A participant plays a video game at the 2019 DreamHack video gaming festival on February 15, 2019 in Leipzig, Germany (credits: nbcnews)

WHO: Addicted to gaming is mental health disorder

Parents now have strong reasons to limit their children’s time to play games as the United Nations public health department, the World Health Organization (WHO), has recognized gaming addiction as mental health disorder.

According to The WHO's International Classification of Diseases (ICD),  addiction to video and digital game is described as a pattern of persistent or repeated gaming behaviour, to the extent games take precedence over other life interest.

When people become addicted to gaming they tend to prioritize games than their personal life like family, social, education, and occupational matter. 

Gaming disorder worse cases in global research were mentioned by Shekhar Saxena the WHO’s expert on mental health and substance abuse, said that some gamers spent their time for playing up to 20 hours per day without sleeping, eating, working or going to school and other daily activities. 

Although people who like playing games do not always develop a problem, the knowledge of early warning signs may help prevent the disorder from getting worse.  

“This is an occasional or transitory behaviour”, Saxena said.

He added only if people show these behaviour patterns for a year or longer then it could be they addicted to gaming. 

WHO will officially recognize the “gaming disorder” on January 1, 2022.