Video Game Addiction not an Addiction

Yes, I know–it’s shocking. Today addiction experts posed the thought that video game addiction as a disease may not be quite as definitive as some had thought.

Addiction to video games may be real, but being a drug addict is something quite different, it seems. Doctors are backing away from the idea for now, to the relief of many gamers, I would think.

“There is nothing here to suggest that this is a complex physiological disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders, and it doesn’t get to have the word attached to it,” Dr. Stuart Gitlow said in the article.

There was an influencial group of psychologists who originally suggested that the definition be included in the American Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, a decision which will be revisited in five years.

I’d say they’re right on.

Ron had a post today that falls right in line with this new development in the ever shifting identity of video games in this society. It’s true that video games can be a destructive force in someone’s life, but I think there’s a point to be made about how they should be looked at more in terms of how they function as a symptom, and not as a cause of, all of life’s problems.

There is violence, just as there has been for centuries in humankind; there are spoiled and misguided children, just as there always will be; and there are those who fail to see that society’s problems go deeper than what we do in our leisure time.