Disability for playing UT?

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SouthernAvenger
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Disability for playing UT?

Postby SouthernAvenger » Thu Jun 21, 2007 12:12 pm

Wow...our dreams are coming true! 8O Those of us in the U.S. might be able to file for disability due to internet gaming addiction. Imagine staying home all day playing video games and never working. (If you can't imagine it, just ask Dink to explain how it feels.) :D

Link to the below article. AMA votes on internet gaming addiction
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AMA to vote on "internet/video-game addiction" as medical condition

By Linda Shrieves
Orlando Sentinel
Posted June 21 2007

So you think your teenager is addicted to his Xbox? You may be right — and if the American Medical Association has its way, video game addiction could become a legitimate medical condition.

It may sound like a bunch of hooey to a nation of Wii, Xbox and PlayStation enthusiasts, but next week, at the AMA's national meeting in Chicago, delegates will vote on a recommendation that "Internet/video-game addiction" be classified as a formal diagnosis.

For 160 years, the AMA has made recommendations on the nation's health that are quickly adopted. They range from recommending cars be equipped with seat belts to calling for annual mammograms for women older than 50.

But not everyone's buying into this new malady. "I'm an addiction skeptic," said Steve Jones, a communications professor at the University of Illinois and a research fellow with the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

"Just because any activity might interfere with other activities is not enough to call it an addiction."

An AMA report notes that the heaviest game players are those who play MMORPGs — massive multiplayer online role-playing games such as World of Warcraft. And those players, says the AMA, are more likely to be socially isolated — and probably addicted.

That's no surprise to Eric Frisella, 17, of Orlando. Eric, who plays World of Warcraft, sometimes wonders if he's addicted to the game. During the school year, he says he plays about 30 hours a week — often staying up until 1 a.m. playing every night.

"I can definitely see how it's possible for people to get addicted," Eric said. "There are times when I think I could be, but then I realize I can have a lot more fun hanging out in the real world with my friends.

"In his practice, Dr. Joseph Keeley, an Orlando pediatrician, says he has seen evidence of addiction.

"There are some kids who clearly act like they're addicted and, when you take them off, they'll go through withdrawal. They'll get irritable and hard to live with," Keeley said.

But the problem hit home when he drove his daughter to Northwestern University last fall. There, a dean told him that 3 percent to 4 percent of the freshmen boys move into the dormitory, get their high-speed Internet hooked up— and never go to class.

"Needless to say, that's troublesome," Keeley said.

Jones, the University of Illinois professor who has studied college students' use of video games, said American society overreacts to new technology —particularly when it involves children. He said it started back in the 1920s, when there was hand-wringing about how movies were causing children to spend too much time inside.

"Fast forward, we started to hear the same thing about TV, then about comic books, the same thing about rock 'n' roll, the same thing about rap music and the same thing about the Internet," Jones said.

The AMA vote would be only a first step, because it then would pass the baton to the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the primary handbook used to diagnose mental illnesses and disorders.

But the psychiatrists' group takes the AMA's recommendations seriously, said APA medical director Dr. James Scully."We, along with them, share a concern for children's well-being and children who spend too much time playing video games is a concern, especially video games that contain violence," Scully said.
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"They couldnt hit an elephant at this distance"
- Union Gen. John Sedgwick - just moments before being shot dead by a confederate sniper at Spotsylvania

SouthernAvenger
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Postby SouthernAvenger » Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:44 pm

Crap!!!,...We have to wait until at least 2012 to claim internet gaming addiction. I was already planning on my insurance company buying me a "Special Needs" gaming chair, with built-in speakers and controls. :???:

Link to the below article. Gaming Addiction

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Addiction experts say video games not an addiction
Mon Jun 25, 2007 12:58AM BST


CHICAGO (Reuters) - Doctors backed away on Sunday from a controversial proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder akin to alcoholism, saying psychiatrists should study the issue more.

Addiction experts also strongly opposed the idea at a debate at the American Medical Association's annual meeting.
They said more study is needed before excessive use of video and online games -- a problem that affects about 10 percent of players -- could be considered a mental illness.

"There is nothing here to suggest that this is a complex physiological disease state akin to alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders, and it doesn't get to have the word addiction attached to it," said Dr. Stuart Gitlow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

A committee of the influential physicians' group had proposed video game addiction be listed as a mental disorder in the American Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, a guide used by the American Psychiatric Association in diagnosing mental illness.

Such a move would ease the path for insurance coverage of video game addiction.

Even before debate on the subject began, the committee that made the proposal backed away from its position, and instead recommended that the American Psychiatric Association consider the change when it revises its next diagnostic manual in 5 years.

The psychiatrist group has said if the science warrants, it could be considered for inclusion in the next diagnostic manual, which will be published in 2012.

While occasional use of video games is harmless and may even help with some disorders like autism, doctors said in extreme cases it can interfere with day-to-day necessities like working, showering or even eating.

"Working with this problem is no different than working with alcoholic patients. The same denial, the same rationalization, the same inability to give it up," Dr. Thomas Allen of the Osler Medical Center in Towson, Maryland.

Dr. Louis Kraus of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and a psychiatrist at Rush University Medical Center, said it is not yet clear whether video games are addictive.

"It's not necessarily a cause-and-effect type issue. There may be certain kids who have a compulsive component to what they are doing," he said in an interview.

But addictive or not, too much time spent playing video games takes away from other important activities.

"The more time kids spend on video games, the less time they will have socializing, the less time they will have with their families, the less time they will have exercising," Kraus said.

"They can make up academic deficits, but they can't make up the social ones," he said.

The AMA committee will consider the testimony and make its final recommendation to the AMA's 555 voting delegates, who will vote on the matter later this week.

The Entertainment Software Association, which represents the $30 billion (15 billion pounds) global video game industry, said more research is needed before video game addiction should be categorized as a mental disorder.
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"They couldnt hit an elephant at this distance"
- Union Gen. John Sedgwick - just moments before being shot dead by a confederate sniper at Spotsylvania

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Postby CANADIAN_BITCH » Mon Jun 25, 2007 2:13 pm

Wait until X reads this, he is going to be so disappointed :-? :(


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