Group B S02W02 - Gaming disorder

I forgot what subject we had agreed - so here is an article about "Gaming Disorder".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42541404

Do you think this is an illness? How can it be cured? Do you think it's a problem? How do you think it should be regulated? Do/did you game a lot or do you know of people who do? How does it affect their life/work? or anything else you want to say about the subject.

Hi people !
When I was younger I used to spend a lot of time playing with my Nintendo DS and the Wii with my sister. However, it was not excessive in my opinion. Also, I have newer known someone really addicted to video games. But yes, I think it is a illness that can be treated. Viedo games are a hobbie but can become dangerous really fast, especially for children and teenagers. It is dangerous because it locks people in their own world and marginalize them from the society. During the youth, people are supposed to socialize themself thanks to the school, friends and family. Moreover, with the increse of the technologies viedos games are a real threat. Nowadays, a child knows how to use a digital tablet or a mobile with 3 years old, that makes me sick.
So it is important that midecine starts considering this addiction a an illness putting measures to help all the young people lost in the hell of video games. And I think that it is also important to help the parents of those child because I am sure that they don't now how to react in front of this new addiction 2.0.

Hi guys,

Like Nolwenn, i spent a lot of time in front of my tv screen by playing with my WII when i was younger. My parents worked a lot so when i went back home from school i was alone and i played Mario Kart all the end of the afternoon. But i think it was not too much for a person of my age. Young people love video games and pass good moment by playing them.
It is not a problem for me, you just have to control the time you spend in front of your video games. If you do all your task (homework, cleaning ...) and you have a social life, playing video game can be a great hobbie.

After that, the gaming disorder is real. Some people disconnect from the reality and stay home for playing Video games all the day. But it can't be a illness in my opinion, you just have to educt people to regulat their time of gaming and show them other things that they can do in their free time like sport or music.
It is a different disorder of drug or alcool disorder, wich give to people health problems. Gaming disorder desocialize peoples but not kill them.
Parents have to be worry about that and don't give a screen to their child too fast to avoid the gaming disorder.

Gaming is everywhere nowadays, it's a whole industry. Psychologists have found new opportunities to take care of gamers. The question is are they really the legitimate professionals who have to take care of gamers health. The question is yes. The second question is : are they really sure that Gaming Disorder is an illness? They don't really know, that is why the conduct studies. Let's wait for some more Scientific Papers to be published i would recommand and not easily fall into saying it's bad or good. Let's be careful.

I read the article and i saw two main distinctions between the gamers : Addicted gamers and casual gamers. The problem with addicted gamers is that they don't have the control over themselves and they don't consider their mental condition as damaged. Is Addiction an illness that can be treated by meds and drugs ? What can doctors and specialists really do, appart from pharmaco vigilance (telling others to reduce screen time). Do gaming companies have to embbed time regulations in their consoles ? Responsibilities are not fully taken i think.
For the moment, some governments are mobilized (China, South Korea, Japan, the UK), but let's hope other countries think about this issue of Gaming Disorder.

At the time i was at primary school; i used to play educational games such as Adi or Lappin Malin, and with friends i played Dofus, later i will be playing The Punisher... not so adapted to my age. Medal of Honor will follow. With my introduction to High School i quit playing games. It was taking to much of energy from me (i was a try harder :p) and time to socialize. I felt so much better, but wasn't very comfortable with others (wow so much personal details). So it wasn't beneficial to play that much video games. I recognize i would like to play video games again but...it has to be non-violent, not addictive, with multiplayer mode...anything that will give me a great gaming experience but in a shorter time.

I think it is not an illness, it is a bad habit, preventing is better than curing : choose good video games for you and your life, put limitations to yourself, i think the article clearly shows it is a problem of our modern societies, appropriate regulations would include time recommendations from game companies on the packaging of the games and before each online session, obligations from psychiatrists : frequently visit a specialist to diagnose Gaming Disorder etc...  I have known people who gamed a lot and they had a childish way of living and everyday evermore focused on the game (French high school in Morocco).

Gaming Disorder, it's in your head, not the game.

Hi, I used to play a lot when i was younger about 4-5 hours a day atleast. I don't know if it was an addiction cause i could spend 2-3 days without playing at all. Now i play less but i'm playing cause it's one of my favorite hobbie. I think something start to become an addiction when you can't life a day without doing it and that you are very stressed or angry when you can't do it. It's for example when you prefer gaming than spending time with your family or friends for example.
Therefore, it's a fact that people that are playing games firstly are playing more and more and in an other hand it can be really bad for their health care and weight. But in the end if you are happy with it and doing something you enjoy and like, then whatever, we only have one life.

Matthieu Morisset wrote:Hi, I used to play a lot when i was younger about 4-5 hours a day atleast. I don't know if it was an addiction cause i could spend 2-3 days without playing at all. Now i play less but i'm playing cause it's one of my favorite hobbie.  I think something start to become an addiction when you can't life a day without doing it and that you are very stressed or angry when you can't do it. It's for example when you prefer gaming than spending time with your family or friends for example.
Therefore, it's a fact that people that are playing games firstly are playing more and more and in an other hand it can be really bad for their health care and weight. But in the end if you are happy with it and doing something you enjoy and like, then whatever, we only have one life.

I have known this problem when i was younger, i was a little worried that my parents find me playing video games. Their expectations were that i had to have good marks and that i didn't spend too many times in front of a screen. Now that i am older, i lost the pleasure of playing but i still have good memories of my Medal Of Honor multiplayer games

Hi guys !

I didn't use to play video games when I was a child ... excepted when I was with my cousins in vacations ^^
They used to play a lot against me and my sisters!

Later, we had a Wii and one nintendo for three. We only could play during the week end and sometimes on wednersday !
I think video games are nice, but we should not play to much with it. Actually, children are too much connected and addicted to those things ...
One of my cousin became a bit violent and not very nice if he couldn't play to his video games... People should pay more attentions. It's important to develop children and young imagination, creation with other things than video games. It is very important for their development and social development.

Hi,

I used to play video games when I was younger, spend several hours a day to play to games like Fifa, Call of Duty and the most addictive of them, World of Warcraft (best game ever but too addictive..).
As Solène said, children nowadays are too much connected and I can see this with my little brother who spend many hours on video games or social networks each day.

Few people are really addicted to video games, the majority of people prefer play video games instead of watch TV or checking their smartphone every minute. It's just a hobby in my opinion and many video games can improve the general culture (more than you think) or for example improve the english level if you take the trouble to play in english, with english people.

Hi,

Like a lot of people I used to play video games when I was young (Mario games, Adibou, Sony, ect) but now I don't play much because I don't have time and I don't like so much. I think people who often play can get addicted easily because they spend hours playing and they do not see the time spent. It could even very dangerous in certains cases. Sometimes
shootings (in american schools for example) are connected with games because people who spend hours playing war games will think that the reality is like theirs games. So, I think parents should watch at their kids more often and prohibit some games to avoid violent behaviours. On the other hand, sometimes it's hard to constantly monitor kids at home but they could manage their playing time. Afterall, games are not always bad and some are quite interesting because they are serious and playful. I can conclude by saying that games are not bad or good that's just depends on the use which you makes.

Hey people,

For me, it’s risky when OMS defines gaming addiction as a disorder that needs to be treated. Not that I don’t think it’s an important issue, but I think that most parents/adults from earlier generation may not understand exactly the difference between a hobby and an addiction when it comes to videogames. Playing videogames is not so different than being in front of the television for hours or making TV show marathons. And neither of them are considered disorders by de OMS. So unless it’s an extreme case when someone is not eating or sleeping anymore because of the videogame, I think it’s going to be very hard to diagnose.

In case of addiction, it’s obvious to me that it’s the parents’ responsibility to put limits in their kids, and not the government or the gaming industry. Sometimes, parents buy the video games to not be bother by their kids, as an easy way to shut them up. And later they blame kids for being addicted. I don’t think the solution for that is to say it’s a disease that needs to be treated, what needs to be treated is the reason that got the kids hide themselves inside games to not deal with whatever is happening in reality.

Hey everyone.
Logically, I think that all things who can being used in an excessive way should be treated seriously, as they said, especially the video games. But games shouldn't become the scapegoat in the social scale. The fact that it was classified as a disorder is due to its facility to access. 
In the nowadays, in the world, almost everyone can enjoy the Internet service, but there's no perfect thing in the world, the Internet has its disadvantage too. For the young people, the video games(or all games) has deadly attractivity to them. They can be whoever they want to be and do whatever they want—it's the nature of games, who can make you feel more relaxed and more happy, in this point, the game itself is decent. But what has stigmatized the game? I think mostly, it's the fault of family's education and the socirty. I don't konw what it's like in the western, but in China, in the past when the PC is not quite popularized, the young people who are supposed to studing in the school, they skipped school and played video games in cyberbars. There are always news whom talked about a young people, who hadn't enough money to get in the illegal cyberbar, chopped their grand parents even to death in the case of being refused to their money demand. At that time, all the society, all parents blame that the games(or Internet) had ruined the familly. But in mostly cases, it's not its fault. These kind of tragic event are mostly happened in a family where the parents work all the time or work in another city(like peasant- worker), so in the family usually their grand parents looked after them. But in China, most old people are not well educated and they spoil the children, so not in the virtual world, they could already do whatever they want. When the thing happened, parents always blame the games. But if there's no game in the world? Lack of the correct guide, young peoples also can be disordered in many things: Alcool, cigarettes, fighting, even porns. Parents like finding the scapegoat, but they never reflect themselves.
So as far as I am concerned, the game disorder is just an illness, nothing to surprised, just like the illness when you eat something bad or you get cold. But to the irresponsible parents, I think they also should be classified as a disorder.

Hello,

I used to play videogames a lot, and I still do. But, I read it in your answers, the problem is not the game, or even the screen. It's a question of separation of the real life and the virtual one, to see the difference between what you can do in a game (like Grand Theft Auto, the ""worst"" according to "specialists"), and what you can't do, what you can't reproduce in the real world.

Someone who isn't capable of making this separation shouldn't play videogames, because he probably has another mental desorder, or a big problem in his education.

So, in my opinion, videogames are not bad. Smarphones are not bad. Screens are not bad. It only depends how you use it, and if you understand limits.