I think this sums it up:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/corny_jokes_put_em_here/post721

You'll have to pry my controller from my cold.. dead.. hands...

I can tell where this is going... Video Games = Mental Disorder = New excuse to push restrictions on anyone who suddenly falls into the category (like gun owners)

This would also include people who play Pokémon GO, Farmville, Online Poker, etc...

It's never about your well being or whatever other appeal to "compassion-and-goodness" because they care so much. It's about control.

Only if you're really bad at it.

Oh shit, here we go.

Not you Breja.

It's a toss up. The US government doesn;t always listen to the World Health Organization. It's a UN agency.

Very good article, Erpy. So the real problem is that it's totally legal for corporations to employ psychological warfare to improve their bottom line, but WHO, naturally, only adresses the symptoms; which, ironically, is symptomatic of medicine in general, which is primarily concerned with $treatment$.

I hope so - I'm sending that link to my boss and calling in sick tomorrow

Barry White taught us that too much of anything ain't good for you, baby.

The dosage makes the poison, I think some greek philosopher said. I once had an argument with some phd biochemist who claimed arsenic caused 'acute' poisoning. Yeah, if I drop a ton of it on you.

I see you are man of culture and well versed in history.
Don't worry, madness is like gravity, only thing you need is a little push. Then again, I consider the world to be insane, and myself perfectly sane... just like the guy I quoted.

Captain Obvious in da thread.

Usually (not always, but still), addiction to games/books/other similar stuff is a symptom of issues in real life. Somebody cant deal with irl problems - and escape into "better world" of imagination. Damn, even drug (but, again, not every) addicted people are the same.
Its pointless to call it the "new disease" or anything - its just a symptom of problems, known for years. Depression, PTSD - all that. Atleast thats what I see from my point of view - obviously its far from being scientific to consider something viable, based just on your own experience. But still.

No, I just watch a lot of old bad movies. :P

Today I saw an article about this in a Finnish newspaper as well, and the article went on to make a claim that "According to WHO games can be as addicting as drugs.".

Naturally WHO didn't make any such claim, that was just an invention by the stupid journalist writing the article. Considering that almost all kids and teens play video games but later in their lives might completely drop them because of other activities (like chasing girls/boys/dogs/rubber ducks, or work, studies, other hobbies...) or at least severely restrict them, they seem quite mild drugs in that case.

If all teens were using heroine and crystal meth, would we expect most of them drop the use later in the life just because they become jaded or bored of drugs, similarly like people can become bored of gaming? For instance, currently I am playing quite a bit less than a few months ago, simply because I have less free time. My gaming is now mostly restricted to weekends and sometimes not even that, depending if we go somewhere on weekends. On weekdays, I nowadays already want to hit the sack around the time I'd usually start my gaming session, like 10 or 11pm.

I expect my gaming increase again when I have more free time.

Anyway as some said in the beginning, I guess the context here are the people who don't even want to do anything else and it affects everything in their life. Then again if you do have lots of free time and you enjoy gaming, why the heck not? I've always felt that when I finally retire, I will probably use lots of time for gaming, simply because I can. Unless I feel I am bored by games completely then, but then I don't know what else I am going to do when retired. Watch TV all day?

Oh, I said it teasingly, I believe I heard of that old John Wayne classic through CinemaSnob.

But with that hilarious Assassins Creed Origins tweets, I am starting to question internet's knowledge of history.