Addiction to video game: the editors mobilized against the world health Organization

News 1 March, 2018

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AFP

Thursday, 1 march, 2018 09:25

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Thursday, 1 march, 2018 09:30

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PARIS | The major federations of publishers of video games in the world have called on Thursday the world health Organization (WHO) to reconsider its decision to classify the near future, the dependency in the video game as a disease.

Referred to as the ” disorder of the video game “, this pathology is characterized by an abnormal behavior related to this entertainment, whose role in the life of the individual becomes ever growing at the expense of its other activities, had stated in January the WHO.

According to the experts of the world health Organization, an individual must show a dependence abnormal game for at least a year before being diagnosed as suffering from this disorder.

“The global opposition to the classification controversial and not proven WHO the +disorder video game+ continues to expand. (…) The process of WHO lack of transparency, and support scientific objective. We insist on the need to put an end to it, ” said Simon Little, director-general of the european Federation of publishers of video games, in the press release.

This call also brings together representatives of the sector in the United States, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

They rely on an article to be published, according to them, in march in the scientific Journal Journal of Behavioral Addictions. In this publication titled ” a scientific basis low for the condition of the video game: stay on the side of caution “, 36 researchers are questioning the decision of the WHO.

“The condition of the video game is a relatively new concept and epidemiological data in the population have not yet been collected “, emphasized for his part, a spokesman for the WHO in January.

“But health experts are agreed that there is a problem” and that the next inclusion of the “gaming disorder” in the international Classification of diseases (ICD) is a step in “appropriate,” he said.