Is Excessive Gaming a Disease

“A group of doctors says yes, but video game makers scoff”

The above headline and subhead appeared in the local newspaper. The article from the AP says a leading doctors’ council wants to classify playing video games too much as a psychiatric disorder. Does every thing that addicts people have to be labeled a medical or psychiatric problem? Maybe it’s the person, not the thing.

I can understand and appreciate that some things have a physical and/or chemical component that people get addicted to. Certain things affect people’s bodies on chemical level: cocaine, nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, etc.

But things like gambling, sex, and video games don’t have the chemical component. (Well, maybe sex does.) I mean, there are people who have addictive personalities. They can get addicted to TV shows, boyfriends/girlfriends, and checking that their oven is off. Why don’t doctors just label a person as an addictive personality rather than labeling the choice of addiction as the problem?

The article says “up to 90 percent of American youngsters play video games and as many as 15 percent of them may be addicted, according to data.” Up to? As many as? May be? Is the data not complete? I would hope if some authoritative agency is going to label something, they would have more confident information.

I’m not saying that some people don’t get way too involved, even addicted, to video games. My point is that I don’t think it is the game that is the problem. If 15 percent of video gamers get addicted to video games, what about the other 85 percent? What’s the percent of all Americans that have some other kind of addiction? Do 15 percent of armchair sports fans get addicted and spend way too much time and effort on a sport? From what I’ve seen of many sports fans, I’d guess that’s a close number.

How many people vote in the American Idol competition? And how many times do they call in? Should American Idol be considered a psychiatric problem?

Why can’t we identify people with addictive personalities as problems rather than point to the target of their addiction as the problem.

“This person is an addict, and that person is an addict. Let’s solve their personality problem.” Instead of, “Video games are addictive, and gambling is addictive, and televised talent shows are addictive. Let’s identify them as a problem and scare normal and well adjusted people off of them.”

Having said this, though, I will be the first to say that there are a lot of kids and adults who need to turn off the video games and get their butts outside. But the game is not the problem.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com