You may soon suffer from gaming disorder

[kilerkg]

As with everything moderation is key

[Von Due]

I really believe any excessiveness be it addiction to gaming, drugs, whatever, is more a sign that something is out of whack to begin with. A few years ago, there was a news story about some kid comitting suicide after his parents told their kid he couldn't play his fav game anymore. That's not about gaming addiction, that is something deeper and the game took the blame. A lot like how movies have taken the blame when someone went postal, this idea that it is the games and movies that make monsters, not the other way around, that this whacky world is what gives the creators of these games and movies the inspiration to show how mad it all has become.

A different thing is that when a person is already far gone, then games or movies can be catalysts for sinking in deeper but the issues were already there and the unwillingness to accept that is what ticks me off.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Von Due

I really believe any excessiveness be it addiction to gaming, drugs, whatever, is more a sign that something is out of whack to begin with. A few years ago, there was a news story about some kid comitting suicide after his parents told their kid he couldn't play his fav game anymore. That's not about gaming addiction, that is something deeper and the game took the blame. A lot like how movies have taken the blame when someone went postal, this idea that it is the games and movies that make monsters, not the other way around, that this whacky world is what gives the creators of these games and movies the inspiration to show how mad it all has become.

A different thing is that when a person is already far gone, then games or movies can be catalysts for sinking in deeper but the issues were already there and the unwillingness to accept that is what ticks me off.

There is something to your first sentence. There is something called "addictive personality" where a person has a proclivity to excessive attachment to a behavior; the cause of this has been debated at length with some saying it has a physical source (genetics, 'flawed wiring' in the brain, etc.) and others saying it is a psychological manifestation of other conditions. Basically, a person with this condition is addicted to being addicted; they need to have some fixated object and will often transfer their addiction from object to object. I have been told by psychologists I probably have an addictive personality, which, looking back over the entirety of my life, may not be far from wrong. There are many behaviors over the years that have been centered around intense attachment to actions or substances; this is one reason I never got into drugs, even though I came of age in the 1960s; I know only too well what the extent of my possible attachment to anything may take and I am very vigilant about monitoring. The main way to see if an addictive personality exists is took take a history and see if intense attachments and/or fixations have progressed over a protracted period; an example would be something along the lines of a person addictively eating a certain food and then suddenly shifting the target to another food and then another; this is benign and probably just make one a bit heavier, but the principle is dangerous if it manifests in a progression through harmful substances or actions...







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