Should video game addiction be considered a mental illness?

This past decade has seen an explosion of video game entertainment sales, even surpassing the music industry.  More and more kids to adults are plugging in and intoxicating themselves with the ever evolving gaming world.  I can honestly say that I still to this day take part in this gaming universe but not to the addictive level of play that was in my past.  But addiction is such a loaded word that there are many different viewpoints on the subject at hand.

One side of the argument there are those that say that occasional use is harmless and even helpful with some people with disabilities.  Ask the Entertainment Software Association, which made over 30 billion dollars in the video game industry in 2007,  and they will tell you much more research is needed for any conclusion to come about.  On the other side doctors are saying that certain types of kids may be susceptible to over play.  Dr. Thomas Allen of the Osler Medical Center in Towson, Maryland had this to say, "Working with this problem is no different than working with alcoholic patients. The same denial, the same rationalization, the same inability to give it up."  One fact does remain and that is the more time a person engulfs themselves in video games, the less time that person will spend in other areas of life such as spending time with those they love, energetic play, and even eating and sleeping.

Psychologists have their opinions.

According to the APA (American Psychiatric Association) the underlying theme of video game addiction goes as this, “psychiatrists should study the issue more.”  Even the group of psychiatrists that brought the issue to the table backed away from presenting their thoughts to the committee.  This group proposed that they would reevaluate video game addiction and if they have the scientific evidence backing them, then at the next meeting for the diagnostic manual set to be in 2012 they would present the issue thoroughly. 

This report was done in 2007 and since then the video game industry’s profit margins have nearly doubled from 30 billion dollars a year to over 50 billion dollars this year alone and there are still 2 months to go!  This could be good or bad news to whoever is viewing the material.  It is always good to see an industry do well when the impact creates more jobs and helps the economy.  With the influx of customers means more data for the APA to evaluate concerning the addiction.  The bad news is if there is correlation between video games and addiction then more people will fall victim to the new video induced drug platform.

Citation:

Reporting by Scott Hillis of San Francisco 25 June 2007.  ExtremeTech 2007 ZIFF DAVIS MEDIA Inc.  Retrieved on 11-02-10 from Factiva database.

Picture of nurse with sign saying, "addicted to video games?" retrieved November 5, 2010 from the World Wide Web. www.skuggen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/video-game-addiction6-thumb-500x384.jpg