Why Is There a ‘Gaming Disorder’ But No ‘Smartphone Disorder?’
The international health community has decided that if you play video games like Fortnite or World of Warcraft a lot, you might suffer from a mental-health issue: Gaming Disorder. It’s a behavioral condition that the World Health Organization has added to the proposed 11th revision of its International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, or ICD-11, the first update to the classification since 1992.
If you play a lot of chess or Settlers of Catan on a card table in the den, don’t worry, you’re fine—according to WHO, gaming disorder is a digital affliction. If you play obsessively online with other people, to the detriment of other activities, that’s one possible sign of trouble. But playing offline and alone—Candy Crush, say, or even Tetris—is also a potential red flag. Generally speaking, a player would have to game excessively over a year or more for the pathology to apply, and that activity would have to produce profound negative consequences for their social, familial, or work life.
The ICD-11 gaming disorder as an addictive disorder in the same category as drug abuse. But instead of a substance—a thing one consumes—underlying the addiction, a behavior does—an activity one performs. When the ICD-11 is at the World Health
