2008 Woodie Awards
Video game addiction worthy of awareness
Issue date: 9/27/07 Section: Opinion
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With this week's release of the popular Xbox 360 series game, "Halo 3," we'd like our video game-playing readers to turn their attention to a problem that has only recently garnered significant attention from the medical community.
Video game addiction is a not-yet fully understood psychological disorder and, as such, it has not yet been approved as a formal medical or psychiatric diagnosis.
The American Medical Association met in June of this year to discuss whether the American Psychiatric Association might include the disorder in its 2012 American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It was decided that more research should be done to determine the nature of this disorder and even it is, indeed, a psychological ailment worthy of treatment.
Suggested symptoms of video game addiction include being preoccupied with the act of gaming when not at a console, the use of gaming as a way to escape and ignore "real" problems, an inability to control or stop game-playing behavior, playing the game compulsively, despite consequences to academics or career, isolating oneself from others for extended periods of time in order to play the game and focusing on achievements made during game playing more than those made in the "real world."
Many of us know one or two people who seem to see video gaming as a sort of drug. A consistent high, a way to relax and escape, a no-hassle form of entertainment for which one must not even get dressed or leave the house.
But any addiction is defined by the consequences it reaps on an individual's life, namely, the toll it takes on relationships with others. If an individual chooses video games over face-to-face contact with family and friends, it could be sign of depression.
It is important not to let our friends, loved ones and ourselves hide behind those forms of escape that allow us sanctuary from social discomfort or otherwise normal troubles found at school, home or with friends.
Gaming is all well and good ... but when the game becomes the whole of one's life, there can be no winning it.
Look for the above symptoms in those you care about, ask yourself if you feel they apply to you. We encourage our readers affected by any form of self-imposed isolation to seek support, and to try and remember that, at the end of the day, it is only a game.
Video game addiction is a not-yet fully understood psychological disorder and, as such, it has not yet been approved as a formal medical or psychiatric diagnosis.
The American Medical Association met in June of this year to discuss whether the American Psychiatric Association might include the disorder in its 2012 American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It was decided that more research should be done to determine the nature of this disorder and even it is, indeed, a psychological ailment worthy of treatment.
Suggested symptoms of video game addiction include being preoccupied with the act of gaming when not at a console, the use of gaming as a way to escape and ignore "real" problems, an inability to control or stop game-playing behavior, playing the game compulsively, despite consequences to academics or career, isolating oneself from others for extended periods of time in order to play the game and focusing on achievements made during game playing more than those made in the "real world."
Many of us know one or two people who seem to see video gaming as a sort of drug. A consistent high, a way to relax and escape, a no-hassle form of entertainment for which one must not even get dressed or leave the house.
But any addiction is defined by the consequences it reaps on an individual's life, namely, the toll it takes on relationships with others. If an individual chooses video games over face-to-face contact with family and friends, it could be sign of depression.
It is important not to let our friends, loved ones and ourselves hide behind those forms of escape that allow us sanctuary from social discomfort or otherwise normal troubles found at school, home or with friends.
Gaming is all well and good ... but when the game becomes the whole of one's life, there can be no winning it.
Look for the above symptoms in those you care about, ask yourself if you feel they apply to you. We encourage our readers affected by any form of self-imposed isolation to seek support, and to try and remember that, at the end of the day, it is only a game.
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