Is video game addiction a mental health disorder?
In this guest lecture Rune Nielsen, PhD candidate at the Centre for Games Research at the IT University of Copenhagen, will give a talk on his research into issues of video games and addiction diagnosis.
Internet Gaming Addiction is already an official diagnosis in other parts of the world, specifically in China and South Korea, where some researchers see it as the number one threat to young people. How do psychiatrists in the East diagnose and treat Internet Gaming Disorder? Should psychiatrist in the West follow their example? Or are there cultural differences that allow for a psychiatric disorder to exist in one part of the world and not others? The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the leading authority on mental health and it publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Metal Disorder (DSM); the DSM is a handbook, which lists all of the officially recognized mental disorders. In the fifth, and most recent version, 'Internet Gaming Disorder' is proposed as a possible new disorder. This talk will critically examine the scientific evidence that supports the inclusion of the disorder and ask how it came about and whether it makes sense.
Rune Nielsen is a psychologist, a video games researcher, and a PhD candidate at the IT University of Copenhagen. This talk will cover aspects of his PhD research into the recently proposed diagnosis: Internet Gaming Disorder.
This guest lecture is made possible thanks to the research project WARGAME.
Video recording of the lecture available here. Filming by RESULT, UiT Tromsø.
NRK Coverage of the event here (In Norwegian)