Video games: is addiction to the word addiction dangerous for health?



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Paris, Saturday, June 30, 2018 – Lack of treatment and more
still healing, a lot of patients are just at the
search for a "name". Ability to "put a name" on a set of
symptoms is a recurrent expression that says pain
to be orphaned by denomination, to be unable to
even fall into one category. This quest arouses such
hope that we can revisit this prism some of the
frequently seen in patients convinced of being
with a disease that their clinical picture allows
almost certainly to move away.

If "naming" is so essential for some, they might
to forget that " Misnamed things is to add to
woe of the world
". To attach to a phenomenon a terminology to
which he does not answer completely is not safe
and not only because of a general objective of clarity and
accuracy.

A phrase that is recipe

In the media, the mouth of many parents and even the
health professionals, the term "addiction to games
video "has been an undeniable success over the years.
say that the term "addiction" is not far from
overused, since sugar with heroin, from sport to
internet the same word is used for substances and
yet different behaviors in many aspects. Yes
a very large number of learned societies, from the Academy of
French medicine at the Academy of Sciences via
the American Medical Association or the American Psychiatric
Association have regularly refused to acknowledge the existence
addiction to video games, that did not stop some
specialists to continue using this term. Finally, in this beginning
Summer, presenting a new version of its Clbadification
International Disease Organization, the World Health Organization
(WHO) has chosen to recognize addiction to video games in
applying this definition: " The gambling disorder is
characterized by persistent or recurring gaming behavior
("digital game" or "video game"), which may be online (on
Internet) or offline, manifested by: 1) an alteration of the
control of games (eg appearance, frequency, intensity,
duration, end, context); 2) give increased priority to gambling in
to the extent that gambling takes precedence over other interests of life and
daily activities; and 3) the continuation or escalation of the game
despite the occurrence of negative consequences. The behavior is
of sufficient severity to cause a disability
significant in the personal areas of operation,
family, social, educational, professional or other. The model
of gambling behavior can be continuous or episodic and
recurrent. Game behavior and other characteristics are
normally over a period of at least 12 months for a
diagnosis is badigned, although the required duration may be
shortened if all the diagnostic conditions are met and
the symptoms are severe
"

No withdrawal syndrome

This definition (a little" jargonous ") indicates a meaning
particularity of the word "addiction" as noted in the pages
Huffington Post blogs psychiatrist Serge Tisseron: " Si
this pathology comes within the framework of addictions, it does not
therefore does not meet the same definition as alcohol addiction or
at the cigarette shop. This is indeed what is called an addiction
"Behavioral". The main difference with addictions
related to toxic substances consists in the fact that the drinker
must definitely stop drinking and the smoker to smoke at
risk of relapse, while the cure of addiction to games
video does not imply total weaning, but the ability to reconnect
with moderate use considered normal
"he notes.
A few months ago, already returning to the problems posed by
the use of this term, he noted: " Several studies have
furthermore, there is no correlation between the fact of
play a lot of video games as teenagers and play them
adulthood
"

A concept too vague

If despite these limits, the word addiction could be retained
by WHO, it is undoubtedly because this concept " in the sense
term, has the serious weakness of being very
particularly difficult to define as noted by doctors
Valleur and Velea (see "Addictions without drug (s)", Review
Toxibase, June 2002). Very broad, encompbading practices and
biological and psychological mechanisms very diverse and especially in
constant evolution, this concept does not really present the
precise limits that one would expect from a notion
scientific and medical
"observed some time ago on
his blog the sociologist Edward Cage. The latter noted
other than that even if we stick to a definition of the term
"addiction" as used in everyday language, its
application to video games is not ideal either. " If one
On the other hand, it is interested in addiction as it is understood in
common language, it's a little simpler: it will be all
simply the idea of ​​an object, product or behavior
a form of pleasure such that the individual can not help but
consume more and more. (…) This idea of ​​an "addiction to the Game
video "is thus the one according to which to play video games at a
frequency and over time would cause the player to
play even more. This practice would lead to overweight
players to spend all their time playing up, in the worst
case, break with reality (…). But there is a little problem in
this idea of ​​"video game addiction" is that, unlike
products usually considered as addictive and in particular
hard drugs, this media can have no direct effect on the
human brain. A video game presents fictional situations that
have an effect on the player only through his emotions and the
how he interprets these situations
"Edward said
Cage.

Medication Possible and Potentially Questionable

What could be just an additional semantic debate
exciting that the worthy heirs of a Boileau, could in
reality have consequences for the first concerned, the
adolescents and young adults suspected of being "addicts" to
video games. Worried, Dr. Serge Tisseron lists these
disadvantages: " The ambition is humanist. Thanks to that
official recognition, those who feel they are suffering
such a pathology can benefit from psychotherapy, while
at least in countries where this offer exists, specialized examinations
like the electroencephalogram and the I.R.M. cerebral
will help advance research. On the other hand, he is at
fear, at the global level, the emergence of chemotherapies
questionable effects, especially in adolescents. Such
treatments will be all the more prescribed as the creation
of a "addiction to video games", widely relayed by the media
risk of causing parents to panic and provoke
consultation wave! The danger, of course, is that
overworked general practitioners are tempted to respond to
anxiety of the parents by various forms of medical prescription.
And what else could they do?
"notes in
the first time the practitioner.

Virtual support

The latter also fears that the official recognition of
the addiction to video games leads to more obscure the
real disorders that often underlie a compulsive use of
games. " It would be a pity that the qualifier" addiction to
video games "to forget that such a symptom (…) is usually
its origin in a problem that the person fails to
overcome. A large number of studies conducted in both
recent decades suggest that problems of use
mobiles can come as a kind of self-medication
when children use digital technologies to
escape real difficult situations. For example, if a
child feels sad or stressed, he is tempted to connect,
to escape this sadness or stress, to an application
which offers immersion and distraction, like an online video game.
The consequences are both positive (the child feels
temporarily better) and negative (the true cause is not
necessarily treated). In the long term, adaptation behavior can
become habitual unless the underlying problem is solved. The
cause of the addiction is in the video game, but its origin
is in the difficulty deemed insurmountable that led the player
to flee in the digital worlds. The key is to tackle
underlying issues that may lead to
harmful in the digital world in order to overcome this
problematic behavior. Conversely, a constrained reduction
screen time would only constitute an intervention
which is unlikely to achieve its objective.
He badysis. And to those who would retort that we find
similar mechanisms in other "addictions" he was doing
already noticed a few months ago: "Psychotherapists
know that when a person has sunk into alcoholism
after an emotional disappointment, his alcoholism is not cured for
as much when she finds a new partner. Whereas it is
on the contrary very usual that the one who sank into the video game
pathological as a result of emotional disappointment ceases to play at
when he finds a new partner
". So, the
does the practitioner consider that " the disadvantages of the creation of
this new diagnostic category far outweighs the
advantages
"

A moral condemnation more than a true disease?

The specialists do not share this apprehension of
Dr. Tisseron. For France TV Info, Dr. Geneviève Lafaye,
psychiatrist and addictologist, congratulated himself thus: " This
recognition of the disorder corresponds to a clinical reality and this
are growing demands for care
". More
nuanced psychologist Michaël Stora, founder of the Observatoire
digital worlds in the human sciences (OMNSH) estimates on the
Atlantico site: " The decision of the WHO is important because it
only avoids a denial (…). This WHO decision even though it
is far from perfect will allow addiction services
(…) to do a little more precise research
". However,
the specialist considers that this choice is probably not exempt
a certain moral "judgment" vis-à-vis video games. " On
did not wait for WHO and its recent statements on addiction
possible to video games to see a real moral panic. AT
whenever there are new uses, the appearance of
new phenomena such as video games, the overrepresentation of
screens, there are these kinds of reactions
". This dimension was
also addressed by Edward Cage: " It would even be legitimate
to wonder what part of this myth of "addiction
video-game "would finally be built in these
professionals in response to a non-conformism seen as
pathological, as in the case of "addiction to badgraphy"
questioned by the sociologist Florian Vörös
". This
potential moral temptation is also part of a
marked tendency to over-medicalization of life. " He
should be fairly precise to define concrete criteria
to avoid over-pathologisation (…) .There is indeed a
risk of pathologization of situations that are not
necessarily. If we consider people only as sick people we
not going to help them
"warns Michaël
Stora.

So many reflections that make it possible to convince oneself that deciding
the clbadification of a "disorder" is far from an easy game and
that the consequences are far from virtual, as you
can see it by reading the contributions of:

Serge Tisseron:
https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/serge-tisseron/laddiction-aux-jeux-video-vient-detre-reconnue-par-loms-mais-elle-nest-pas-une-addiction-comme-les-autres_a_23463416/


https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/serge-tisseron/4-problemes-que-pose-la-reconnaissance-de-laddiction-aux-jeux-video-comme-maladie_a_23326375/

Edward Cage:
http://www.edwardcage.pro/blog/addiction-to-games-video-a-grave-abuse-of-language.html

and Michaël Stora:
https://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/pourquoi-decision-oms-clbader-dependance-aux-jeux-videos-comme-trouble-sante-mentale-est-que-derniere-illustration-en-date-3434919. html

Aurélie Haroche

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