addiction Game lobbyists and some mental health experts expressed disagreement with the WHO on the definition of "gaming disorder'

[captain_to_fire]

I already know this one is coming after the WHO classified excessive and compulsive gaming as a disorder. Let's talk about it. 

 

Primary Source: The Association of UK Interactive Entertainment [draft paper here]

Secondary Source: Motherboard (Vice)

 

Before commenting, I encourage people to read both this OP and the one I made before which is linked above as well as read the references attached. 

Quote

 

LONDON – MARCH 1, 2018 – 36 internationally renowned and respected mental health experts, leading social scientists and academics from research centers and universities – including Oxford University, Johns Hopkins University, Stockholm University and The University of Sydney – will oppose, in an upcoming journal paper, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) plan to create a new gaming disorder classification.

 

The experts’ paper (‘A Weak Scientific Basis for Gaming Disorder: Let us err on the side of caution’) will appear in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions. The researchers argue:

• “Much confusion remains – even among authors supporting the diagnosis – regarding what, exactly, gaming disorder is.”
• “We maintain that the quality of the existing evidence base is low.”
• “Formalizing a disorder with the intention to improve research quality neglects the wider non-clinical societal context”
• “Robust scientific standards are not (yet) employed.”
• “Moral panic might be influencing formalization and might increase due to it.”
• An addiction “should be clearly and unambiguously established before formalizing new disorders in disease classification system.”

Now to everyone reading this thread, it should be kept in mind that regardless of one's position and opinion on the issue, do not let credentials alone bother you because "attempting to prove or disprove a theory or a claim based on mere credentials alone is already a sloppy argument and constitutes the logical fallacy Appeal to Authority or Argumentum ad Verecundiam."

Spoiler

appeal to authority

You said that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true.

 

It's important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence. However, it is entirely possible that the opinion of a person or institution of authority is wrong; therefore the authority that such a person or institution holds does not have any intrinsic bearing upon whether their claims are true or not.

So here's the abstract of the counter argument presented at the moment:

Quote

A weak scientific basis for gaming disorder: Let us err on the side of caution. 

van Rooij, A. J., Ferguson, C. J., Colder Carras, M., Kardefelt-Winther, D., Shi, J., & Przybylski, A. K. (2018, February 8).

ABSTRACT

 

We greatly appreciate the care and thought that is evident in the ten commentaries that discuss our debate paper, the majority of which argued in favor of a formalized ICD-11 gaming disorder. We agree that there are some people whose play of video games is related to life problems. We believe that understanding this population and the nature and severity of the problems they experience should be a focus area for future research. However, moving from research construct to formal disorder requires a much stronger evidence base than we currently have. The burden of evidence and the clinical utility should be extremely high because there is a genuine risk of abuse of diagnoses. We provide suggestions about the level of evidence that might be required: transparent and preregistered studies, a better demarcation of the subject area that includes a rationale for focusing on gaming in particular versus a more general behavioral addictions concept, the exploration of non-addiction approaches, and the unbiased exploration of clinical approaches that treat potentially underlying issues such as depressive mood or social anxiety first. We acknowledge there could be benefits to formalizing gaming disorder, many of which were highlighted by colleagues in their commentaries, but we think they do not yet outweigh the wider societal and public health risks involved. Given the gravity of diagnostic classification and its wider societal impact, we urge our colleagues at the WHO to err on the side of caution for now and postpone the formalization.

 

Looking at the abstract, it actually makes sense. What is the basis of the WHO classifications of "gaming disorder" and the ones they raised is important because they are not arguing against the inclusion of "gaming disorder" in the ICD-11 but rather, they are asking to be on the side of caution. Since the burden of proof lies on the WHO, these researchers felt that some of the claims by WHO are unsubstantiated by evidence. So what evidence are these people looking for?

1. Robust scientific standards are not (yet) employed: The researchers of this counter paper argue that there isn't that much data to corroborate the WHO's claims including the lack of standardized reporting methods for clinical and observational studies as well as the lack of transparency. To be honest, I was looking at WHO's claims and I can't seem to find tests done using an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) which detects changes in blood flow and neuronal activation. One of the internal signs of addiction is activation of certain areas in the brain just like this one [souce: NCBI]; Unfortunately, I haven't seen one from either sides to prove or disprove each others arguments. But I can already see how it might be hard for scientists to use a fMRI as with any MRI test (contrast or no contrast), it requires the subject or patient to sit still and you can't do that while being inside an MRI machine. One test that I can think off that both sides can use is an EEG or Electroencephalogram which monitors electrical activity in the brain and can diagnose diseases like epilepsy and other neurological disorders and some scientists have used EEG to differentiate a normal brain and someone with an addiction . [sources: here and here] 
2. The argument for singling out video games is not convincing: The second one is where their argument falls apart in my opinion or at least it shows the vested interest of the gaming lobbyists. Here, they are saying why is the WHO singling out gamers when in fact there are other addictions worth discussing as well like food, sex, tanning, social media, plastic surgery, occupational and even working out addictions. Now I want to ask, how sure are we that these researchers are not deflecting because this is basically a "red herring fallacy". Why bother bring up some other compulsive behavior when it doesn't disprove anything? Also, how sure are these people that authorities and the WHO in particular aren't paying attention to these other compulsive behaviors? Are we supposed to ignore the ramifications of excessive gaming like the ones I discussed in the original OP [at the top of this thread] because sex addiction is just as bad? If these researchers are actually credentialed people from world-renowned universities, how can they be so sloppy to include such weak and fallacious counter argument?
3. Moral panic might be influencing formalization and might increase due to it: This one is where they argue that with the current classifications of the WHO might result to stigma and hasty generalization to all gamers. This is where I agree and yes, it might result to that but here's the thing, alcohol is actually way more addicting than marijuana and alcohol resulted to more deaths than marijuana and yet alcohol is legal and we don't judge everyone who is drinking alcohol as alcoholics. In the same way, just because someone spent $3000 on a gaming PC doesn't mean that the person is a compulsive gamer so what seems to be the concern here by researchers? This is like one of those "body positive extremist social justice warriors" complaining against doctors and fitness trainers that what they're doing is "body shaming" and it leads to more harm than good or those people complaining to their doctors to stop them from telling their patients what they should and shouldn't eat because the doctor is shaming the patient. Basically, the researchers in this draft paper argue that "These can result in poorly thought out and ineffectual public policy efforts to restrict gaming time such as South Korea’s “shutdown” law (which blocked online playing for children between 12 AM and 6 AM). While such “solutions” may lead parents, clinicians and society to feel that something is being done to address the perceived problem of excessive gaming, in fact, this intervention has had a negligible positive effect and even some negative outcomes." So what do these researchers want them to do, keep their kids playing until 4 in the morning until they become homeless drop outs with deep vein thrombosis? 

Few more things, while I understand that this is a draft and it's not the final paper. They seem to offer no amendments or changes made to the WHO resolution to show that these people are really sincere. Why does it sound that these people think that someone diagnosed with gaming disorder think that authorities will come and start seizing their properties? But with all that said, even the WHO is a bit lacking in further studies especially blind studies the use imaging and other methods to further validate and come up with a personalized treatment protocol.

 

So how about you? Do you agree with them or disagree? To all math majors and statisticians in the forum (ahem @Energycore ), I want to ask if this is one of the scenarios one can use Bayes' Theorem?

 

Edited March 3, 2018 by hey_yo_

[AresKrieger]

WHO is a joke like most international organizations, at best you could chalk this up to general addictive personality disorder but regardless any addiction is a matter of choice, and in the case of games their is no physical dependency/withdrawal to influence that choice.

[emosun]

"addiction"

[AresKrieger]

1 minute ago, CUDA_Cores said:

you can get addicted to anything. Ever heard of that reality show my strange addictions? Are we going to ban wood because there was some dude who was addicted to eating wood?

Yep, that is entirely my point there is no need to differentiate this from grandma being addicted to bingo, or some weirdo being addicted to new car smell. They just added it as a jab at games, not really any different than other anti gamer nonsense.

[dizmo]

The last thing we need is another way for people to avoid life and stay home on government money, until we have a basic income structure in place.

[RadiatingLight]

you *might* get slightly biased results with this one.

[Eaglerino]

5 minutes ago, dizmo said:

The last thing we need is another way for people to avoid life and stay home on government money, until we have a basic income structure in place.

It's called a functioning economy and getting a job

[dizmo]

2 minutes ago, Eaglerino said:

It's called a functioning economy and getting a job

What?

[Beskamir]

Relevant video on the topic:

Personally I hypothesize that game compulsion is mostly just an extension of other disorders like depression or anxiety. So maybe better treatment for those will also be effective for treating game compulsion?

[ARikozuM]

What’s the ICD-10 code for “addiction to staying active”? That’s my addiction. Controller? Tell me what game I’m playing! Racquet? Tell me who I’m playing!  Dogs? Tell me what we’re playing! 

 

I find this laughable and can hardly wait for ICD having this absurdly broad diagnosis. We’ve got nearly 80 codes (not including subs and modifiers) for schizotypal and shrizophrenic disorders and the WHO is adding ONE FOR GAMING ADDICTION? Am I to believe that psychiatrists are going to add enough modifiers to narrow the diagnosis down to the fewest possibilities?

[mr moose]

In my experience most diagnosing psychologists don't actually look up the DSM and stick stringently to the listings.  They understand that the human mind is more plastic than that and treat the issues on a case by case basis.  What people are concerned about is how specialists define and name said conditions.  The problem with worrying ab9out that is that it is already a lost cause.  People already think they know more about psychology than your average psychologist.  They think they understand social sciences becasue they disagree with some perceived issue that likely doesn't even exist.  You only have to watch a half dozen of Jordan Peterson videos to see just how easily the world fails to understand common traits in humans.

 

I wonder if these people are genuinely concerned that some doctor is going to misdiagnose someone with gaming disorder because play games and are depressed. If that's the case then they have bigger issues on their hands educating their own professionals,  rather than worrying about a well defined condition being added to the list of other well defined conditions. 

[leadeater]

Gaming Disorder: Paying for loot boxes.

 

Kinda like my definition better, much easier to diagnose too.

[suicidalfranco]

I'll stick to the side of whoever attempts to ruin those who are trying to ruin my one hobby (beside football). So WHO is right, and these people can go suck a fat one. 

[asus killer]

i leave the science to scientists.

Still it's a fact that some people have a problem with playing to much videogames, let's call it addiction:

 

definition from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pt/dicionario/ingles/addiction

the need or strong desire to do or to have something, or a very strong liking for something:

[ C ] I have an addiction to mystery stories.

 

now whatever medical term the scientific community wants to call it in medical terms is for me irrelevant. It should be relevant for them as do understand how to handle it, so i guess do more studies if there is no consensus.

On the caution side about where these studies come from because this is also a billion dollar industry and they will want to defend themselves, it's not unexpected to see a equivalent study to "smoking is good for your health" or "ice melting in the poles is caused by polar bear farts, burning fossil fuels actually makes more ice" or "sugar is good for your teeth", etc.... Not saying it's the case, still it is to be expected.

 

I don't think the problem is any different than gambling but hey what the hell do i know.

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, asus killer said:

i leave the science to scientists.

Still it's a fact that some people have a problem with playing to much videogames, let's call it addiction:

 

definition from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pt/dicionario/ingles/addiction

the need or strong desire to do or to have something, or a very strong liking for something:

[ C ] I have an addiction to mystery stories.

 

now whatever medical term the scientific community wants to call it in medical terms is for me irrelevant. It should be relevant for them as do understand how to handle it, so i guess do more studies if there is no consensus.

On the caution side about where these studies come from because this is also a billion dollar industry and they will want to defend themselves, it's not unexpected to see a equivalent study to "smoking is good for your health" or "ice melting in the poles is caused by polar bear farts, burning fossil fuels actually makes more ice" or "sugar is good for your teeth", etc.... Not saying it's the case, still it is to be expected.

 

I don't think the problem is any different than gambling but hey what the hell do i know.

And that's why we have peer review,  meta studies and a thing called scientific consensus.  Its the bit that says the balance of evidence suggests condition X, or the balance of evidence is strongly in favor of condition X.

 

There are always studies that say the opposite, because no two studies are carried out the same way.

 

 

[captain_to_fire]

2 minutes ago, mr moose said:

And that's why we have peer review,  meta studies and a thing called scientific consensus.  Its the bit that says the balance of evidence suggests condition X, or the balance of evidence is strongly in favor of condition X.

 

There are always studies that say the opposite, because no two studies are carried out the same way.

And the game lobbyists and the scientists they present seem to offer no solid counter evidence other than deflecting at least in my opinion. While the WHO might need to carry out more studies, I find it hard to not believe that these scientists from Hopkins, Oxford and University of Sydney are under the lobbyists' pay roll.

15 minutes ago, asus killer said:

i leave the science to scientists.

Still it's a fact that some people have a problem with playing to much videogames, let's call it addiction:

 

definition from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pt/dicionario/ingles/addiction

the need or strong desire to do or to have something, or a very strong liking for something:

[ C ] I have an addiction to mystery stories.

 

now whatever medical term the scientific community wants to call it in medical terms is for me irrelevant. It should be relevant for them as do understand how to handle it, so i guess do more studies if there is no consensus.

On the caution side about where these studies come from because this is also a billion dollar industry and they will want to defend themselves, it's not unexpected to see a equivalent study to "smoking is good for your health" or "ice melting in the poles is caused by polar bear farts, burning fossil fuels actually makes more ice" or "sugar is good for your teeth", etc.... Not saying it's the case, still it is to be expected.

 

I don't think the problem is any different than gambling but hey what the hell do i know.

Whether it's a business, religious institution or political party, they all need to perform "self-preservation" to the point that it has become cutthroat and it's not a conspiracy theory

[asus killer]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

And that's why we have peer review,  meta studies and a thing called scientific consensus.  Its the bit that says the balance of evidence suggests condition X, or the balance of evidence is strongly in favor of condition X.

 

There are always studies that say the opposite, because no two studies are carried out the same way.

 

 

in a ideal world science, studies, where conducted just to find the truth. Some would go one way others another.

Unfortunately this days like in many cases studies, and studies reviews by extension, things are bought by whoever wants a conclusion that suits them. And in most cases legit science has 10 dollars to do the study and the other guys have a million dollars to prove whatever.

 

I know it's relevant to know the medical condition to know how to treat them, that's not in dispute. Still the most important should be to help this people that have a real world problem with playing to much and being unable to stop. I see too much discussion on the studies than in real helping people, and to me it's an indication something isn't right. The WHO as i understood it wanted to bring light to the problem and help people, the classification of the condition can be wrong still i guess if we focus on that we are totally missing the point, this studies should be science doing science stuff and not some PR argument to be used by the UK video game whatever association.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

And the game lobbyists and the scientists they present seem to offer no solid counter evidence other than deflecting at least in my opinion. While the WHO might need to carry out more studies, I find it hard to not believe that these scientists from Hopkins, Oxford and University of Sydney are under the lobbyists' pay roll.

 

They're not,  The thing about academia is that you have to earn your place, that means being published and being heard.  It is totally possible that some of these guys just see a minor debate they can enter and cause some curiosity by stomping their educated feet and drum up credence in their chosen career.   They likely don't give a fuck because they know it is inconsequential.

[captain_to_fire]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

They're not,  The thing about academia is that you have to earn your place, that means being published and being heard.  It is totally possible that some of these guys just see a minor debate they can enter and cause some curiosity by stomping their educated feet and drum up credence in their chosen career.   They likely don't give a fuck because they know it is inconsequential.

Fair enough. But as I've said in the OP, I wasn't convinced on what they've said even though their concern is sincere. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, asus killer said:

in a ideal world science, studies, where conducted just to find the truth. Some would go one way others another.

Unfortunately this days like in many cases studies, and studies reviews by extension, things are bought by whoever wants a conclusion that suits them. And in most cases legit science has 10 dollars to do the study and the other guys have a million dollars to prove whatever.

 

Someone has to pay for the studies,  the focus should be on the merits of the study and not who paid for it.  That is why scientific journals (the good ones) are really hard to get published in. 

 

Unfortunately if we go down the path of  valuing a study by who paid for it we end up throwing everything out.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, hey_yo_ said:

Fair enough. But as I've said in the OP, I wasn't convinced on what they've said even though their concern is sincere. 

I think they may be leaving their arguments intentionally weak.   Some academics argue for the sake of maintaining a structure rather than the actual case being wrong. 

 

I'd have to read their responses a lot more closely, but I hazard a guess this is more likely to be the case.

[asus killer]

15 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Someone has to pay for the studies,  the focus should be on the merits of the study and not who paid for it.  That is why scientific journals (the good ones) are really hard to get published in. 

 

Unfortunately if we go down the path of  valuing a study by who paid for it we end up throwing everything out.

you do this studies to get published. If someone is throwing money at it is either a parent whose kid had a problem or some company that wants to derail the discussion.

You can seek funding but that shouldn't come from parts that have an interest in the study, it's an ethical issue and whoever is doing the study should know that.

So i have to disagree with you, who pays for it is relevant.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tobacco-industry-smoking-isnt-bad-for-your-health-404524.html

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, asus killer said:

you do this studies to get published. If someone is throwing money at it is either a parent whose kid had a problem or some company that wants to derail the discussion.

You can seek funding but that shouldn't come from parts that have an interest in the study, it's an ethical issue and whoever is doing the study should know that.

So i have to disagree with you, who pays for it is relevant.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tobacco-industry-smoking-isnt-bad-for-your-health-404524.html

Funding dodgy research and having that research published in a legitimate journal are different though.   All companies fund dodgy research so they can legally claim it in their ads, or make a case ina court, but when it comes to journals like nature and bmj et al, it doesn't matter who funds the study, the study has to pass a very rigorous peer review.   this is how we differentiate between a legitimate study and a bogus one.

 

EDIT: and I should add that majority of the studies carried out in universities and in medicine are paid for by industry, not goivernment or public fundraising. If we were reliant on government or independent funding we would still be int he medical dark ages.

[Tech_Dreamer]

Bias Wars

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

in a ideal world science, studies, where conducted just to find the truth. Some would go one way others another.

Most science is conducted to find the truth but it's not as simple as that. The reason why multiple studies are required and experiments must be repeatable is to ensure hypothesis bias and experimentation bias has not influenced the raw data, the analysis and the conclusion.

 

You can set out to find the truth and still not find it or worse, find an untruth and be mislead by it.

 

What many people don't realize is there are strict requirements to get studies published in top class scientific journals, some of the research conducted where I work lack the funds and resources to achieve those requirements i.e. not having a large enough HPC cluster to run the minimum required iterations and reruns in the allocated time. This means they have to publish in lesser rated journals with less rigorous requirements meaning it often gets largely ignored or another researcher picks it up and republishes in a higher rated journal because they have better funding and resources.

 

There's three issues this highlights

• Good research not getting the exposure it needs
• Research with contradicting results with higher funding and resources being published in a higher class journal which could be incorrectly being viewed as the correct one over the other published in the lesser journal 
• Bad research getting sought out by interested parties wanting to either misuse it or lack the understanding that it could be flawed that has been published in these lesser journals

If the general public was more aware of this and knew which journals where the respected ones then we could all spot the bad science, politically motivated, corporate influenced ones that bring bias in to them. A company funding research is not a problem, just know how to spot it when it is.