Gaming addiction to be added to DSM!?

j00t said:

you are making a lot of assumptions here about treatment. i've answered what you've asked before, but i'll do it one more time. video games in general are not the issue. just like alcohol, in general, is not the problem. the problem is the alcoholic. the problem is the drug addict, the problem is the chinese kid in the internet cafe that doesn't come out for a week. it's not about villifying video games or any other hobby/profession/whatever. it's the behavior of the addict. if someone participates in an activity that is harmful to them on a social/emotional/physical level, then i think we should probably take a look at that.

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If the individual is the problem then why does it matter if video games get classified on dsm or not and why should video games be on there but everything else not?

i'm guessing i missed it, but i don't quite understand your specifics of "socialist medicine." are you talking actual medication? i'm a proponent for what works. in some cases that's medication. but not all. if you mean socialist in the sense that we as a society help those who are unable to help themselves? then yes. because we have matured as a species past euthanization. if you mean something beyond that, please clarify.

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You said people almost never actually get to you for treatment if insurance doesn't pay for it. Do you think insurance should pay for "video game addiction" treatment? Do you think insurance companies will start providing this treatment option without increase rates across the board (aka everyone who doesn't have video game addiction are the ones paying for the addict to be treated)?

are individuals responsible for the own actions? yes of course they are. does making a poor decision preclude someone from receiving help?

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Help should be provided and gotten by the individual who screwed up and needs help, which you already said people were and are able to do currently so I don't see why something needs to change.

my question back to you, why SHOULDN'T video games be added to the DSM? i mean, i understand you don't consider it the same thing and that's fine, but what will be the problem if it is added? what is your concern?

i'm genuinely curious as to your thought process on the matter, i don't want to come across as snarky or whatever so my apologies if that's the case.

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Honestly I don't know what the DSM actually impacts or if it has literally any impact on anything whatsoever. What happens if 5 years from now people decide that individuals can't play more than 5 hours of video games per week because it is "dangerous"? My first responses in this thread already pointed out the fact that their studies showed "no negative health impacts" and they took that to mean they needed to use "more broad and open science" in their future studies (sounds an awful lot like they really want to find a way to classify video games as harmful). Also pointed out the fact that most people don't generally refer to addicts or addictions in a positive light but hey, maybe "video game addiction" won't be tried to turn into a negative like sex addiction or gambling addiction or drug addiction and those labels get slapped on individuals by others far more often than they do by the individuals who might have those problems.

edit: If it helps, I don't think anything should be classified as "addictive" unless it is physically addictive which means withdrawal and all that other fun stuff.

ZyyzYzzy said:

Wow. I forgot how stupid you are.

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I know you are but what am I?

zombiewizardhawk said:

Help should be provided and gotten by the individual who screwed up and needs help, which you already said people were and are able to do currently so I don't see why something needs to change.

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Is it worth pointing out that the very definition of "needing help" means it's not something you can do on your own?

I mean, I get that your point is that they should pay for it themselves, and that some people probably can do that, but I'm always amazed at the fervor that accompanies this line of thinking. What do you propose we do with people who screw up their lives so badly that they need help straightening things out? Just leave them to it because it's their fault and they should have done a better job? Why would anyone want to live like that? Why would you want to subject others to that when it's not necessary?

Ok. My life is pretty screwed up due to decisions i've made in the past, want to send me some money to help straighten things out since i'm one of those people who can't pay for it myself? Maybe a few thousand so I can buy a used car and stop walking an hour each way to work? Maybe a few thousand so I can get my teeth fixed before I have to blend my meals when I lose them all?


I'm still waiting for one person to give me a reason why video games should be on this list but television and other things shouldn't. I'm pretty sure you can find more studies showing negative impacts of people watching 8 hours of television a day than you can of people playing 8 hours of video games a day.

Your problem, it seems, is that you feel the dsm is attacking video gamers and that a gaming addiction is either not real or asanine.

You said it yourself, you have no idea how the dsm impacts reality so your opinion has inherently less value in this debate.

The dsm has classified alcohol addiction as a treatable issue for decades. Has anyone come to your house and tried to regulate how much alcohol you drink?

I'll quote father Martin, a notable leader in the AA community. "if what you are doing is causing problems, then it is itself a problem, I don't care what you call it."

Why should video games be on the list but all other hobbies should not?

Why would video game addiction being on the list make you better able to treat people than you currently are able to since you've already said that people can and have come to you about it?

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If you don't have a reason then why do you support this?

zombiewizardhawk said:

Why should video games be on the list but all other hobbies should not?

Why would video game addiction being on the list make you better able to treat people than you currently are able to since you've already said that people can and have come to you about it?

Edit:

If you don't have a reason then why do you support this?

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It pushes treatment options from "a random guy claiming the he treats it" into a transparent and an acceptable process. Public healthcare generally likes that, which you know, everybody outside the US has.

They should be on the list, since good chunk of gaming is designed to exploit the dopamine rush we all get when the RNG aligns and we hit the right lootbox. Then we can talk about specific exploitative mechanics and how to address them worldwide instead of random politicians taking up the cause, which probably won't accomplish much. If you feel something else should be on the list, contact WHO.

zombiewizardhawk said:

Why should video games be on the list but all other hobbies should not?

Why would video game addiction being on the list make you better able to treat people than you currently are able to since you've already said that people can and have come to you about it?

Edit:

If you don't have a reason then why do you support this?

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man, you are just not reading. you ask a question then don't pay attention to the response. it's already been answered. this debate is singling out video games because that's what the topic is about. and gaming addiction should be added so that there is a much more streamlined system of support for those who need it.

and you're pissed about insurance rates going up? listen man, i don't have cancer. so it's unfair to ME to have MY insurance rates go up because OTHER people have cancer and need to be treated? yeah, you're right we should stop calling cancer a disease. are you really going with that argument?

finally, you don't want to call anything an addiction unless it is PHYSICALLY addictive... that's fine. but it's only "fine" because you are in no position to actually make that decision for the rest of us. your world view is draconian. even when we are talking about an profoundly PHYSICALLY addictive substance like heroin, withdrawal is STILL ONLY ONE of the twelve criteria used to determine if someone has addiction to heroin. i've treated PLENTY of people who have NEVER identified any kind of withdrawal symptoms from their use of heroin. does that mean they weren't an addict? even though they craved using it when they weren't? even though they gained significant levels of tolerance? even though they've been arrested several times for use related reasons? even though they had significant issues with their relationships because of their use? c'mon man.

I'm not entirely sure why, or how for that matter, but I swear this shit has something to do with loot boxes.

Aaron said:

The state of mental health science in 2017:

Enjoy raiding: you are certifiably crazy.

Want to chop your dick off and change your name to Susan: you're a healthy and well adjusted individual.

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i had a transgender client once. he came to me for addiction issues. he had had a LOT of history of sexual abuse as a child. he was born a girl and his dad basically invited his friends over to rape his daughter. really screwed up stuff. anyway, we were focusing on the drinking but he kept coming back to his trauma history as well as how unfair it was to be born in the wrong body and hard it is to be transgender. so finally, having had enough of this, i told him it made perfect sense why he wanted to be a man. he had been abused by men all of his life and so by BEING a man, he can avoid that abuse.

the look on his face was... catatonic. like i had just revealed the secrets of the universe to him. i felt kind of bad though, because he had already gone through most of the transition... which is fricken expensive. /shrug

zombiewizardhawk said:

Ok. My life is pretty screwed up due to decisions i've made in the past, want to send me some money to help straighten things out since i'm one of those people who can't pay for it myself? Maybe a few thousand so I can buy a used car and stop walking an hour each way to work? Maybe a few thousand so I can get my teeth fixed before I have to blend my meals when I lose them all?


I'm still waiting for one person to give me a reason why video games should be on this list but television and other things shouldn't. I'm pretty sure you can find more studies showing negative impacts of people watching 8 hours of television a day than you can of people playing 8 hours of video games a day.

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Ok, I kind of figured at some point we would come back to whatever is going on in your life as an example for why this line of thinking is reasonable. There are a couple of issues here:

First, I don't know your situation, but I would support my tax dollars giving you a hand to get your life in order, assuming that you're actually going to do the work to give it a chance to succeed. In my mind this means I would likely not support using tax dollars to buy you a car, but I would support using those tax dollars to get you a train or bus pass, some help with job training or a degree program, and maybe a cheap suit and some help with interview training so you could have a better shot when interviewing for a job.

I support doing this partially because I want to help people who need it, but also because it will be far more beneficial to me and the rest of society to have you working and being as productive as possible. People with jobs and skills turn those jobs into careers. They have hope and they are far less likely to need help in the future. They are also far less likely to commit crimes, particularly violent ones. I firmly believe that in the long run, this costs less than trying to clean up the mess left behind by the people with wasted lives because they had no hope.

Second, I don't know this for a fact, but I'd be willing to bet that what drives the inclusion of video games to be recognized as addictive has a lot less to do with how many hours you spent playing Witcher 3, and a lot more with how many thousands of dollars some idiot dumped into Candy Crush or Clash of Clans. Some of the loot box madness may be making it's way into this too. I seriously doubt that this is going to lead to any sort of regulation of the video game industry, but if it does, I would expect it to be focused on the games that have similarities to gambling because they are the ones that have the biggest impact. Besides, I think mobile gaming accounts for almost half the industry now or something stupid like that.

the dsm has absolutely no oversight on rights and freedoms of how people spend their time. that's just simply not what it's about. no one in the history of american lawmaking has ever cited the dsm for why we need to start regulating substances. it's catastrophizing to assume that including something like this will lead to not being able to fill your team on raid night.

Why are you guys arguing with this idiot? He's a "bootstrapper" who refuses to pull himself up by his own bootstraps.

ZyyzYzzy said:

I can design a videogame in a manner that avtivates the same neurological pathways associated with drug use, gambling, alcoholism, etc?

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Got any links to studies about specific games that are designed to turn people into "drug addicts"?

j00t said:

man, you are just not reading. you ask a question then don't pay attention to the response. it's already been answered. this debate is singling out video games because that's what the topic is about. and gaming addiction should be added so that there is a much more streamlined system of support for those who need it.

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Do you, personally, want to see any other forms of hobbies added to the list so that people can get treatment?

Cabales said:

Second, I don't know this for a fact, but I'd be willing to bet that what drives the inclusion of video games to be recognized as addictive has a lot less to do with how many hours you spent playing Witcher 3, and a lot more with how many thousands of dollars some idiot dumped into Candy Crush or Clash of Clans. Some of the loot box madness may be making it's way into this too. I seriously doubt that this is going to lead to any sort of regulation of the video game industry, but if it does, I would expect it to be focused on the games that have similarities to gambling because they are the ones that have the biggest impact. Besides, I think mobile gaming accounts for almost half the industry now or something stupid like that.

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That's why I have a problem with it. They're already trying to start regulating shit. Classifying video games as a dangerous/addictive 'substance' makes it easier for them to eventually push farther and farther in, "for your safety".

Maybe i'm wrong though and WHO is just trying to help all those poor individuals who sit in a gaming cafe shitting their pants until they die a few days later because they don't want to get up.