Hannah Sparks and Max Jaeger* say the World Health Organisation has added video game addiction to its ‘International Classification of Diseases’ database.
Photo: Alex Haney
It’s what parents of Fortnite fanatics have been saying all along.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has officially added video-game addiction — characterised by “a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour” that “takes precedence over other life interests” — to itsInternational Classification of Diseases database last week.
The WHO says most casual gamers are probably safe — but it’s the hardcore controller jockeys skipping sleep, meals, work, school and other everyday activities who need to check into digital rehab.
Video games trigger the same deep-seated pleasure-reward centre of our brains that controls hunger, thirst and sexual desire — which makes them prime material to get hooked on, according to Rutgers University Psychiatry Professor and Dr Petros Levounis.
“When these same pathways get overexcited and end up getting hijacked by a drug or behavioural addiction, they get out of control and cause people to lose sight of what’s sane and what’s not,” he told The Post.
And some heavy gamers forgo more than meals and hygiene for more screen time.
“This one is very pernicious: They have to start making up excuses to their wife or employer about why they spend all this time on the Internet,” according to Levounis, who said he doesn’t consider himself a gamer but does occasionally enjoy the phone-based puzzle game “4 Pics 1 Word.”
Controller-heads said they weren’t shocked to learn of the new “disease’’ designation.
“I definitely feel like I’m addicted to Fortnite and have been for about a year,” said 17-year-old Seo-yeon Park, a female gamer told The Post last week.
“I play for probably three hours a day on average and a lot more on Fridays and Saturdays,” she admitted.
“I don’t want to say out loud how many hours I play on Fridays and Saturdays because it’s too much.”
And that’s exactly what game designers want, according to Levounis.
“We’re pretty convinced now that a lot of these companies employ rather sophisticated psychologists — not dissimilar to how tobacco companies hire high-end chemists to find addictive combinations of chemicals,” he said.
For the past decade, physicians, researchers and health insurers have used the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) as a reference tool when addressing some 55,000 diseases, injuries and causes of death worldwide.
The latest version — the ICD-II — was presented to WHO members at the group’s annual World Health Assembly at the end of last month.
Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton.
* Hannah Sparks is a features reporter for the New York Post who tweets at @mshannahsparks. Max Jaeger is a reporter for the New York Post who tweets at @JustTheMax.
This article first appeared at nypost.com.
