Gaming as a Mental Illness

To some people gaming is seen as sitting alongside the television in order to experience the content made by the developers, and to control the animated graphics shown on screen. Well, to some other people it seems that gaming carries a certain risk especially when he plays long hours sessions. These views where heard way back when home consoles, and computers began to go mainstream in the 1970’s and 1980’s but no attention was paid until this year.

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The World Health Organization started out the year with a bang when they labelled “gaming disorder” as a mental health condition for the first time. They included this disorder in the same category of gambling in the recent updated draft version of International Classification of Disease, because it showed persistent factors that regulate the individual’ behavior when they started to engage in online or offline gaming. The disorder is characterized by an arrangement of continual gaming behaviors that takes control of the gamer’s life, priority over other interests, and also facing negative consequences regularly as a result of gaming. Furthermore, this type of behavior can result in damages of personal life, family relations, occupational professions and educational grades. As a result The World Health Organization stated that if the symptoms are evident for at least 12 months, a checkup is needed in order to see if the individual is suffering from the mental illness.

TVM also raised an awareness about this condition where Mental Health Commissioner, Dr John Cachia stated that gaming even as a recreational activity can become a serious problem especially when it conflicts with other interests.

“If you have a boy who spends a whole day in digital gaming you have a lifelong problem. If you have a youth, for example with regards to a job, study, relations with others; these are affected as the person concentrates only on gaming”.

This announcement urged gamers to keep track of their actions since some gaming industries are likely to profit from these ‘gaming addicts’.

In fact Dylan Seychell, a researcher at the Information Technology Faculty of the University said that gaming designers may assist those who play games not to exaggerate during their hobby. He said that it is in the financial interest of the companies that when they design gaming they uphold these values so that people play games in a responsible way

 Therefore are the people who buy video games at fault for their addiction? Or is the gaming industry at fault for encouraging addiction in the first place?