is as simple and logical as Legos."

        Except engineering. Legos seem deceptively simple but how many assembly combinations are possible with the average kit? Given the ways you can put them together, it must be in the billions at least.

    • If you have credentials, please present them.

      WHO is including all of the planet.

      Most children ...

      Where did you get data on more than 50% of the children on the planet?

      How do your findings include children without parents?

      What does your study say adult gaming addiction?

      Also, role playing is actually a way to teach.

      Role models do it all the time.

    • I think that's more likely the real problem. It's folks finding something to do with their time besides work and have mountains of kids. If you're a member of the ruling class that worries you. You can't have your slaves cutting back on hours or babies because that's where all your power comes from.

    • Re:The real issue: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @06:45PM (#56839650) Homepage

      When children play role-playing games, they aren't learning about real life. Most children don't have fully competent parents, apparently. So there is no one to teach them.

      You could say the exact same thing about TV, most series and shows aren't exactly realistic and deadbeat parents certainly isn't new so I don't see how this generation is worse off than the last. If you're gaming you're at least thinking a bit for yourself rather than mindlessly watching a show, so I think you're slightly better off than before even though playing Overwatch isn't exactly important life skills. The problem is more that through modern gaming metrics it's a finely tuned addiction machine with levels, gear, achievements, daily challenges, special events, loot boxes, XP bonuses and various tricks to poke and prod you into playing more. And now I'm old enough to see through it that I'm being manipulated, but not at 15 and probably not in my 20s either. One more round, one more level, one more trinket. We are kinda simple beings though when they tickle the brain's reward centers.

      • " If you're gaming you're at least thinking a bit for yourself rather than mindlessly watching a show..."

        I don't play role-playing games, but I have young acquaintances who do. I agree that they do seem to feel a lot of freedom to think for themselves.

        "The problem is more that through modern gaming metrics it's a finely tuned addiction machine with levels, gear, achievements, daily challenges, special events, loot boxes, XP bonuses and various tricks to poke and prod you into playing more. And now I'm old e

      • Re:The real issue: (Score:4, Interesting)

        by mapkinase ( 958129 ) on Monday June 25, 2018 @03:09AM (#56840814) Homepage Journal

        The problem is that gaming takes much more of your "real" life as a kid: learning physics and mathematics and programming and biology: you know, stuff that matters.

        I am old and I do not have time for gaming and, oh, boy, isn't that a time sucking activity. When I binge Frasier in upteenth time I can do it in background. Have you ever tried playing game in the background?

        Books and gaming are 100% time sucking activity while music and TV/movies are more tolerant to that.

        We went from hard hitting heroin escapism of books to soon to become (with advent of Internet streaming on your side second screen) light ganja addiction to movies and TV to the heroin on steroids: gaming.

        Back to childhood. Childhood is not supposed to be "happy". It is supposed to be very difficult and demanding, stressful and painful and if you are under delusion of giving your kids happy childhood, good luck suing your 30-year old son out of your basement. In the past people brought kids because they really needed them as a base for a quiet dignified childhood, now people make kids as pets, to groom them and play with them.

        Kids are not pets. Stop spoiling them with bullshit activities, be tiger dads and helicopter moms.

        And there bloody is no such thing as "teenage rebellion", it's a Western invention of degenerate lousy parents.

        • *quiet dignified old age

        • Re: The real issue: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Childhood is not "supposed to be" anything other than formative years. It certainly doesn't have to be the unpleasant experience you seem to have had. The level of happiness in a childhood is rooted in the actions, attitudes and circumstances of the parent and child.

    • The real issue is the assumption that every pastime must teach you about real life. Well, it doesnâ(TM)t. Sometimes you want that escapism, or you just want to chill and goof around.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )

      Children spend lots of time “learning” in school. Since when is school like real life?

    • The auction house in World of Warcraft taught me more about the real value of money than anything my parents or teachers could muster in the era before online gaming. I guess maybe that just supports your point about incompetent parenting, though.

    • > When children play role-playing games, they aren't learning about real life.

      So classify real life as a source of mental illness and start prescribing cures for it! Reduce competition and encourage learning until you get it right rather than awarding effort with failing grades, allow more flexible deadlines, no working late to get it done, teach politeness and charm, and much more. People avoid reality for a reason. Saying it is what is and you can't change it is stupid because reality is obvious

    • When children play role-playing games, they aren't learning about real life.

      Yeah, all they're doing is assembling a team of people with a wide of variety of skills and working together to accomplish their goals. There definitely isn't any real-life use for skills like that.

  • Experts (Score:4, Insightful)

    by manu0601 ( 2221348 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @06:40PM (#56839638)

    The decision to class gaming addiction as a mental health disorder was "premature" and based on a "moral panic," experts have said.

    This is a misleading sentence suggesting WHO had no experts working on it./p

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by evanh ( 627108 )

      I'm confident that what experts they did have are no longer in the loop. The legal declarations around addiction as a whole reek of driven bureaucracy. Lacking of real science and certainly lacking of experts.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      There is no doubt some experts were involved. There is extreme doubt these experts were actually qualified experts for the question at hand. The whole thing sound like political decision-making by committee, not by anything even remotely resembling a valid scientific process.

    • That's because BBC turned into a stinking tabloid.

  • Isn't this just like any other addiction? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite ( 721679 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @06:49PM (#56839658)

    Why would this be so hard to diagnose compared to for example the diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV for 312.31 (Pathological Gambling)?

    A. Persistent and recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior as indicated by at least five of the following
    1. is preoccupied with gambling (e.g., preoccupied with reliving past gambling experiences, handicapping or planning the next venture, or thinking of ways to
    get money with which to gamble)
    2. needs to gamble with increasing amounts of money in order to achieve the desired excitement
    3. has repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop gambling
    4. is restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop gambling
    5. gambles as a way of escaping from problems or of relieving a dysphoric mood (e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression.
    6. after losing money gambling, often returns another day in order to get even (“chasing” one’s losses)
    7. lies to family members, therapist, or others to conceal the extent of involvement with gambling
    8. has committed illegal acts, such as forgery, fraud, theft, or embezzlement, in order to finance gambling
    9. has jeopardized or lost a significant relationship, job, or educational or career opportunity because of gambling
    10.relies on others to provide money to relieve a desperate financial situation caused by gambling
    B. The gambling behavior is not better accounted for by a Manic Episode.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Simple: Not many people do actually suffer it and the low numbers are not enough to support a nice, self-aggrandizing panic. Hence the criteria had to be specially hand-crafted to identify more "sick" people.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Not really. Because I can apply 5 points of those to gear heads(people who work on cars obsessively) for example. Or people who repeatedly build new PC's for themselves, even if they don't game, or even people who are bookworms. Really though it seems more to me that the old entertainment world is worried more about video games replacing them then anything else. The gaming market it bigger then Hollywood for example, the stigma of being a gamer/geek/nerd that most of us lived through the 70's, 80's, 90'

      • Not really. Because I can apply 5 points of those to gear heads(people who work on cars obsessively) for example. Or people who repeatedly build new PC's for themselves, even if they don't game, or even people who are bookworms.

        Which 5 criteria? Being restless or irritable when prevented from doing their hobby is the only one that I can see being at all possible that doesn't indicate a serious problem.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swb ( 14022 )

      Just speaking as a parent of a 13 year old, I can say that controlling my kid's desire to play Fortnite scores about 7-8/10 on those questions. It probably hasn't devolved into a totally destructive addiction because he hasn't snuck out to other kids' houses to play or attempted to restore access to the PS4 when it has been taken away by mom and dad.

      1) When he can't play, he will watch videos about Fortnite and often engages mom and dad in conversations about new Fortnite weapons, skins, etc.

      2) Wants to sp

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      So, I was involved with DSM-5 (you could look up my name but I'm not telling).

      You're right that this could probably lumped in with gambling, because in terms of learning schedules they're very much the same (e.g., both have variable reinforcement schedules). Many games are essentially gambling.

      The DSM (and ICD) to some extent tends to be horribly conservative though. Some of this is maybe well-founded, because of real concerns over overpathologizing, but some of it has to do with the scientific culture in f

      • So, I was involved with DSM-5 (you could look up my name but I'm not telling).

        You're right that this could probably lumped in with gambling, because in terms of learning schedules they're very much the same (e.g., both have variable reinforcement schedules). Many games are essentially gambling.

        The DSM (and ICD) to some extent tends to be horribly conservative though. Some of this is maybe well-founded, because of real concerns over overpathologizing, but some of it has to do with the scientific culture in formal institutions of psychiatry and clinical psychology, which tends to be focused on superficial aspects of behavioral patterns.

        There's lots of aspects of this that are messed up, though. "Addiction" probably isn't quite the right word for either gambling or gaming problems though, because the neurobiological pathways are different from those involved in drug use problems. They're probably their own thing. There's a history of people in the field of behavioral sciences and out of the field making well-meaning models or metaphors, and then taking them very literally. E.g., there are some things about gambling and pathological gaming that are like drug addictions, and other things that are different, and other things that are probably more like compulsions. It can both be a problem and sort of like and sort of not like any of those things. People need to start being comfortable with any given behavioral phenomenon being its own thing, while having elements in common with other things.

        It's pretty clear that some people do have gaming-related behavioral problems. Do you need a separate disorder for it in the DSM or ICD though? Maybe or maybe not, but I'm not sure that the answer to that question is entirely scientific. It's sort of scientific and sort of not. There are an quasi-infinite number of ways for someone to have mental illness, but we don't specifically label them all, for example.

        Hope you're reading this. Thank you for the explanation, whoever you are.

  • Subcategories include... (Score:5, Funny)

    by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @06:49PM (#56839660)

    Subcategories include...

    Leeroy Jenkins syndrome

    Ganking

    Camping respawn points ...

  • A man who believes he's really a woman and ends up mutilating his body is perfectly normal, but playing some video games a bit too much is a mental disorder.

  • "takes precedence over other life interests." (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Shemmie ( 909181 ) on Sunday June 24, 2018 @07:51PM (#56839838)

    That can be called a 'hobby', depending on how extreme we're talking.

  • That would be politics. Using a "consensus of experts from different disciplines and geographical regions" is a fail in science, unless strictly limited to qualified experts in actually strongly relevant areas. This mainly shows that the WHO does either not understand science or that the practice has been annihilated by politics within it.

    • Using a consensus of a single discipline of experts from a single geographical area will get you cultural bias. Relevant expertise in various disciplines overlapping with the study of addictive behavior pathology provides valid input and, along with geographical spread, breaks discipline- and geography-based cultural fixations.

      Bringing in a mechanical engineer for a psychology problem is irrelevant, however.

  • To many disorders (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The problem is that there is a hundred disorders to represent every possible manifestation of what seems just to be all something like an obsessive disorders, the actual symptoms aren't unreasonable, if a kid dies because he doesn't want to get up from his computer as was the case of a kid in South Korea, that clearly unhealthy, its just you can take out the reference to video games and substitute any of the things that people get an unhealthy obsession with, what would the difference between video game add

  • But biological psychology lecturer Dr Peter Etchells said the move risked "pathologising" a behaviour that was harmless for most people.

    Well if that's the criteria for not being a disorder I guess we can cross off alcohol and opioids (ie, medical painkillers) off the list of medical addictions.

    • Only if you take as a given that those things don't harm most people who use them. For alcohol this is especially doubtful, since it's toxic.

    • In psychiatry, a behavior isn't a disorder unless it causes harm. For example: you can have various forms of dementia and contain them with cognitive behavioral therapy. If you've responded to the minor hallucinations and odd thinking of a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder by no-selling it, it's not (negatively) affecting your life and your ability to thrive, so it's not a psychiatric disorder.

  • compulsive behavior that is legitimately harmful should be categorized by the severity and not by the topic of compulsion. Certainly a game addict would receive different treatment to a gambling addict. That does not mean that the media's pop psychology ought to construct an exhaustive list to scare people. And the difference in disorders does matter so that each individual should get individual treatment because the causes of the compulsion varies between individuals and what is effect in treatment also va

  • ... of name calling a name calling? WHO labeled gaming whatever-it-is a "disorder" and "expert" labeled that labeling "moral panic"?

  • Hobby? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday June 25, 2018 @06:26AM (#56841294)

    defined addiction as a pattern of persistent gaming behaviour so severe it "takes precedence over other life interests.

    That's the definition of a hobby. I have several hobbies in my own life that I strongly prioritize over other things I could be doing but that doesn't make them harmful. Quite the opposite actually. For it to be an addiction, with the negative implications one thinks of when using the word addiction, there needs to be some sort of measurable harm beyond mere opportunity cost [wikipedia.org].

    I'm sure there are people who have a pathological interest in playing video games to the point where they start neglecting health, hygiene, relationships, work, bills, etc. Once you get to that sort of point then we can talk about addictions and mental health disorders. Not really different than any other sort of addiction in that regard. I'm not sure video game addiction is really measurably different from someone who simply watches WAY too much TV so I wonder if it is a pointless distinction.

    • defined addiction as a pattern of persistent gaming behaviour so severe it "takes precedence over other life interests.

      That's the definition of a hobby. I have several hobbies in my own life that I strongly prioritize over other things I could be doing but that doesn't make them harmful.

      No, it isn't. "Other life interests" are not alternate recreational activities. Playing video games on a Sunday afternoon instead of going to the beach, playing golf, or making furniture in your basement is not an addiction. "Life interests" are things like going to your job or taking care of your children.

      • No, it isn't. "Other life interests" are not alternate recreational activities.

        Yes it is. It's not JUST recreational activities but the term is sufficiently broad as to cover nearly every human endeavor. I understand that they probably mean the more critical life tasks but that isn't what they said. If "life interests" is some sort of secret code among researchers in addiction then they need to come up with a new term.

        "Life interests" are things like going to your job or taking care of your children.

        Life interests means a lot of things. Even for critical tasks like a job or caring for children there is a LOT of room for variation in performance before it really

  • Because if you drink 20 cups of coffee per day you're probably self-medicating for ADHD or depression, and suffering from massive side effect such as anxiety and insomnia.

  • Just ask the people that are around them. I would have been diagnosed as addicted at one point in time. All of my free time was spent in front of the PC playing some stupid MMO or another. I ate my meals there, I waved at the fam on my way through the house after work as I settled myself in front of the computer, I pretty much didn't do much else. I've since learned techniques to solve my MMO addiction, but unfortunately those techniques bleed over into everything else where I find it hard to be interes

  • Must Level Up.. (Score:3)

    by neoRUR ( 674398 ) on Monday June 25, 2018 @11:15AM (#56842722)

    Just a sec I will post a comment, just after I level up...

  • Yes, and D&D was a problem, and before that rock and roll...

    Though I will say, that some parts of video games have some addiction issues. But that has nothing to do with "Video Games" but rather gambling, and gambling addiction is already a thing. A lot of smart people have built into games various things now like "loot boxes" which is really just gambling for kids. The same way that you might call a video slots a video game. They got tricky about it linking it indirectly to other insidious things like

  • Religion should also become a mental disorder. Either way gaming is turning into religion.

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