Gaming To Be Declared A Disease?

I have too say this is just another insane anti video game attack. Yes some teens play alot of video games, some suffer in school because of it. Heaven forbid teens do something that entertains them. On another note atleast the kid in the article isn't playing video games and doing drugs because I've run into quite a few people in WoW that go AFK to smoke a joint.

Ok this **** has to stop. VIDEO GAMES ARE A VIABLE MEDIA. They should not be subjected to stupid criticism and ridiculous notions that they cause violence, lack of real life companionship, teen angsts, sexual promiscuity, etc. They are a source of entertainment, a art form, and above all, a game. Fucking baby boomers don't know what there talking about.

how about teenage sex? in my school, more than 4 14 year old girls have had an abortion. they pay more attention to the gamers than they do to the massivly growing population of kids having sex.

at times video games have given me more purpose, even if it's temporary and fantasy, than my teachers and parents could. before they accuse our games they should look at their own.

Great now i have an excuse to playing video games. Dad its a disease... and there... isnt a cure. yeah im with MOOSEBLADE and UVER about this. I'm pretty sure kids F***ing each other is a bigger problem than playing a fun mind exploding, most times days consuming game. Man everyone is out of touch

i said it before and i'llsay it again comunism, why not?

Regardless of what the 12 step programme may say, any psychological addiction is not a somatic disease. If it were, there would be medication to cure it. These people are not genuine psychiatrists. They should know what I've just said from day one of training.

How is this an attack on video games? They are just trying to make a quick buck. There are some pretty crazy psychs out there, it kind of comes with the profession. However I do think they are taking it a bit far. If a teen is having trouble with life because they are addicted to video games, any psychiatrist can diagnose that, its not that hard.

While it most certainly can be an addiction just like anything else, when you go as far as to say it's a psychiatric disorder you really have to think of the perspective, like you said, with all the other things that we would be MORE addicted to like you like tv. I do find it funny though that they say "Overuse most often occurs with online role-playing games involving multiple players". So I guess that means we are overusing it when we are there for the social aspect, Flying Spaghetti Monster save us if we actually make friends.

I remember the GR article about crime rates from the 70's and today, posted ages ago. According to the statistics the youth of the 70's ranging from 18 to 24 yrs I believe, were four times as violent as kids with PS2's playing GTA: San Andreas today. Take a look backwards in time; when cartoons (as in COMICBOOKS) were published for the first time, they were almost immediately considered to be banned. Same thing with jazz, rock, and now... videogames. I look forward to when I get old: "When I was a teenager, we socialized by playing online with each other instead of plugging our brains into an AI controlled computer!" It just goes on and on. Kids invent something new, old folks don't understand.

Suburban America neeeeeeeds a scapegoat. Just look how fast mixed media (including video games) got the tail pinned on it after Virginia tech. They're just too afraid that maybe they might have to face up to humanities fundamental flaws in their perfect children.

Not to welcome in ire, but it seems sensible enough that an ADDICTION to videogames could be classified as a pathological. I look to gambling as an analogue. Both an entertainment and a profession, one which offers variable ratio rewards based on a combination of chance and skill, gambling also has a disorder associated with it (pathological gambling). That's not to say that gambling is bad in and of itself, but simply that the nature of the rewards makes people more susceptible to addiction than, say, watching TV. It seems like the same would apply to videogames. Obviously, the article itself is horrifically ignorant about the whole thing (their 'telltale signs' are hardly a conclusive basis for psychological diagnosis), but I don't see the harm in establishing videogame addiction as an official disorder. The more people examine videogames empirically, the better.

This **** really pisses me off. I am a teen and I have been playing video games since i was six!! I never have failed a class, I do pretty well in school, its really just a form of entertainment. Its not a disease and people can get addicted but like what was mentioned earlier, people can become addicted to many....many things. There are worse problems, i believe kids ****ing each other was mentioned earlier.

what a load. Still, you said lots of teens fail classes. Yes they do but NOT lots. I mean if they were A students in 10th grade, played warcraft then failed in the 11th, yes its the games fault but wow is retarded. Do you actually complain to these people. I sure hope so

honestly, how is playing a video game a Disease?!? so basically they are saying, that playing a video game for an extended period of time, is the same as small pox?!? i have just one thing to say DIRECTLY to those 'psychiatrists': GET A MUTHA'FUKIN LIFE, IF YOU CAN AFFORD ONE! i am a teenager. i play video games online heaps. i stay up until 1:00, but it doesnt affect me, sure, i may try to kill someone at skool the next day for annoying me, but its all good. i agree 'jen5en', i saw that article, and i was like: ''wow, its sooo true!'', you know the ONE reason why?, BECAUSE PEOPLE TAKE THIER ANGER OUT ON THE GAME, NOT REAL PEOPLE. i think playing violent video games, is probally actually very GOOD for you. also on a TV show that i saw, playing a hard video game, online, while chatting, actually increses your heart rate almost equal to going for a small jog.

I can deal with video games being looked at as an addiction...beacuse hell there are a lot of games that will enthrall me to the point of not eating or sleeping for several hours...until the game is at least finished. But to imply the notion that my body is afflicted in a manner of a mental disability? You know, i also spend several hours at a time READING as well..man that must be a disorder too..oh god i also eat three meals a day...man...im one screwed up kid. Im gunna need to go shoot up to calm down.

Well you guys did notice, they are trying to make it a "disease" so that they can suck more money out of insurance companies. I say screw that and let these stupid people spend $5k a month to put their kids in therapy, when they could just take the damn game away. Like Duke said, I would rather have my kid sitting in his room playing WoW 5 hour a day than going out with his stoner buddies and hitting the bong...

Quick! My teenager has hormones!! We have to blame something! Preferably something inanimate that cant argue back! Surly and beligereant? Teenagers NEVER acted like this before!!

Game addiction most certainly is a problem. If your relationship with your friends, lovers, and family suffers just because of a video game, ti is most certainly a problem. But I wouldn't put the blame on the games so far to make it a specific mental disease. If there is a disease involved, playing games is most certainly a result, not the cause. Video game addiction usually occurs with the outcasts, kids that don't have much of a social life to begin with. People just don't ditch their close friends to play Halo.

Heres the Thing i have whole bunch of Friends (beleive it or not) and most of them drink but im just not into that and WoW buys me a great joke and an excuse to not go partying. "Hey Josh theres this crazy party tonight wanna come?" ,"no not really" "you rly need to grow a pair" see how that did not go any where, now watch as i inject WoW into the conversation "Hey Josh wanna come to a party?" , "No i gotta play WoW tonight", "hahaha ur such a nerd". WoW has prolly kept me out of more trouble then I can imagine

and another thing...last time i checked its not my fault that parents lakc basica communicaton skills with their children and that they can not teach their kids to be responsible and expect everyone else too do it for it...therapy screws more kids up than it does help them imo

Woo! Finally my addiction to heroin has been diminished. At least I'm not playing World of Warcraft.

Video game addiction is a problem, especially with online community based games. I would love it if something could be done about this, it would have helped me get better marks in school.

People are stupid.

Why does it surprise anyone when the far left makes an attempt to demonize any particular vice? After all, we raise our kids in public schools where they are aggressively taught that they are nothing more than animals in the food chain, it's ok to have two daddys, and the whole meaning of life is to have sex and acquire possessions. Meanwhile, the television bombards them with even more amoral horse shite while every other ad would have them believe that this or that drug will make their lives complete! This is the world that the baby boomers created, and it's much easier to blame vice when kids retreat, or lash out, rather than taking a cold hard look at the destructive ideals which they have so aggressively inoculated into western culture. Video games are only the latest scape goat of this scandal on humanity.

wow. WOW. The guys who wrote that insult to human intelligence need to find some non-video game playing teens and compare results.

Wow, THeFiSH.....wow.

You can devote your life to a certain passion, but it usually doesn't interfere with important issues in your life. If I work on my car to the point that I neglect my girlfriend enough that she leaves me, there is a problem. When you choose to let other important things fall apart pretty badly then you have a bad addiction.

What that doctor said is tripe. WoW may make you a bit more anti social in the eyes of people who you're ignoring to play it, but UNLIKE heroin, it wont screw your internal organs up, give you a physical dependence that can push you to stealing and even ultimately kill you. This is often the case with heroin. If you put 8 million (the estimate of WOW players) on heroin, i think the comparison would soon be scrapped.

Making Teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel.

I read that article before I saw it here. When I read it, it didnt really sound all that far fetched, considering the crazy amount of hours some people spend playing Everquest and World of Warcraft (hours isn't even appropriate, game time for most people on those games is measured in days). Usually peopel arguing against MMOGs being addictive say that people watch TV for similiar amounts of time. But just because shrinks aren't pointing their fingers at people who watch television all day doesn't mean that that isn't an unhealthy addiction also. I would say that both 12 hours of televsion a day and 12 hours of Warcraft a day is unhealthy. One of the interviewees in that article said that video game addici **** it.

We're teenagers, lots of **** happens, video games shouldn't even be blamed for weird **** happening with us. There are some of us that make straight A's and play video games. There are even some people who don't like video game, but they like music and other media, and they still flunk classes. There are cases of bad video game addiction, but it could be that the person has a bad mental disorder, or is socially awkward due to a condition. Hell, but this standard, I'm addicted to video games, and yet nobody has seen a problem with it in my life.

This is just real simple, ok? Games are games, and addiction is addiction. They are independent of one another and the two don't necessarily go hand in hand. There is indeed a point when people simply game too much (unless they're preparing for a tournament that might net them a lot of cash or praise or both), but that doesn't mean that they are addicted to gaming.

I've long been hesitant to accept that video games are addictive, and I've always seen the concept as an insult to real addicts, but when I see someone actualy come out and say that video games are more addictive than heroin... I don't even do drugs, yet I feel offended.

"This might just be the dumbest article I have ever read." - Duke Eh, I dunno Duke, I think this one might be a tad dumber... http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/06/26/sex.change.inmate.ap/index.html Yes. That murderer wants a sex change, and taxpayers pay for it.