World Health Organization (WHO) in its new International Classification of Diseases (ICD) has classified Addiction to digital and video gaming as a mental health disorder. The ICD is an annual publication which is released by WHO and is used internationally as a ‘standard diagnostic tool for health management and clinical purposes.
It suggests that abnormal gaming behavior should be in evidence over a period of at least 12 months or more than that” for a diagnosis to be assigned” but added that period might be reduced “if symptoms are too severe”.
The ICD is also used by health insurers in some countries to claim reimbursements based on ICD coding. The 11th edition of ICD covers 55,000 injuries, diseases, and causes of death.
In addition, the ICD states that any person who is giving precedence to gaming over any other activities in life and also continued gaming in spite of negative consequences in other areas of life is also attributed as the game addicted.
Researchers across the globe use it for reference for data, whereas doctors and other medical practitioners use it for diagnosing disease and other health conditions.
The symptoms of gaming addiction/disorder include the following things
1)Gaming disorder can lead to many things such as disorganized sleep patterns, diet problems, and deficiency in physical activities and so on.
2)Gaming addiction pushes all the other activities to a low priority. Increasing priority is given to gaming to such an extent that gaming takes priority over other things such as interests and daily activities.
3)Gaming disorder leads to significant distress and impairment in personal, family, social and other things
Psychiatrists are stressing the need for a digital detox as a cure to the gaming disorder and addiction.
Lots of countries are grappling with the issue and in South Korea, the government has introduced a law banning access for children under 16 from online games between midnight and 06:00. Lots of countries are grappling with the issue and in South Korea, the government has introduced a law banning access for children under 16 from online games between midnight and 06:00. In Japan, players are alerted if they spend more than a certain amount of predefined time each month while playing games.
Increasing the amount of time spent on screen is leading to a lack of human interaction. The emotional connection between children and adults is very low as each one of them is caught on to virtual worlds. Families have stopped bonding among themselves which has to lead to isolation among teenagers
