But they being por-duck-tiv!

Now that they have another thing to treat, they can svck money out of all those parents that will send their kids in for treatment for their 'addiction,' then get really wealthy and...PROCREATE!

Oh dear, twice as much as me? Then I guess you are either twice as addicted, or just have more time than I to be addicted.

When I was younger, around the 11-15 period I played a good 8 hours a day of Xbox. I lived out in the country so there was literally nothing to do. My grades were pretty mediocre, but enough to pass. My dad took away my Xbox and I was so bored. Then he limited me to only 1 hour of video game time a day.

Then I started drinking and drugging.

Good to see your dad got you off the harder stuff when he did.

Yea haha. But eventually I got my Xbox back because I wasn't playing it all the time. My parents didn't find out about my other problems 'till later.

There is unnecessary discrimination against people who are addicted to video games in some situations, then let's say a drug addict.

1-2hr days is actually less compared to back then..

That sounds just like me! Exept for my dad taking my xbox away and the "drinking and drugging" parts.

I don't consider the guy who spends his day staring at addicts and writing about addicts and thinking about addicts any more productive than an addict. It seems... oh, what's the word?

My first addiction!

Wait....my second...

It's just because it's gaming, nobody would say that spending more than 2 hours reading; writing, watching tv or listening to music is an addiction, but gaming? well, more than two hours and your addict mind might send you on a murderous rampage. An hour/2 hours a day does not affect my daily functions nor will it ever. Everything that needs to get done gets done and more, gaming/movies/reading is my reward after a long day.

I'm really rather torn on this one.

First, the report itself:
1. They advocate 1-2 hours of screen time. This includes video games, TV, movies, etc. They are at least consistent on this point.
2. Their recommendations "based upon the AAP" (American Academy of Pediatrics) is a bit misleading - the AAP recommends that children ages 2 and up be limited to 1-2 hours of TV, but they don't seem to provide an upper limit for this guideline.
3. They somehow managed to get their DSM numbers wrong. The DSM-V is currently being written - not the DSM-IV, which has been published since 1994 (TR / text revision was published in 2000).

Tossing the report aside for now, there certainly is a thing called "TV / Internet / movie" "addiction." For the sake of brevity (ha) let's refer to it as "media addiction" and also clarify a few things.

1. We are talking about psychological addiction, not physical addiction.
2. As it is psychological, there is a lot of other factors that can influence whether or not someone is addicted. Personality mostly, though neurological can certainly play a part as well.
3. What constitutes an "addiction / overuse" for some may not necessarily be an "addiction / overuse" for others, depending upon responsibilities and how the individual manages their time.
4. Psychological addictions typically require several factors before a psychologist would diagnose an individual as having an addiction:
1. General detriment - social, economic, etc (generally mental).
2. Neglecting responsibilities (work, school, etc).
3. Taking risks (social, economic, etc) in order to engage in the activity more (personal relationship issues).
4. Acknowledgement by the individual that the activity is harmful to them (not always necessary)
(This is not a exhaustive list, nor is it necessarily accurate)

On one hand, I agree with the science - there can be detrimental effects to staring at a TV / computer screen for an excessive period of time each day (physically and mentally - everybody here have 20/20 vision without correction? ). On the other hand, the recommendations perhaps seem a little extreme for anyone over the age of 10-13, who will increasingly be using computers and the Internet.

And this all coming from a graduate student who is getting his Ph.D over the Internet and spends 8+ hours a day at a computer.

Am I just getting old and cynical when I suspect that words like "addiction" are used less for their usefulness in describing something than their headline-grabbing potential...?

Well I think everyone can agree that anything that someones does to the point that it ends up getting in the way of their to life to the point of being detrimental to them (financially, physically, mentally, socially, etc) is a not-so-good thing.

However, I don't see how you can attach a number to an activity and say anything more than that is bad. Also, is all TV bad? Is there a difference between watching 2+ hours of Bill Nye the Science Guy or something else along the lines of just mindless non-informational reality TV? Or for video games, is playing The Sims for 2+ hours better than playing "mindless nonstop violence game X" for the same amount of time? What about multi-tasking? Is media okay for more than 2 hours if you do work while watching TV or playing games?

Gaming to me is a hobby. Some people spend hours if not days or weeks or months building bird houses, but I've never heard of "Bird House Building Addiction". I figure it's possible to get addicted to anything if you have enough interest and not enough self control, so this just seems to me that singling out technology (games, movies, tv, etc) is just the thing to do these days.

Monday through friday's I have up to 5 hours a day of pure free time (going off of my usual schedule, which doesn't apply at the moment), and a lot of the time twice that on weekends (which is usually spent with my significant other). I feel I live a fairly productive life at the moment, and I couldn't possibly see what else it is I should be doing with my free time. I couldn't pro-create no matter how hard we tried, so that's out of the question. So, as I said before, attaching a number to an activity and saying anything more is bad doesn't seem right. PErhaps for some, but I don't see why it need apply to everyone.

7am-10am - Wake up, eat, meditate/stretch/exercise, shower/hygiene stuff, off to school
10am-3pm - school (give or take an hour)
3pm-6pm - house work or any extra studying/school work I need to do (give or take an hour)
6pm-10pm - Free time (give or take an hour) (aka Playing games for 3-5 hours straight)

We were somewhere around Bethesda on the edge of DC when the games began to take hold. And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the living room was full of what looked like cliffracers, all swooping and screeching and diving around the sofa. And a voice was screaming "By Azura! What are these [censored] animals?"

Then it was quiet again. "What the hell are you yelling about?" my flatmate muttered, staring at the television with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. "Never mind," I said. "It's your turn to play Skyrim." I tossed him the controller. No point mentioning those cliffracers, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

Clearly you are not, because you are wasting time on this forum. You have now lost your right to reproduce, please go stand in the line to the right to be neutered.

Haha great Fear and Loathing reference. Lol.

From the report linked to in the OP. (page 4, bottom):
Now I only skimmed the report but I don't see them stating that +2 hours of gaming = addiction. They might recommend a max of 2 hours a day, but that does not mean that everyone that goes beyond that recommendation is actually addicted.

According to my steam gameplay stats I played more than 2 hours a day in the past two weeks, then again I don't waste time on games and social media when I have work to do (I don't bother with social media at all, unless you count this forum as being social media), unlike those non-gamers that I see wasting time with wordfeud during lectures. So even though I pass that 2 hour mark, I'm still perfectly able to give priority to more important aspects of my life like study.

In my opinion, you can't determine addiction by the time you waste on something, instead it should be determined by your dependency on it. I for one have no problem with abandoning gaming for a period of time (when on holiday or when I simply have no time due other activities/work). Thus I wouldn't class myself as a game-addict.

I play games from 6-10 on weekdays and for nearly 12 hours on weekends depending on my schedule. I don't view this as a problem since I know when to turn it off and regularly do, sometimes taking an hours break before coming back to play something else.
Besides playing games, watching TV and listening to music there is nothing for me to do in the free time I have so to consider me as an "addict" to games is rediculous!
And in any chance is eating, sleeping, drinking -breathing addiction because I'm doing them more regular and in the case of breathing every second. Must be addicted to that because I can't stop

Recommending that people add more big stressors into their life to give them something to do isn't very psychologically sound. People develop hobbies for a reason. Being stressed all the time is NOT good for you.

That's better than having CIA agents throw a rope down from your ceiling and swoop you up into the darkness never to be seen again.

I don't know, that sounds pretty much the same. Except my cell's walls will have padding

The report is moronic. I'm a single father who works all day in a demading brain exhausting job. I come home and take care of my "domestic" duties for my daughter, walk the dog every night and get ready for the next day. When I'm done it's time to open a cold bottle of beer (or two...or three) and relax and escape in a game for a few hours or read a book or fiddle about in the kitchen trying out new cooking stuff. So, which activity am I addicted to? Which one is detrimentel? For a few hours a day, I am released from the grind and probably a better person for it. PFFFT! I say. A pox on all their houses!

This thread makes me want to watch 50 episodes of Seinfeld in a row and then mastvrbate.

are these the same people who want grief classified as a mental illness?

double post - router fart