When It's No Longer a Game

Jun 22, 02:44 PM

Current Headlines: By Jeremy Olson, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Jun. 22--Six years ago, Elizabeth Woolley mourned the loss of her son to a self-inflicted gunshot wound and blamed the online computer game that consumed the final months of his life.

The 21-year-old had spent as much as 12 hours a day playing a fantasy computer game alone in his apartment in Hudson, Wis. He appeared to be playing just minutes before his death in fall 2001.

"This isn't just an online game. It's dangerous," Woolley said in 2002. "I believe if he hadn't been playing that game, he'd be alive today."

It was a lone opinion then, but it may soon become accepted medical policy.

A scientific council of the nation's largest doctors' group wants to have excessive video-game playing officially classified as a psychiatric disorder to raise awareness and enable sufferers to get insurance coverage for treatment.

In a report prepared for the American Medical Association's annual policy meeting starting Saturday in Chicago, the council asks the group to lobby for the disorder to be included in a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association. AMA delegates could vote on the proposal as early as Monday.

It likely won't happen without heated debate. Video game makers scoff at the notion that their products can cause a psychiatric disorder. Even some mental health experts say labeling the habit a formal addiction is going too far.

Dr. James Scully, the psychiatric association's medical director, said the group will seriously consider the AMA report in the long process of revising the diagnostic manual. The current manual was published in 1994; the next edition is to be completed in 2012.

Up to 90 percent of American youngsters play video games, and as many as 15 percent of them -- more than 5 million kids -- may be addicted, according to data cited in the AMA council's report.

Psychologist Julie Erickson makes it a habit to ask her young patients about their gaming habits -- partly to understand their interests but also out of concern.

"It takes over more and more of their life and more and more of their time," said Erickson, who is with Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota. "It almost feels like an addiction where the amount of time they would spend -- not just playing, but thinking about it -- starts to rise to the level of a part-time job."

Some research suggests the brain activity in habitual game players is similar to that of someone hooked on drugs or alcohol. What might make gaming addictive is unclear. Some experts say the never-ending challenges and rewards keep people playing; others say the fantasy allows for an escape from real-world problems.

The rise of online role-playing games may be fueling more addictions, said David Walsh of the St. Paul-based National Institute on Media and the Family. Players interact and collaborate to complete quests, which creates additional pressure and responsibility to remain focused on the game, he said. The AMA report concurs with that concern.

"A lot of people might trivialize it, but the stories that we're hearing are really, really disturbing," Walsh said. "(There are) young men flunking out of college, a young mother who admitted to me her baby was crying in the next room for hours while she played a video game, a young woman who issued an ultimatum to her husband -- it's either me or the video game -- and he chose the video game."

Woolley's son, Shawn, had been diagnosed with depression and schizoid personality disorder, which includes a lack of interest in social relationships. Gaming likely was a perfect escape from his problems, Woolley said.

She has since moved from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania and has created the Web site On-Line Gamers Anonymous as a resource to help people with gaming addictions.

According to the report by the AMA's Council on Science and Public Health, based on a review of scientific literature, "dependence-like behaviors are more likely in children who start playing video games at younger ages."

While not specifically addressing addiction, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than two hours of "quality" screen time per day for children 2 and older. That includes TV, computer and any other visual media.

Michael Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association, said the trade group sides with psychiatrists "who agree that this so-called 'video-game addiction' is not a mental disorder."

"The American Medical Association is making premature conclusions without the benefit of complete and thorough data," Gallagher said.

Anna, a physician in Rockford, Ill., who declined to use her last name to protect her son's identity, had never considered gaming as an addiction until her son flunked his first two semesters of college. She figured he wasn't balancing his time between homework and games, only later realizing he wasn't going to class at all.

"Thirteen thousand down the drain," she lamented.

Her son, now 20, turned his grades around this school year. His parents took his computer, and he attended a junior college where campus filters block online gaming.

Some may label this a parenting problem, but kids often sneak to computers and play while parents sleep. In fact, Anna noted, some of the most exciting online games occur during the middle of the night -- daytime for players in Asia.

"My focus now is to educate people, because we never saw this coming," Anna said. "I thought we had the perfect kid, and we got blindsided by an addiction nobody ever heard of."

The Associated Press contributed to this report

--70-90: Percentage of U.S. youth who play video games

--31: Percentage of gamers under age 18

--44: Percentage of gamers 18-49

--25: Percentage of games 50 or older

--62: Percentage of gamers who are male

--69: Percentage of heads of households who play

--2: Number of hours played daily considered heavy use

DANGEROUS ADDICTION?

With some doctors contending video games can be as addictive as heroin, the American Medical Association recommends: --Establishing improved ratings systems.

--Educating doctors and families on appropriate use of video games.

--Restricting screen time, including games, to 1-2 hours daily.

--Increasing parental monitoring.

--Expanding research into effects of games and use of Internet by children under 18.

--Making "Internet/video game addiction" a formal diagnostic disorder.

ARE YOU ADDICTED?

Some mental health professionals administer questionnaires to assess video-game dependency. These are some of the questions Maressa Hecht Orzack, director of the computer addiction studies center at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., asks her patients:

--When you're not playing a game, do you find it difficult not to think about it?

--Are you uninterested in anything else besides games?

--Do you feel unable to control how much you play?

--Are you often late for appointments because of your game play?

--Are you having difficulty managing daily life?

--Do you skip meals to play?

--When you feel alone, do you use games to communicate?

--Do you spend more than three hours at a stretch playing?

--Is game play preventing you from getting enough sleep?

--Do you have headaches, dizziness or seizures?

Source: Los Angles Times

About 5 million U.S. youngsters may be addicted to video games, the American Medical Association reports.

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