The WHO seems unconcerned about the effects of TV. This is especially clear when it comes to televised sports. Consider a person who skips household and professional Sunday responsibilities to sit on the couch for hours watching pre-game shows; screaming at referees, coaches and players; and following post-game analysis – or who calls in sick to catch a game or breaks friendships over team rivalries. By the WHO’s criteria, this could qualify as “gaming disorder” – except that it’s about sports on TV, rather than video games. (That doesn’t even consider tens of thousands of sport-focused rioters.)
But sports fans aren’t players, the way gamers are. For athletes, the time commitments far exceed even the most devoted fans’ dedication. The average college athlete in the U.S., for example, spends more than 40 hours a week practicing their sport. Many student-athletes say they lack the time to be students, but we wouldn’t identify them as addicted to their sport.
There’s another way to view dedicated video-game players, too: With the rise of esports, professional gamers net millions in performance payouts, attract arena-sized audiences and even earn college scholarships. What’s the point at which a person with “gaming disorder” turns from mental patient or social pariah into a varsity star with serious professional prospects?
It can be hard to identify addiction to an activity. Though the WHO warns against spending too much time gaming, that is not the way to measure addiction. Some studies demonstrate that some people who spend more time gaming actually exhibit fewer addictive behaviors than people who play less. In a 2009 paper, the drafters of a game addiction scale for adolescents explicitly wrote, “Time spent on games should not be used as a basis for measuring pathological behavior.” And as a leading researcher into games and behavior put it, “Some people who are depressed stay in bed all day, but we wouldn’t say that they have a bed addiction.”
In the end, humans with leisure time seek escape through weekend trips to the country, a visit with the Betnesia Cleavers’ 1950s America, or exploring the vast desert of “Journey”. What people are looking for in their leisure time is a break, and just because they enjoy that break – and spend a fair amount of time doing it – doesn’t mean it’s an addiction.