Losing oneself in a digitally produced other reality is a
common theme in science fiction. That dystopic image, however, might be quite real for millions of people around the world.
Many countries, particularly in China and South Korea, have
recognized excessive, compulsive online video game play, such as League of Legends and World of Warcraft, as a severe adolescent public health concern and have developed treatment facilities (1). Teens' "addiction" to video games has negative consequences that go beyond time spent studying or socializing with their classmates. Video game addiction has been linked to depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (2). It's still unclear whether there's a cause-and-effect relationship. According to Philip Tam, a psychiatrist with the not-for-profit Network for Internet Investigation and Research Australia in Sydney, so-called Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) affects those around them as well. In extreme cases, it has reportedly resulted in household violence by children against their parents who are attempting to take away their games. "A lot of child psychologists say we have parents who are afraid of their children," Tam explains.
It's still debatable if video games can cause actual addiction in
a clinical or scientific sense. Is it possible to consider a game to be intoxicating? The evidence that games can operate like traditional substances of addiction is emerging, with striking parallels between the impact of drugs and video games on users' minds. Many people are concerned, however, that identifying youngsters as "addicts" may pathologize natural behavior and lead to false epidemics of other compulsive activities like sex and eating.
"I'm not sure there's any consensus in this profession right
now," says Nancy Petry, a professor of medicine at the University of Connecticut in Farmington, who served on an American Psychiatric Association committee that considered including IGD in the most recent diagnostic manual but decided to wait. "I believe it is most certainly a mental disease, but I believe we need to better quantify what we're investigating."