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"Gaming Disorder has been recognized as a mental illness by the World Health Organization."
As soon as I started watching this, I was waiting to see if they'd ask a certain question, and sure enough Ian did. I'd like to know that, too. Why are video games singled out? Not just "sports addiction" or whatever, which Ian threw out as just one example and Pat seemed to latch onto. (By the way, Pat, given that there are dozens of sports channels available on cable, people absolutely could watch sports 24/7 if they wanted to, so it's not just a "certain times" limited thing.) So yeah. Is there a "book-reading disorder"? "Movie-watching disorder"? "Television-watching disorder"? "Music-listening disorder"? "Car-tinkering disorder"? "Politics-following disorder?" (Or, similarly, "24-hour 'news'-watching disorder"?) Or indeed, "model-boat-building disorder"? Is there a "<Insert any other hobby that isn't playing video games here> disorder"? People can, and do, obsess over those things just as much as others do with video games. For that matter, the people who play games all day on Twitch or Youtube, who make a living doing it, are they also suffering from "gaming disorder"? Are (fak)e-sports "athletes" suffering from "gaming disorder"? To me, the emphasis/focus/exclusivity of "gaming disorder" seems a bit too much like the typical, banal "video games as bogeyman" bullshit we've been seeing for decades. I'm not going to say that "gaming disorder" can't possibly be a thing that may affect some people, but I think maybe there needs to be more thought put into it.
