‘Gaming disorder’ labelled a disease in hopes of prompting more support

Members of the gaming club at Loyalist College. Photo credit: Loyalist College.

By Jessica Clement

BELLEVILLE – Gaming addiction will be an officiated disease identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) in mid-2018, giving hope to those wanting help from the medical profession.

Defined in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases as a ‘gaming disorder’, the WHO intends to spark additional attention amongst health professionals, prompting them to further educate themselves on the risks, prevention, and treatment.

For local gamers, it is about time.

“I started using (gaming) as a way to escape from my real-life problems, to escape to a place where I could be anyone I wanted to be,” said Josh Graham, an avid gamer in Belleville. “It did affect my life negatively. I spent so much time gaming, I would forget to stop to eat or drink. I blew-off school to play more and didn’t do any work.”

The WHO characterizes a gaming disorder as a persistent or recurrent pattern of gaming that has a distinct negative impact on things such as family, social, school, or psychological well-being, describing the disorder on their website partially as, “increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities.”

Entertainment Software Association’s statement made to Gamasutra in response to the WHO adding ‘gaming disorder’ to its list of diseases. Photo credit: Gamasutra.

Graham responded to the Entertainment Software Association, saying he doesn’t believe the acknowledgment of this issue undermines other mental health disorders.

“It’s a really big problem for some gamers, and it deserves to be taken seriously,” he said.

However, he also hopes that this new classification doesn’t fuel opposition towards the gaming industry and players.

“It isn’t the industries fault, everything should be enjoyed in moderation,” he said, “I’d really hate to see somebody spin this into an excuse to demoralize gamers and game companies.”

The WHO also noted that only a small percentage of gamers actually become addicted. A study done by Iowa State University published in 2009 claimed that out of a pool of 1,178 American youths, psychologists found that one in 10 of the gamers could be classified as addicted, or “pathological players”. The study also found that pathological players played for twice as long per week as non-pathological players, and were more likely to experience attention difficulties in school, poorer grades, additional health problems, and were more likely to have a video game system in their bedroom.

Over the course of her entire career as a counsellor at Loyalist College Rebecca Lazar said she’s engaged with a handful of students expressing difficulty managing their lives because of a video game or computer game addiction.

“I don’t know that the problem is getting any worse than it was maybe five or six years ago, but is it an issue for students? I think it absolutely can be,” Lazar said.

Counselling services at the college treat pathological gaming the same as other forms of addiction, offering their services to students as well as providing them with the option to connect with community addictions counselling for further assistance.

Lazar said that students should consider connecting with a counsellor if they find themselves missing classes to continue playing, staying up until all hours of the night, beginning to withdraw socially from friends and family members, or experiencing a decrease in mood. Some students may withdraw completely and stop attending classes altogether.