"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," is one of the well-known proverbs around the globe. This phrase emphasized only one thing- how important fun and play are even for people who are kids-at-heart.
There are scientific truths that back this up. According to Help Guide, playing can benefit adults as it can relieve stress, improves memory, stimulates one's creativity, helps improve social skills, helps heal an emotional wound, keeps someone energetic, and helps you build trust and cooperation with others. Unfortunately, despite these benefits, excessive playing, especially when it comes to online games, can sometimes be dangerous that it could lead to serious health concerns and death.
Because of the increasing health concerns and death rates that are linked with online games, experts are working deeper to understand and know more about this issue. With the information they've gathered, the World Health Organization has recently considered excessive gaming as a disorder, which they've referred to as "Gaming disorder."
Not everyone who loves to play during their breaks is already considered positive with the newly discovered disorder. As reported by the online news platform CBS News, the WHO sets a boundary before a person can be considered suffering from such. That is if and only if he is showing "12 months of 'severe' symptoms, including prioritizing gaming overwork, education, and social relationships".
With WHO's claims of how being fond of playing online games can potentially ruin the psychological health of a person, the video game industry can't help but oppose. According to the Entertainment Software Association, considering gaming as a new disorder could only "recklessly trivializes real mental health issues." "The World Health Organization knows that common sense and objective research prove video games are not addictive," ESA added.
Meanwhile, Dr. Richard Graham, a technology addiction specialist at the Nightingale Hospital in London, explains otherwise. According to the expert, there are about 50 new cases of "digital addiction" that are discovered by the medical field annually. As our technology advances, it is expected to have more kinds of digital addiction in the next years.
Dr. John Jiao, an emergency medical doctor, emphasized that it is not the total hours invested in playing that can be the basis whether a person can be positive with the gaming disorder or not. Without deeply understanding the boundary, "people with real, legitimate video game addiction can often have trouble with insurance paying for their therapy, especially if they don't fit any other diagnosis," the expert added.
