Actually there is strong evidence that he got cancer from filming a movie only a few miles from an atomic bomb test site.

No direct proof, but given the circumstances, and what happened to a good portion of the other people on the set, and the towns in the area, it's definitely enough to make it a possibility.

https://gcaggiano.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/the-conqueror-1956-the-film-that-killed-john-wayne-literally/

I think you can be addicted to anything and addiction is basically a disease, so I don't mind this really. Key thing is people realize the difference between "enthusiastic gamer" and "addicted."

Not to mention all the people in the audience. >rimshot<

Not according to Scientologist. :P

How the hell did you know I was a sick basta- oh, it's just videogames. nevermind.

Addiction to anything is probably bad for you. The main thing is that just because you binged on video games for 8 hours on a saturday doesn't necessarily make you addict unless you're going 10+ hours a day for months on end and it's actively fucking with your ability to function as a human being.

Video games help me stay sane... more or less...

Wouldn't it be an addiction not a disease? Though, I do agree. People need to get off their fat asses more. Gaming is fun but this current generation is taking it too far.

The Duke as Genghis Khan. I cant imagine better casting. Whitewashing my ass!

Don't you worry about me Bradley! I did not waste my life behind a safe desk. I'm mike cesara, I've seen things : )

What total and utter BS. I thought there were actual criteria for what counts as a disease, but apparently, there aren't. How gaming disorder is a disease as per the ICD but not food addiction or social media addiction is beyond me.

Or what about politics addiction? I have people in my class who are so zealous in their student union to the extent of cutting class, getting bad marks, getting into fights, missing tests and assignment deadlines and cutting out people who leave their union from friendship. Isn't that a disorder? Or is something a disease only when you can find a way to make people pay for ''treating'' it.?

If gambling is treated as an addiction, then ok. What bothers me is:

1) The double standards about socially acceptable and socially unacceptable compulsions (chess players or handball players who fail to pay attention to anything else are arbitrarily praised).

2) The (oh so very neoliberal and individualist) de-responsabilisation of companies that actually resort to all the available tricks offered by cognitive and neurological sciences in order to produce addiction (rewards timed on dopamine rush rythms, social pressure devices, etc). If it's a disease, it's a disease that is being fueled, encouraged, nourished by people who profit on it and can just wash their hands (hey, if they have a condition it's not our problem). Same logic behind smoke, behind slot machines, behind all forms of commercial manipulations.

3) The fact that obsessive gaming can be just a random support for obsessive behaviour in general, a support without which this behaviour would simply be reported on something else instead of not existing.

But yeah. Normally, consuming any product brings at least phases of satiety (rats pushing a button to get injected alcohol stop doing it after a while). When there is no satiety but perpetual increases of the doses (like rats simply hitting the heroin injection button to death), then there is a serious issue. At one level or the other. Whether the issue is the game itself, or the game is a symptom (of general attempt at suicidal escapism, through whatever is at hand).

I'm real, I can assure you! ; )

...pathogens. Or more precisely, they prep your immune system to do the killing.


But back to topic: well, of course gaming addiction is an addiction. And like any addiction it can be classified as a disorder. But I don't see why the WHO wants to create a separate category for that. There are already the two categories of 'substance addiction' (drugs etc.) and 'process addiction' (or behavioral addiction), which gaming is part of.

Sometimes I become conscious of the constant level-ups, unlocks, achievements, loot, all that, and it feels a bit like having a robot constantly patting my head. While the mechanic works, and I feel gratification, it also feels deeply hollow.

Is Candy Crush a great game? No? If not, why should I respect "real" games that share the same addictive mechanics?