14 DAY TRIAL // Video game makers will have a nasty surprise. Their products can turn you into a sociopath: living only in your room, ignoring friends, family, even food, sleep and shower, driven just by the obsession of levels and soars. Many researchers believe one can become as addicted to video games as he/she can be to heroin. The American Medical Association is going to classify officially this behavior as a psychiatric disorder and raise awareness, enabling patients to get insurance coverage for treatment.
It could also be included in the mental illness manual published by the American Psychiatric Association. The proposal is as early as today, 25th of June.
"Up to 90 % of American youngsters play video games and as many as 15 % of them - more than 5 million kids - may be addicted," signaled the AMA council's report.
Joyce Protopapas of Frisco, Texas, describes the case of her 17-year-old son, Michael, a former video addict. In about two years, video and Internet games turned him from an outgoing, academically gifted teen into a reclusive manipulator who flunked two 10th grade classes and stayed day and night playing a popular online video game.
"My father was an alcoholic ... and I saw exactly the same thing in Michael. We battled him until October of last year. We went to therapists, we tried taking the game away. He would threaten us physically. He would curse and call us every name imaginable. It was as if he was possessed." said Protopapas.
Amongst therapists, "nobody was familiar with game addition. They all pooh-poohed it. Last fall, we found a therapist who told us he was addicted." she added. 6 months spent by Michael in a therapeutic boarding school came at a cost of $5,000 monthly uncovered by insurance.
Liz Woolley, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, experienced the drama of her 21-year-old son who fatally shot himself in 2001 while playing an online game; she created even an on-line site where she still receives calls from on-line gamers looking for help. A 13-year-old boy who used to play video games for about 12 hours straight, said he felt suicidal. Postings from adults, most of them men, relate how addiction costs them jobs, family lives and self-esteem.
"Dependence-like behaviors are more likely in children who start playing video games at younger ages. Overuse most often occurs with online role-playing games involving multiple players," said a review prepared by the AMA's Council on Science and Public Health.
"The AMA proposal will help raise awareness and it is the right thing to do." said Dr. Martin Wasserman, a pediatrician who heads the Maryland State Medical Society.
"I saw somebody this week who hasn't been to bed, hasn't showered ... because of video games. He is really a mess." said Dr. Karen Pierce, a psychiatrist at Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital, who sees weekly at least two kids with game addiction.
"Excessive video-game playing could be a symptom for other things, such as depression or social anxieties that already have their own diagnoses." warned Dr. Michael Brody, head of a TV and media committee at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.