Doctors at the American Medical Association's (AMA) annual meeting have said that there isn't enough evidence to suggest that excessive video game playing is the same as a gambling or drug addiction.
"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.
If video game addiction was accepted as an official addiction it could pave the way for medical treatment. Doctors, psychiatrists, therapy, drugs, and insurance companies could all be involved in treating it as a disease, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Testimony at the AMA annual meeting seemed to favor deferring the issue to the American Psychiatric Association, which will make the final call as it writes a new edition of a diagnostic manual for mental health professionals.
